Make a donation

Help fund our work to amplify nature-friendly farming’s benefits to farmers and policymakers across the UK

Policy & Views

Read a variety of articles, including topical blogs, comment pieces on policy developments and updates on key moments in farming.

Campaigns

Catch up with our latest campaigns and find out more about our work.

Farm Practices

Explore information on many aspects of nature-friendly farm practices.

What is the NFFN?

Discover our mission, our vision and the challenge we meet.

Meet The Team

Meet the farmers in our regional steering groups and the staff team at our core

FAQs

Got a question about nature-friendly farming? We've got it covered here

Supporters

We're proud to work with many organisations who support our mission.
Farmer Stories

Nic Renison – Cows, chickens and Carbon Calling

England
Case Study
Diversification
Events
Hedgerows
Livestock
rotational grazing
uplands

Nic Renison and her husband have spent the past decade guiding their Cumbrian farm on the edge of the Pennines towards a more nature-friendly future. Nic has also co-launched a festival bringing farmers together to tackle the challenges ahead.

Cannerheugh is an upland farm in Cumbria. For the past decade, its 360 acres have been owned by NFFN England steering group member Nic Renison and her husband, Paul (known as Reno). Together, they have led Cannerheugh (which means ‘Canner’s Hill’ in the local dialect) in a more nature-friendly direction.

Nic grew up on her parents’ dairy farm in Shropshire, where she was “the farm-obsessed one” among her four siblings. After a decade working in the family business, she sought a new direction, which eventually brought her north - and to meeting Reno, who had studied at Harper Adams University before managing a Lakeland fell farm. By 2012 the couple had decided they wanted their own place and managed to get the keys to Cannerheugh. “We were lucky enough to have a brave bank manager who lent us a huge amount of money to buy the farm,” Nic says.

At the time, Cannerheugh was run as a finishing farm, with store cattle being fed in sheds and large numbers of sheep. The couple knew little about nature-friendly farming but felt fortunate to have bought land with sandy, free-draining, deep soil. They arrived with their two young children and initially settled in a caravan while setting up a mule sheep system. After about a year, though, they became disillusioned with the way they were farming.

“We realised we’d created a complicated system which required lots of labour and inputs, keeping us busy for very little return,” Nic says. “It was a testing time; we were both working off farm, juggling the kids without family nearby, and trying to fit in locally. Having just moved to the area, it felt easier to do what everyone else did.”

Their first real insight into alternative approaches came on a trip to the North East, where they met a group of farmers running large organic systems. “Reno went up there, came back and just said: ‘What have we been doing?’ We didn’t know how grass grew, we didn’t know anything about soil health. We were clueless about the possibilities."

At times it has been two steps forward and one step back, but we’ve been learning how the farm likes to be grazed and managed.

Nic Renison

Initially, Nic saw their approach as a way to make the most of grass and the natural resources of sun, rain and soil. After experimenting with electric fencing and water systems, they turned to YouTube videos to learn more about regenerative agriculture, though Nic admits progress hasn’t always been smooth. “At times it has been two steps forward and one step back, but we’ve been learning how the farm likes to be grazed and managed,” she says.

Around 2014, Nic and Reno stopped using fertiliser and introduced rotational grazing. At first, it worked well - 1,200 Lleyn sheep lambed in 2016. However, hard questions about the farm’s future were quick to follow.

“Looking back we had far too many sheep, the land was moving away from fertiliser, lamb growth rates were poor and worm burdens were high,” Nic says. “We didn’t want to go back to conventional farming, so our mindset had to change, recognising that high production wasn’t the be-all and end-all. We had to find an equilibrium. We realised we had created a monoculture.”

Over the next few years, they gradually removed the sheep from the farm while reintroducing Angus cattle. In 2025, Cannerheugh calved 80 cows, with stores being sold to a local family business. A small number are finished on the farm and sold directly to a local pub and household. 

