Churchtown Farm

Churchtown Farm is the our traditional family farm situated just a few miles outside the picturesque village of Strangford on the south east coast of County Down, Northern Ireland.

We converted to an organic farming system in November 1998 because we felt it offered a more sustainable farming system that encourages good farming practice techniques such as high animal welfare standards, crop rotations, environmental impact evaluations and wildlife conservation, all of which are very important to us.

Over the last ten years we have made many changes to our farm to enhance it and result in a much better future for all. These changes include planting two new areas of woodland on the farm to provide habitat for wildlife and assist conservation.

We have transformed our beef herd by selecting traditional breeds such as Aberdeen Angus, Beef Shorthorn & South Devon that are naturally more suited to organic farming systems and thrive on our clover rich pastures and extensive rotational grazing systems. We now keep a pure bred flock of Lleyn sheep that also are well suited to organic farming.

Our beef herd & sheep flock are rarely exposed to other animals as we breed all our own beef cows & sheep and this reduces the risk of disease to them from external forces.

Further changes to our farm include three new middens. These are buildings to store & compost farmyard manure with effluent tanks to capture any liquid seepage. These middens ensure no ‘natural’ fertility is lost from the farm and allow us to compost the manure in a manner that naturally kills all weed seed through heat generation created by compost aeration.

We also have built three new grain stores. These allow us to dry and store our own organic grains. This grain is then fed to our own animals in the colder winter months and is used as seed for planting the following spring. These grain stores allow us to be completely independent and ensure our animals get only our own organic corn hence their feed is 100% organic with full traceability ensured.

Perhaps the biggest change we have made was the renovation of two redundant farm buildings into our farm shop and meat processing facility. Work began in the summer of 2004 and we eventually got finished in the Spring of 2005.

We opened our farm shop during Easter 2005 and from that time the business has continually grown and developed. We have a high number of regular customers every week and with a few more added each week this number is quickly growing. We attend St Georges Food & Speciality Market, in Belfast each Saturday and we enjoy ‘the craic’ with our regular customers as we tell each other about our previous respective weeks.

Our belief is that everything we must do must be to the highest possible standard. Whether it’s caring for our land, our animals, our meat, or our customers we will do our very best to ensure a good result.