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Diversification done right - A Cornish farm’s top tips for enterprise stacking

England
Farm Practices
direct selling
Diversification
Events
Farming Champions
stacking enterprises
whole farm approach

Rosuick Farm has understood for generations that farms can do far more than simply produce food. Here, Dave Oates shares some of the secrets to successful diversification.

Farms have the potential to offer much more than food production alone. Whether it’s providing leisure or tourism opportunities to the public, or addressing major challenges like flooding, biodiversity loss and the climate crisis, farmland can deliver a wide range of goods and services that society needs.

One farm that understands this very well is Rosuick, located on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall. The land has been in the Oates family for generations, farmed with nature in mind, with brothers Dave and Stuart Oates now its latest custodians. Diversification is very important at Rosuick, and has been a key focus of the farm’s success.

To coincide with Nature Friendly Farming Week 2025 highlighting the potential of farms to do more than grow food, we spoke to Dave about Rosuick’s diversification journey and his top tips for making enterprise stacking a success.

The basics - What diversification does Rosuick do?

Diversification at Rosuick goes back to the time of Dave’s grandparents, who introduced holiday caravans on site and also grew cut flowers.

By the time his parents took over, there was a financial need to broaden the range of enterprises at Rosuick. This saw the holiday accommodation expanded (Dave recalls spending his childhood summers living in a barn so the farmhouse could be let out), alongside the launch of a veg stall and hosting a brewery on the land.

Dave’s mum also made baby clothes and blankets, while Rosuick became home to a camel trekking business, giving visitors the chance to ride one of these ‘ships of the desert’ around the farm.

At various points, the farm also ran a cafe, and sold its own range of ready meals. For around two decades, Rosuick also operated a farm shop, offering a range of home-grown produce including beef, lamb, chicken, pork, turkeys, eggs and vegetables.

In recent years, Rosuick’s diversification has evolved to place a stronger focus on farming itself. University researchers have access to the land for projects such as Meadow Match, which ensures meadow restoration schemes use appropriate local plant species.

Rosuick also works with the Cornish Seaweed Company, which is developing bio-stimulants as nature-friendly alternatives to artificial fertilisers by providing land for crop trials of its products. Dave is also keen to pursue further research into heritage grains and their impact on soil health and fungi.

At the same time, Rosuick continues to serve as a wedding venue, which has been a key part of the farm for the past 15 years. Couples can tie the knot in a variety of picturesque spots around the farm, and the farm regularly hosts school visits. 

What are the challenges with diversification?

For Dave, the biggest consideration when introducing a new enterprise to the farm is ensuring it fits well within the overall business model. It’s also crucial that farmers and workers have the right skillset to make the new venture a success.

“With diversification, farmers are often expected to run completely different types of businesses,” Dave explains. “There’s nothing wrong with having tourists and visitors on your farm, or running a cafe, but it’s important to recognise that hospitality is a very different industry to farming. That’s not to say this is a hard and fast rule. Some of the best diversification has absolutely nothing to do with farming whatsoever, but enterprises on a farm must complement each other.”

The farming itself needs to be profitable, rather than other businesses on site effectively subsidising your farming.

Dave Oates

To help with this, Dave emphasises the importance of making the time to think things through properly before committing to a new enterprise. With the pressures of modern life, creating space to plan carefully is essential.

Dave also advises farmers to ensure their core business is financially solid before stacking additional enterprises around it. “You don’t want to end up in a situation where diversification is just a distraction from unprofitable farming,” he says. “The farming itself needs to be profitable, rather than other businesses on site effectively subsidising your farming.”

Equally important, Dave says, is having a clear long-term plan when starting to diversify. “For every new enterprise you introduce, you need to have an end goal. What is eventually going to happen to that business? Do you plan to sell it, or pass it on to the next generation? It’s just as important to have a way out of a business as it is to have a way in. Careful planning is absolutely essential.”

What are the benefits of diversification?

From a financial perspective, weddings are the most important element of Rosuick’s enterprise stacking. However, and crucially given the demands of running a successful wedding venue, Dave says hosting happy couples brings rewards that go well beyond money.

“There’s no doubt about it - weddings involve a lot of time, work and responsibility,” he says. “We have several venues on our farm where couples can tie the knot, from our large building to the traditional orchard, barn and garden. The weddings cover the upkeep of all these areas, so the farming and wedding businesses work hand in hand and enhance each other. 

“We also have plenty of educational signs around the farm and its habitats. It’s always great to see wedding guests reading them and asking questions about what we do. They’re usually from outside the sustainable farming community, so we get a real cross-section of the public engaging with our farming through our events.”

It's always great to see wedding guests reading our signs and asking questions about what we do. We get a real cross-section of the public engaging with our farming through our events.

Dave Oates

Bringing in different enterprises not only diversifies income streams but also creates more opportunities for people to engage with Rosuick’s work. For Dave, this brings enterprise stacking full circle to his grandparents’ generation in the first half of the 20th century, when the agricultural labour force was much larger.

“I’m pretty sure that rural and agricultural businesses used to be far more diverse generally,” he says. “Things were also a lot less formal. Villages might simply have had a veg patch on farmland back then, whereas now it has to be formally set up as a community veg-growing project.”

The research and scientific work at Rosuick also has a clear wider purpose. Developing nature-friendly alternatives to chemical inputs could benefit everyone from home gardeners to large-scale arable farmers.

“For us, this is a no-brainer,” Dave says. “We’ve got the equipment, researchers have the know-how, and we all benefit from the innovations. Collaboration between businesses and institutions is key to large-scale adoption of more nature-friendly practices. It feels like we’re giving something back to the whole sector.”