George Heathcote, of Warborne Farm in Hampshire

Warborne Farm is a 400-acre mixed farm growing fruit, vegetables, flowers, and cereals. Sheep, chickens, guinea fowl and geese are reared and George has 'occasional dabbles' with pigs. All produce is sold directly through a box scheme and a farm shop/butchery. There are 23 employees including part-time staff and family members. The farm has won many accolades, including 'Best mixed farm', 'Box scheme of the year', and 'Best organic chicken' in the Soil Association Organic Food Awards.

• Where in the UK is your business located?
  South coast of Hampshire, within the New Forest National Park. It's a great place to farm – deep sandy loam coupled with very high light levels.

• Can you give a short history of how you got to where you are now, including why and when you 'went organic'?
  I took over my father's tenanted sheep and arable farm in 1990, and turned to intensive sheep farming to make ends meet. It slowly dawned on me that this was not a very nice way of farming: not good for the sheep, the people who were going to have to eat them, not good for the environment, not good for me.
  
  Further demoralised by the BSE crisis, I travelled to Africa, where I worked as a bungee-jump master and whitewater-rafting guide. These jobs taught me the value of providing people with what they want. When someone pays you their money they have certain expectations – it is essential not to disappoint them.
  
  I returned to the farm in 1996 with newfound determination: I knew exactly how I was going to farm. I placed an ad in the Lymington Times, asking the local population what food they wanted, and how they wanted it produced? I had an overwhelming response, registered with the Soil Association, and entered a 10 year whole farm Countryside Stewardship agreement. Ever since then our methods of production have been moulded by feedback and discussions with customers.
  
  I now farm in the way I have always wanted to; there is a wonderful array of crops and livestock – they are healthy, we are happy, and the business is thriving - last year I was able to buy the farm.

• Can you describe a typical day in your life?
  My day begins around 5am as I try to get something done before the baby awakes. Kate (my wife) is a surgeon at Southampton General Hospital and she is gone by 7am. By 9.30 the children are at school and the day is a juggle between what I have planned and the random spanners that jam up the works. I do all the sheep work myself, including shearing, and far too much paper work. I fill in wherever necessary: as the butcher, driving the combine, or the veg box deliveries, plucking chickens, harvesting Brussels sprouts – anywhere we suddenly find ourselves short and the job needs to be done, and usually with a baby in tow.
  
  We have a very high level of communication with our customers and at the farming end I try to keep all the production systems working as seamlessly as possible. I chat to every person on the farm, asking their opinion on matters and encouraging them to think independently and work efficiently. Everyone knows exactly what is expected of them.
  
  For the afternoon I have at least 3 children so tend to hold my hands up and take them riding or sailing. Kate gets back around 7pm, in time to put the children to bed. I cook supper – whatever has caught my eye that day. We dream of going to bed shortly after the children. It never seems to happen.

• Who are your customers and where are they?
  Local families who really care what they eat. They are well informed and would not tolerate organic provenance as a substitute for poor quality. Our box scheme delivery radius is up to 10 miles from the farm and on the whole our shop catchment is similar.

• Organic principles – why do they matter?
  Organic principles offer the very highest degree of farm assurance and integrity. This is widely understood now, and invites consumers to choose where their instincts lead them; they are becoming more interested in how their food is produced, and need to be able to trust it like never before.

• What does the Soil Association mean to you?
  It monitors, upholds, enforces and reinforces those principles. The organic market would be nowhere near where it is today without Soil Association Certification.

• What is your greatest achievement?
  Being so happy. I genuinely believe that I am the luckiest man in the world. The cornerstones of this belief lie in my family and my farm. I have got everything I could possibly wish for.

• How do you plan to progress in the future? What is your vision?
  I have too many plans, because what I really hanker after is a less hectic lifestyle. Nevertheless, plans currently being juggled include raising all of our plants from seed ourselves; hatching all our own chicks; harvesting the energy from our farmyard manure to force crops and heat dwellings; harnessing more of our rainwater; minimising waste; getting better at what we're already doing. I would like to hold more open days and focus more upon the educational aspects of what we're doing.
  
  The farm has always been at the centre of the local community and a huge magnet for local children. We are now allocating more resources to educating the wider public about organic farming and how we produce their food.
  
  Watching my children, embracing life on the farm, learning about their role in the environment and the food chain, makes me want to provide these wonderful opportunities to other children. I believe it should be a fundamental part of every child's life.
  
  There is an awful lot to look forward to.

• If you were starting all over again, what would you do differently?
  Nothing. I have lost plenty of money supplying the supermarkets, and have employed my fair share of rotten eggs, but what's done is done. I consider these experiences to all be part of what we need to go through to get to where we are.

