‘Doves and food and fun’: the fight to save a farming pioneer
#Wakelyns needs £1.2m to save its diverse organic crops and ‘micro’ enterprises including a bakery and honeybee hives
"It’s almost a political project about land use – maximising the #sustainable productivity of the land." - David Wolfe
by Patrick Barkham
Tue 30 Jun 2026 06.00 EDT
"The aerial view of Wakelyns matches the experience of visiting it at ground level: in a region dominated by prairie fields of industrial agriculture, here lies a vivid green lung of land. Its sounds and sights in summer – the sleepy purr of the turtle dove, the vivid pink flash of a bullfinch – have vanished from most of the British countryside.
"But Wakelyns is not a nature reserve – it is a thriving farm, a 'living laboratory' for #agroforestry and a hub for innovation and business. It is also under threat, and its owners must raise £1.2m to turn it into a charitable community benefit society.
"The 56-acre former pig farm in Suffolk was bought by Martin and Ann Wolfe in 1992. Martin was a government plant pathologist who wanted to do more innovative research than his employers had allowed. Seeking to farm crops with fewer pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers, he created one of the first agroforestry schemes in Europe.
"Turning productive cereal-growing fields into 56 narrow 'alleys' of farmed land between rows of planted trees had been 'widely regarded as mad', said their son, #DavidWolfe, an environmental lawyer who now runs Wakelyns with his wife, Amanda Illing. 'The farmer who sold the land to them said: ‘You’ve ruined a perfectly good wheat field’.'
"Today, Wakelyns is an inspirational example of agroforestry, which has become official government policy. The government’s carbon delivery plan wants to turn 10% of arable land into agroforestry by 2050, with financial incentives to encourage more farmers to transition into something like Wakelyns.
"The lush trees that divide the alleys are all crops. After more than 30 years, some are tall trees for timber, while others provide #apples, #cherries and #plums. The most lucrative tree crop is #hazel, which is coppiced on a seven-year cycle to produce high-quality hazel stakes for traditional hedgelayers. Each stake is sold for £1.40 and Wakelyns cannot grow enough.
The farm’s motto is '#ResilienceThroughDiversity'. It pioneered the first commercial #lentil growing in the UK, and is still the country’s only commercial #BlackLentil grower. 'If Britain is serious about wanting to feed itself, we should stop growing oilseed rape for biodiesel and grow #pulses,' said Wolfe.
"Wakelyns’ diversity encompasses a uniquely genetically diverse population of wheat and multiple varieties of apple tree. When big orchards, which typically grow a narrow range of apple varieties, complain of a terrible harvest, a mixed orchard such as Wakelyns’ is fine, because every year some varieties thrive. #Monocultural farmers, says Wolfe, 'put it all on red or black'.
"Wolfe and Illing took over the farm in 2020 after Wolfe’s parents died. To the innovative farming principles, they added 'enterprise stacking', bringing people back to the land via a series of symbiotic relationships."
#SolarPunkSunday #Trees #UK #MutualAid #HempTextiles #FoodSecurity #FoodForests #CropRotation #CropDiversity #OrganicFarming #SupportUKFarms #SupportLocalFarmers
#Polyculture not #Monoculture
