'Let the soil do the work' - in conversation with regenerative farmer Martin Caunce

After my interview with the team from Regenified (read it here if you missed it) I wanted to dive deeper and speak to a farmer working their land in a regenerative manner, alongside nature so the land, crops, animals, and people all get healthier over time. Martin Caunce, owner of Brow Farm in West Lancashire, was kind enough to talk to me about what regen really looks like on a working British farm, how he moved away from an intensive, chemistry‑first system, and why he measures success not just in yields, but in joy.

Have you always farmed regeneratively, or was there a turning point?

I left school at 16 in 1985 and went straight to work with my dad. We were good at what we did: carrots, potatoes, leeks. It was an intensive, chemical‑based system because that was the standard. Even then we used cover crops, but not like we do now.

When my dad retired, we faced a choice: invest millions to keep up with “modern” farming or rethink the whole thing. I was tired. We never spoke to the people who actually ate our food. We sold to wholesalers, they sold to supermarkets, and no one ever asked us what we thought, or how the produce tasted. So we pulled back. We rented out ground, kept some cereals, and I started an online store to sell directly. Talking to customers changed everything. They asked different questions, like “Is your wheat treated with anything?” They wanted food that was grown for health, not just for a specification. That nudged us into what people now call regenerative.

What does “regenerative farming” mean to you?

Context. It is not a rigid system with a handbook, regen is a mindset. You look at your fields, your soils, your climate, and you ask, “How wide can I think?” It is harder, but in a good way. I am thinking about it all the time. My wife, Carol, would say I never switch off.

If you have an agronomist (crop scientist) telling 20 farms the same recipe, that is industrial farming. Regen is the opposite. It is observation, small tests, iterating. It is designing for living soil first, then letting that soil do the work for the plant.

What are the biggest practical changes you made?

First, I stopped fungicides and insecticides on our combinable crops. We will still use a herbicide when we need to, but the rest has gone. The first year we saw a little rust in wheat. After that, the crops adapted.

Second, we started using cover crops for real outcomes, not just box‑ticking. We are on flat, sandy ground where wind erosion is a real risk. Keeping soil covered is non‑negotiable. Our neighbours used to ask why I spent money on seed I would never harvest. Then you watch their bare fields blowing away on a stale seedbed and you think, we have to do this differently.

Third, we rebuilt biology. We use Johnson–Su compost and compost teas, fish hydrolysate from a friend in Fleetwood, and small amounts of sugars as foliar feed. When we drill, every seed gets a “parcel” of goodness: a dusting of minerals and biology so the plant learns to talk to microbes from day one. The plant stops acting like a dependent teenager and starts behaving like an adult; trading sugars for nutrients with fungi and bacteria.

Fourth, we add ground rock dust. Our soils are very sandy and the peat moss ground nearby is high in organic matter but short on mineral diversity. Microbes need a pantry to pull from. Finely ground volcanic rock gives that pantry back. It is a bigger dose once, then smaller top‑ups.

You mentioned talking to customers changed your approach. How so?

When you sell to a mill or a packer, they want numbers: protein, moisture, spec. When you sell to a baker or a family, they want to know if it has been sprayed, how it was grown, how it tastes, whether it makes them feel good. Those conversations push you towards health over optics.

We left wholesale after years supplying 40 markets across the country. Not one person phoned the first year to ask where we had gone. No one noticed until there was a shortage and prices spiked. That tells you everything about that system. Direct customers notice. They care. That makes you care more, too.

What is your definition of success since moving to regen?

Honestly, the biggest change is in my head. I enjoy farming again. When people are interested, you raise your game. You try new things so you have a better story and a better loaf to share next time. The wildlife and soil metrics will follow, and they are following, but the feeling comes first.

Do you integrate livestock?

Not as much as I would like yet. We keep pigs and run them on cover crops in winter, moving them regularly. This year we overstocked one patch and it went black, so we rested it, and now it is a green carpet again. The roots were there. The point is that land wants animal impact. We have moved away from that in the last hundred years and we are poorer for it. I would love to rear our own beef again, even just for the family.

You talk about “farm to wellness.” What does that mean for you?

