Why We Turned 17 Acres of North Devon Grassland into a Regenerative Agroforestry System
When we first walked the land at Biteford, near Woolsery in North Devon, what we saw was 17 acres of ordinary improved grassland. Ryegrass and dock. A few mature hedgerows. A barn. A stream running along the eastern boundary.
What we imagined was something completely different.
This post is about why we made the decision to take productive grassland and invest years of work, care, and intention into transforming it into a regenerative agroforestry system and what that actually means in practice.
What was there before?
Improved grassland, the kind of closely managed, fertiliser-fed pasture that covers huge swathes of the UK. It looks green and lush but is, ecologically speaking, relatively impoverished. A monoculture of rye grass supports very little wildlife. The soil biology is typically compacted and diminished. There are few flowers, few insects, and consequently few birds.
It is also, from a carbon perspective, a landscape that is doing very little. Without tree cover, without root diversity, without the complex underground networks that come with a genuinely varied plant community, improved grassland stores relatively little carbon and contributes little to water management. We knew this land could do so much more.
Why agroforestry?
Agroforestry is the deliberate integration of trees and shrubs with crops or other plants on the same land. It is not a new idea, it is arguably how most of the world farmed before the industrialisation of agriculture stripped out the trees and simplified everything into monocultures.
What modern agroforestry does is bring that complexity back intentionally. Trees provide shade and shelter. Their root systems stabilise soil, draw up minerals from deep horizons, and support mycorrhizal networks that benefit everything growing alongside them. Their leaf fall builds organic matter, their canopy creates microclimates that moderate temperature and moisture for the plants beneath.
For a perennial herb farm, agroforestry is not a compromise. It is the ideal growing environment. Many of the species we are establishing naturally grow at woodland edges and in dappled shade. Replicating those conditions produces plants that are compositionally richer and more resilient than those grown in open monoculture beds.
The no-dig principle
We are establishing our entire system using no-dig methods. No-dig means exactly that. We do not plough, rotovate, or mechanically disturb the soil. Instead, we work with the existing soil structure, suppressing grass with woodchip and compost layers, and planting directly into those. The soil biology, the worms, fungi, bacteria, and countless other organisms that make healthy soil function, is left intact and allowed to develop undisturbed.
The decision to go no-dig is both ecological and practical. Digging releases carbon. It destroys fungal networks that take years to establish. It creates the conditions for weeds to germinate. No-dig avoids all of these problems and, over time, produces a soil structure that improves year on year rather than degrading. It is slower to establish. It requires patience and close attention. But the results are measurably better, and they compound over time.
What are we planting and why?
Our planting plan integrates native trees and productive perennial herb species in the understorey and between the rows. The trees are not decorative. They are functional infrastructure; windbreaks, shade providers, soil builders, and wildlife corridors.
The herbs we are establishing are chosen based on genuine demand from UK pet and equine supplement manufacturers. We are not growing what is easy to grow. We are growing what the market actually needs, species that are currently imported from China, Eastern Europe, and India because there is no reliable UK-grown supply.
Every planting decision is made with both market demand and ecological function in mind. A plant that supports pollinators, builds soil, and provides a commercial crop is more valuable than one that does only one of those things.
The long view
Agroforestry is not a quick return. The trees we are planting now will take years to provide meaningful canopy. The soil biology we are nurturing will take years to fully establish. The perennial herbs themselves will not be in full production until 2028. We knew all of this before we started. We chose this approach anyway because we are not building a farm for five years. We are building something that should be more productive, more biodiverse, and more valuable to us, to the land, and to the wildlife that shares it in twenty years than it is today. That is a different way of thinking about agriculture. It requires patience, genuine curiosity about how natural systems work and a willingness to work with the land rather than against it. The 17 acres at Biteford are not a field we are farming, they are an ecosystem we are stewarding. That distinction matters enormously to us.