STORIES WE LOVE
A Devon farmer with no children gives his farm to a farm owned by its community
By Sam Marwood
Story from Fordhall Farm, 14 September 2025
Every now and then I find a story that shows exactly what we're about at Cultivate Farms: real people finding a way to keep a farm working and bring someone new onto it. I share them here because seeing it done by others makes it real. Here's one I love.
From Fordhall Farm, 14 September 2025: "Announcing a new farm for the community!", by Ashleigh Buick. Read the full story at fordhallfarm.com.
Why I love it
Near Exeter in Devon, one family has farmed a 170 acre organic beef and sheep farm as tenants since 1955. The farmer there took on the tenancy in 1982 and was offered the chance to own it in 2022. He has no children, he's nearing retirement, and he didn't want the farm swallowed by a giant agribusiness. So he's giving it to the community group that owns Fordhall, England's first community owned farm, saved by around 8,000 shareholders in 2006.
What I love is that he started from what he wanted to last: a working farm at the heart of its community. The tenant farmers keep running the stock, the staff stay on, him included, and the handover waits until 2027 so the legal side is done properly. He knows some will find giving a farm away strange. I think it's wonderfully generous.
Why it matters for towns like ours
Every district has a farmer with no one to hand the farm to, and too often the place leaves farming hands. This shows it can stay working and open to its neighbours, because one farmer decided what his life's work should keep doing.
One step you could take
If you've no one to hand the farm to, start where he did. Write down what you'd want the farm still doing in twenty years, and who it should serve. Read how a farmer with no one to hand on to could give the farm to his district in our The Farm That Keeps Giving guide.
I share these stories because each one shows it can be done, by ordinary farming families, in places like yours. If you know a story like this, or you're living one, I'd love to hear it.