The Duke believes passionately in the advantages of organic farming. In 1985, when it was still a relatively new concept, His Royal Highness decided to convert the Duchy Home Farm into a completely organic farming system.
Twenty-eight years later, Home Farm is not only a successful and viable working farm, but a flagship for the benefits of an organic, sustainable form of agriculture.
Livestock on Home Farm
In addition to working closely with organisations, such as The Soil Association, The Sustainable Food Trust, Garden Organic and The Organic Research Centre, Home Farm supports education and research by hosting workshops that promote the links between food, farming, health and the environment
As Patron of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, The Duke is keen for Home Farm to play an active role in helping to preserve the gene pool of British pigs, sheep and cattle. Over the years, these breeds have increasingly been replaced by foreign breeds and breeding programmes more suited to intensive farming methods. To help counteract this, Home Farm features animals including Tamworth pigs, Irish Moiled, Gloucester, Shetland and British White cattle, as well as Hebridean and Shropshire sheep. These rare breeds are highly prized by The Duke for the quality of their produce and natural affinity with the British farming landscape.
Poundbury is an urban extension to the Dorset county town of Dorchester, built on the principles of architecture and urban planning as advocated by The Prince of Wales in ‘A Vision of Britain’.
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Most of the 27,300 hectares that make up Dartmoor have been owned by the Duchy since its creation in 1337, and in modern times it is agriculture rather than mineral extraction that dominates the use of the land.
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