Where coal mining is part of the rotation

摘要

Shirley Macmillan continues our coverage of this year's BGS summer meeting which visited farms in Shropshire. Farming on the move is a way of life for Jim and Richard Roberts: more than 560ha of their 952ha at Little Wenlock, near Telford, have been reclaimed from opencast coal mines. The brothers run 300 cows in two herds, plus 100 followers, 150 head of beef and 1,250 ewes, as well as 1,000 bought-in lambs, on terrain that runs from 200-300m above sea level and has mainly heavy clay soils. Grassland makes up 672ha, maize 33ha and there are 4ha of fodder beet. The rest of the land is cropped with cereals and sugar beet.