Meet Cat, she farms at Great Houndtor in North East Dartmoor, at the head of a wooded valley just below the open moor.Her Hereford and Aberdeen Angus cattle spend the first 18 months of their lives here, before moving on to a lowland finishing farm. They graze wood pasture, wildflower meadows and rushy marshes, surrounded by rare birds like Cuckoos and Redstarts, and Dark Green Fritillary butterflies.

Cat uses the small Dartmoor fields to support a regenerative grazing system, moving the cows every two or three days and returning them to the same spot many weeks or months later, once the grass and flowers have had time to flower and set seed. This low intensity grazing allows wildflowers, including Marsh Orchids, to spread amongst her fields, and this in turn boosts the numbers of insects and birds. Alongside her farming, Cat is an accomplished artist, specialising in sketching, painting and embroidering wildlife and landscapes.

Johnny farms at West Sherford near Plymouth. He’s a finishing farmer, buying 18 month old cattle from our farms up on Dartmoor, which he then finishes for about a year on a 100% pasture diet. Johnny is unusual in keeping his cattle outside all winter, and he can only do this (without his fields turning into a mud bath) by moving them every day onto fresh pasture, in a highly productive and nature-friendly system known as mob grazing. This lowland farm benefits from deep soils, and being close to sea level gives his grass a longer growing season than on upland farms.

 Before Johnny took over, this was an intensive arable farm, with the soil degraded and little room for wildlife. Converting the farm to diverse grassland, by sowing herbal leys, has regenerated the land, with soil returning to health and wildlife bouncing back. In summer his fields are abuzz with grasshoppers and bees, and in winter flocks of Cattle Egrets and Starlings hunt for grubs and worms amongst the cows. Cattle Egrets are rapidly colonising southern England, helped by regenerative farmers like Johnny. His cattle egrets were recently featured on BBC’s The One Show.