Submission Details ------------------
Nominee Summary
Westerton Farm is a 4th generation family farm which has always been lucky to have a lovely community around it. My grandfather would host students, university trips and learning journeys. My father visited schools, hosted trips, visited groups and helped with put up the village Christmas lights each year, and I have taken on the same passion for helping my community. Westerton has many resources which we have been able to offer to our community, charities and groups - and its a huge privilege to be able to offer help where its needed.
Overcoming Challenges
Farming has never been easy, and its certainly never been predictable, but it has always been essential. I think along the way the public have lost touch with their farms and food producers which has the made the rise in farm shops even more important that just a place to shop. Connecting people back to the land and seasonality of food has been a mission of Westerton Farm since 2015, and its quite a challenge! We have spoken in schools where children don't know how potatoes are grown, or where milk comes from - we have explained to groups the different challenges we face as an industry with rising costs, weather and staff shortages. We have had thousands of people on our farm to showcase the variety of foods we can grow locally, and put them into delicious dishes on our menu. Our big ambition at Westerton is to open a cook school to give people the opportunity to live out our farm to table message, and really get the public valuing their food, and farmers, again. Finding staff who are as passionate as we are about this message is really important, and is another challenge we face as a rural business. We have made a real effort to make sure our staff are happy, trained, and excited to be delivering our beliefs.
Supporting the community
Westerton have provided spaces for charities to host events on their farm free of charge, allowing events to maximise fund raising opportunities , and their resources to go further. We offered our space to a local group who used it to hold a barn dance to raise money for Friends of Anchor, ADHD adventures have held regular events in our barn giving children space to be creative, outgoing and safe - at the same time as allowing parents and carers the chance to relax in the cafe with a funded hot drinks and sweet treat. We have given our local tennis club use of our barn over winter to children's lessons could continue in all weathers, and our local miscarriage charity run the Santas Grotto at our Christmas market. Westerton regularly host and give talks to local groups such as beavers, rainbows, WRI, Probus and schools on rural life, business, food systems and farming. We also offer services and assistance to locals during power cuts, letting them come to charge phones and heat water. One of the things we are most proud of at Westerton is our collaboration with Oakley ASN - we have regular groups of school age kids who are not in education full time for a variety of reasons, come to the farm weekly to learn new skills such as cooking, animal husbandry, growing, outdoor skills, retail and loads more. We offering them a safe space to grow confidence and life skills.
Ethical/environmental standards
Westerton has developed a lot over the past 5 years - during that time we have invested heavily and this has seen us engage the services of many local businesses from tradesmen, web design, marketing and branding, We employ 20 local staff and do our best to make sure there is always an opportunity to learn new skills. Westerton has a big focus on environment through promoting local food systems and low food miles, solar and ground source heat pump installations to make our farming as environmentally friends as possible, low packaging use, and using no chemical sprays on our market garden produce. We support over 40 local businesses by selling their products in our farm shop or having their produce on our menu. Our animals all have a job on the farm, to activate, fertilise or protect soils which is covered in our farm tour. we are actively working with the travel trade to bring more tourism to South Aberdeenshire which will benefit so many other local businesses, We have introduced acres of wildflowers this year to provide food sources for bees and birds, bringing colour and diversification to the farm . Our farm cafe has a menu which is based around local in season foods, and using preservation methods such as pickling and fermenting to make food last longer, as well as look after our gut.
