We spoke to Hannah Dyke at Pineapple Farm.
I’m Hannah Dyke and we’re at Pineapple Farm, which is part of Pineapple Estate. We’re a farm of 100 acres, plus a business park, shop, campsite and self-storage. We were a conventional dairy farm for a very long time but we’re now under a grass-keep agreement with a neighbouring farm with beef and sheep. So the farm is predominantly in herbal leys.
As a family, we’ve been here for over 100 years. For us as a family, it’s really important to look after this little piece of Dorset. It’s a huge privilege to have this farm. We want to continue learning about and hopefully encouraging nature on the farm. That’s very important to us as a family.
"For us as a family, it’s really important to look after this little piece of Dorset. It’s a huge privilege to have this farm."
Innovation on the farm
Previously I worked in innovation within horticulture, predominantly researching cut flowers. For me in moving home, it was really important for me to continue learning and hopefully bring back some things I learnt from the corporate world to implement some exciting new trials and innovation here.
I’m really passionate about the topic of food production that is also benefiting nature. I think that’s a really exciting conversation to be having. So for me, I would really love to see our farm producing food but also having these pockets for nature as well.
"I would really love to see our farm producing food but also having these pockets for nature as well."
There’s various different projects that we are implementing or hope to implement in the future. One of them is a wetland creation project that we’re working with National Landscapes to create. That will create a habitat space for birds, but also reduce the water flow which will help with flooding, which is an increasing problem in the UK. We’re also using the waste streams from the business park and incorporating it onto the farm to hopefully promote healthier soils, less compaction and more carbon capture.
The Brit Valley Project
We’re interested in the Brit Valley Project as a family because we think it's really important to marry up food production and looking after nature and this opportunity is allowing us to do that. The farming industry as a whole is re-evaluating how we need to produce food for this country and we think this is an exciting opportunity to marry these two things together and to increase the biodiversity on our farm.
"We’re interested in the Brit Valley Project as a family because we think it's really important to marry up food production and looking after nature."
The collective of 50+ farmers
Another exciting aspect of this project is that it’s got so many different generations coming together. Obviously farming families always have that multi-generational view of things but it is heightened in this project, with so many different farmers. I’m finding that very interesting as we have the more youthful people who are more excited and then you have the knowledge that come in from the older generations.
"Farming families always have that multi-generational view of things."
We’re already working on the carbon sequestration side of things and I think it’s a real strength of this project having lots of farmers working together so you have a much larger knowledge pool to work from and you’re not working on you’re own. Through this project we have strength in numbers and the ability to grow and learn together rather than working alone.
"Through this project we have strength in numbers and the ability to grow and learn together rather than working alone."