It is John Kempf’s idea in practice: food should be medicine. If you add the NHS bill to the cost of food, cheap food is not cheap. Regen tries to rebuild nutrient density so food does not just fill you up; it keeps you well. That is better for people and for the public purse.

Supermarkets often price items under cost, which affects the customer perception on how much food really costs. How do you see this issue as a farmer?

Loss leaders distort reality. At Easter, my dad saw a kilo of potatoes at four pence. A tonne of seed costs £650 and you need about a tonne to plant an acre. The maths does not work unless someone else is paying, usually the farmer or the soil. In France, you cannot sell below cost. That protects smaller shops and preserves a more honest food culture. We have also lost seasonality. We import year‑round so customers expect everything all the time. You lose the joy of the first local new potatoes when you are used to Egyptian ones in January.

There are bright spots. A big local outfit, Huntapac, manages UK carrots 365 days a year by moving with the seasons from the Isle of Wight to Aberdeen. That is clever logistics aligned with British conditions. That is the kind of thinking we need more of.

Climate is getting more unpredictable. How has that hit you?

Last spring was wet, but harvest was fine for us. The bigger point is that regen buffers weather. In 1976 (the famous drought year) my grandad had huge potato yields on deep peat with no irrigation. The soils were alive and the plants went down for water. Today on the same ground, after years of deep tillage, salt fertilisers, and herbicides, the lettuce guys have to irrigate within a week of dry weather. The plants are hooked on spoon‑feeding and the biology is thin. When we take land back after 20 years of lettuce and start rewilding the microbes, we can see visible differences in a year. In three years, it is a different field. 

You are diversifying crops on your land - what are you growing now?

We used to be mostly wheat. Now we grow rye, oats, barley, linseed, spelt, peas, and trial mixes. If we sell it in the online shop, we ask, “Can we grow it?” It does not always work, but we learn fast.

Vegetables are calling me back, but scaling regen veg is a different mindset. You cannot weed 700 acres by hand at £12.50 an hour. The question is how to make off‑the‑tractor‑seat veg truly regenerative. It is possible, but it needs systems thinking, not garden thinking.

With sunflowers, for example, most people drill a monocrop. We sow a community: sunflowers with buckwheat, linseed, vetch, oats, and even early oilseed rape. The buckwheat and linseed flower early, so pollinators head into the middle of the field, not just the edges. Oats and linseed are great for mycorrhizae. We get living roots at multiple layers, pollinator habitat everywhere, and resilience. I would rather have a 10‑acre pollinator strip than a 3‑metre one, and I want it inside the crop, not just around it.

That means harvesting must be tricky - how do you handle different crops in one field?

You adjust your cut height and timing. Sunflowers sit high. Oilseed rape sits lower. We cut the sunflowers above the rape canopy and come back for the rape later. The risk is traffic damage, so we are testing how much the rape tolerates a combine pass. It is always experiment, observe, adapt.

What have you learned about the soil on previously intensively farmed fields?

On land that had 20 years of lettuce growth, the roots used to pull up clean and white, no soil clinging. That is a sign of very little biology. Now, when we seed with compost inoculant and minerals, you pull up a plant and the roots have “dreadlocks”, soil sticking all along the root hairs. That is microbe glue. It looks wrong to old eyes, but it is exactly what you want. That change shows up in a year. People say building soil takes a lifetime. Building topsoil depth does, but re‑starting the biology can be surprisingly quick if you feed and protect it.

Where do you want to take Brow Farm next?

More milling and more direct relationships. We have stone‑milled flour and a couple of small bakeries using it now. Some Michelin‑starred kitchens nearby have been in touch, which is encouraging. Wholegrain flour from healthy plants is better food. We will keep widening our cereal diversity and I still have my eye on veg.

We are also going through Regenified certification. Doug Peterson (co-founder) is flying over to walk the fields. Gabe Brown (co-founder) visited recently with John Gregson. We have a compost tea brewer coming from the States to streamline that side. And we will keep running the local tractor charity day for the air ambulance. It is stressful, but it is the least we can do.

I am 56. I think of it as 20 good harvests to do something meaningful and hand over land that is alive. My son can only take it on if he wants it. If I can spend those years proving that a British arable farm can be productive, profitable, and healing to him and to others, that is a good life’s work.

Learn more about Brow Farm here.