• What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
  That you make your own luck by grasping opportunities, that an opportunity isn't always an opportunity, and that life is one continuous and never ending series of lessons to be learnt.

• Who or what's your biggest inspiration?
  My grandfather, who farmed organically here and joined the Soil Association in 1949. He was fighting the flow, but he really believed it was the right way of farming. I have all his old books but sadly I never met him.

• What is the key to your success?
  The support of my family and the dedicated people working on the farm. We all believe, equally, in what we are doing and that this is the right way of farming. We are producing what people want and that, in essence, is the key to our success.

• What do you love most about what you do?
  This is the most exciting and satisfying way of farming - my children love being out and about on the farm. There is a tremendous diversity of tasks, healthy livestock and crops, happy, healthy customers. There is always an air of great enthusiasm on the farm.

• What keeps you awake at night?
  Teething children, dogs under a full moon, financial issues. The same as anyone, I would guess.

• What single thing would most improve your life?
  A second wife.

• What do you find most frustrating about what you do?
  That there is not enough time to do it. There is not always time to give every task the attention to detail that it invariably deserves.

• Any unusual hobbies or past careers?
  Because I knew that I would come back to farm here, I had the opportunity of applying myself to many different hobbies/careers including being a ski guide in France and a flotilla skipper in Turkey. I competed in the world sheep shearing championships in 1990.
  
  I have raced in various sailing world championships. I specialise in lightweight unsupported expeditions including riding across South America from the Pacific to the Atlantic in 1994, and the first descent of the White Nile in 1996. For our honeymoon, Kate and I rode across the high mountain grasslands of North West China, from Mongolia to Tibet. Last year I took part in the first full ascent of the Nile, from sea to source.

• How can the organic market be improved?
  I believe all farmers – and in particular organic farmers - have a great opportunity to develop markets to the local populations around them by offering produce, like perfectly ripe fruit and veg, that is incomparable when bought fresh.
  
  Visitors should be able to see chickens and pigs foraging on the farm in organic systems. These lures are a resource that organic farms should fully exploit. At the moment they do not, and most 'farm shops' are nothing of the sort.

• What's the main benefit of being organic for you?
  Initially I grasped the marketing opportunity, but beyond that, and as it so happens, I can farm in exactly they way I have always dreamed of. My family get to eat the freshest, most delicious food every day.

• What other organic ventures do you admire and why?
  I admire the smaller producers who work away quietly (not making a big song and dance like me!), giving their farms and produce the respect and attention that they deserve. And at the other end of the spectrum I admire Guy Watson (though I would not like to be in his shoes), mostly for the way he has gathered and held together the South Devon growers.

• Supermarkets – good or bad?
  Good. Unless you are selling to them, or buying from them, or trying to run a business near them. The fact is they are here, and we all need loo roll. I see them becoming less important as more people shop for their non-perishables online and get their fresh produce from a nearby organic farm.

• What is the biggest threat to what you do?
  The undermining of standards; agri-businesses converting to organic without understanding or even believing in the principles of organic agriculture.

• What's the best thing about organic farms?
  Their diversity of enterprises, greater biodiversity and welcoming attitude to the public.

• What's the best thing about organic food?
  Trust - the farmer has, in all likelihood, afforded it the care and attention that it deserves. Taste – assuming it has been picked ripe and delivered fresh. Then there all the other issues that, as organic farmers, it is second nature for us to constantly strive towards: reducing food miles, carbon emissions, minimising, re-using and recycling packaging. Fresh, tasty food that you can trust, with no hidden cost to the environment – that sounds like good value to me.

• What is your favourite meal?
  Something simple; unplanned, fresh as a daisy and, best of all, around a campfire, within ear shot of running water.

• If I was Prime Minister I would...
  I have absolutely no idea. Ban tellies? Supermarkets? GM crops? Range Rovers, Barbie dolls, turkey twizzlers, tabloid newspapers, they can all go. A maximum field size of 12 acres, bordered by a double hedge which must – on pain of death – include crab apples and holly. That's all probably.

• The world would be a better place if...
  We all made more time for our families and our local environment – including our local communities.

• I'd like to be remembered for...
  Making the most of every second.

• When were you happiest?
  Ever since being with Kate I have been extremely happy (that's not to say I wasn't before!) and of course there have been the euphoric (and sleep deprived) times of bringing children into the world.

• What is your greatest fear?
  Losing Kate (as I very nearly did this time last year) or any of my children. Everything else I can take on the chin.

• What is your favourite word?
  Mmm...delicious!

• What would be your 'Desert Island' luxury?
  My wife? If no family allowed then my flute.

• Is the customer always right?
  Yes, of course...