Rotational, or adaptive multi-paddock (AMP), grazing is at the heart of the business. The cows graze paddocks of around two and a half acres, moving on daily. Drawing on their knowledge of the land, Nic and Reno settled on an average rest period of around 86 days for each paddock. 

The young stock are outwintered using bale grazing, while the cows and recently weaned calves spend around 90 days in sheds. Nic and Reno hope to reduce silage and contracting costs even further by shortening the indoor period and extending the grazing plan to give the grasses more rest. The changes have boosted soil health, improved water infiltration, and helped slow runoff during heavy rain.

To avoid one monoculture replacing another, the cows have shared the farm with chickens since 2018. About 600 birds now follow the cattle around the paddocks in eggmobiles, arriving roughly four days after the cows to feed on fly larvae and bugs. The chickens also improve the soil’s fertility, and their eggs are sold to local cafes, restaurants and households.

As part of their move towards nature-friendly agriculture, Nic and Reno have made significant changes to the farm’s landscapes. Through the Countryside Stewardship (CS) scheme, a 100-acre block of rough land is being planted with native trees to create wood pasture, providing browse and shelter for the livestock while fitting the grazing system.

An extensive hedgerow programme has added around seven kilometres in total. Fences have been converted into hedgerows, and Nic has started introducing fruit trees along the boundaries to provide fresh food and attract pollinators and insects. 

Stewardship schemes have also enabled them to protect the farm’s watercourses by fencing them off to create riparian corridors. “Overall, we’ve softened the look of the whole place,” Nic says. 

She recognises that the shift to nature-friendly farming can be challenging for older farmers, who have long been told to maximise food production and yields. “Nature-friendly farming is definitely the way we need to go, but we have to be careful and make sure we produce the food we need,” she says. 

At the same time, making the most of the land often requires creative thinking. “We’ve got quite sandy soil up here, so should we actually be growing some carrots, or would that be odd for Cumbria?” Nic asks. “We’ve got to be quite out-there in our thinking. Just because you’ve got a field, that doesn’t mean the only thing you can produce in it is red meat.”

Nature-friendly farming is definitely the way we need to go, but we have to be careful and make sure we produce the food we need.

Nic Renison

One example of Nic responding to challenges in agriculture is the creation of Carbon Calling, an event she co-founded with Lincolnshire farmer and consultant Liz Genever. After attending Groundswell, they decided to host a similar event in the North of England with a stronger focus on pasture and livestock. Carbon Calling (a pun on the popular Kendal Calling music festival) welcomed its first visitors in 2022.

In addition to bringing farmers together for an annual weekend in Cumbria, Carbon Calling has become a community interest company (CIC), exploring the broader difficulties British farmers face. “A lot of its work is about mindset change,” Nic explains. “We hold meetings around the country and the first question we ask is what keeps farmers awake at night.”

Nic hopes these events act as a bridge for more conventional farmers to learn more about nature-friendly farming, ask questions and listen to speakers. For her, peer-to-peer learning is crucial to driving change in the industry.

She says Cannerheugh’s business model is based on “margins, not top-line high prices”. However, while her nature-friendly approach has helped shield the farm from some financial shocks, such as input price spikes after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she stresses that the changes required in farming go far beyond individual farms.

“As nature-friendly farmers, we can’t preach or seem superior. We need to recognise that change will be difficult for some,” she says. “Once you’ve gone down this route you can’t unsee things, like what will happen to the fish in the beck when a farmer spreads slurry on a wet day. But that farmer probably has to milk the number of cows that produce that much slurry because they need to pay their bills and get hardly anything for their product. Farmers are bearing the brunt of criticism, but the whole food system is skewed.”

Cookie consent

We use cookies on this website to improve your experience, provide social media features, and analyse our traffic. By clicking Accept All, you agree to the use of cookies as outlined in our Cookie & Privacy Policy. You can manage your cookie preferences at any time by clicking Cookie Settings.