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<h1 align="center"><font face="Verdana" size="3">Sustainable agriculture and farming
at the Cholderton Estate</font></h1>
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<td><font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="2">Sustainable agriculture
and farming at the Cholderton Estate</font></td>
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<p><font size="2" face="Verdana"><a href="sustainable_agriculture_farming.html">Sustainable
agriculture</a> and farming defined: </font></p>
<p><font size="2" face="Verdana">Key principles for sustainable agriculture
farming and food</font></p>
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<li><font size="2" face="Verdana">Produce safe, healthy products in response
to market demands, and ensure that all consumers have access to nutritious
food, and to accurate information about food products.</font></li>
<li><font size="2" face="Verdana"> Support the viability and diversity
of rural and urban economies and communities.</font></li>
<li><font size="2" face="Verdana"> Enable viable livelihoods to be made
from sustainable land management, both through the market and through
payments for public benefits.</font></li>
<li><font size="2" face="Verdana"> Respect and operate within the biological
limits of natural resources (especially soil, water and biodiversity).</font></li>
<li><font size="2" face="Verdana"> Achieve consistently high standards
of environmental performance by reducing energy consumption and by minimising
resource inputs, and use renewable energy wherever possible.</font></li>
<li><font size="2" face="Verdana"> Ensure a safe and hygienic working
environment and high social welfare and training for all employees involved
in the food chain.</font></li>
<li><font size="2" face="Verdana"> Achieve consistently high standards
of animal health and welfare.</font></li>
<li><font size="2" face="Verdana"> Sustain the resource available for
growing food and supplying other public benefits over time, except where
alternative land uses are essential to meet other needs of society.</font></li>
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<td><font size="1" face="Verdana">This definition is taken from 'The Strategy
for Sustainable Farming and Food: Facing the Future', published by the Department
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in December 2002.</font></td>
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<p align="left"><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana">The Cholderton
Estate was assembled in the late 19th century by Henry Charles Stephens
as a series of acquisitions designed to create a holding big enough to
become a model of Victorian progressive farming. Over a period beginning
in 1889 a number of smaller estates and farms were purchased. </font></p>
<p align="left"><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana">At its largest,
the Estate covered more than 5,000 acres (2,000ha), and Henry Charles
Stephens set about making it as efficient as possible. Meticulous documentation
of every acre was a key part of this process, and the majority of these
documents survive in the Wiltshire Record Office at Trowbridge. These
reveal that a rotation system was a critical ingredient in the striving
for high productivity. Stephens was a chemist, and he applied the same
careful, scientific approach to farming as he did to his other interests.
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<p align="left"><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana">It is from
this period that the ‘look’ of the present-day Estate largely
derives. Stephens laid out woodlands of various types, including a small
arboretum, and he either refurbished or had built nearly all of the buildings
on the Estate. A good deal of this Victorian landscape character survives,
and it is one of the reasons why the Estate was designated a Countryside
Heritage Site by Hampshire County Council in 1985, and listed on the Hampshire
Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="#000000">Today the
Estate continues to operate along the same visionary lines and is at the
forefront sustainable agriculture and farming practice and now includes
a dedicated site for <a href="woodland_burials/woodland_burials_hampshire_wiltshire.htm" target="_parent">woodland
burials for Hampshire and Wiltshire</a> and the <a href="organic_farm_shop/organic_farm_shop.html" target="_parent">Organic
Farm Shop at Cholderton</a> - known as Source.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="#000000">In the event
that your browser will not support dynamic html menus, an html <a href="sitemap.html" target="_parent">site
map</a> is included for navigation purposes.</font></p>
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