Farm Naturally Peat is owned by a trust that buys plots from farmers who quit with (part of) their farm, through funding from local entrepreneurs and from legacies. They started off with a piece of intact peatland and added degraded peatland through the years. Naturally Peat is run and maintained by volunteers who are keen on restoring the natural water levels and water quality, to increase the natural vegetation and biodiversity of the area. The trust was not aware of many different business models which are available to farmers who have rehabilitated their peatlands, when they started ten years ago. In the first years they merely focussed on monitoring the development, unlocking the area for recreation and on education of groups such as local schools. Nowadays the trust is eager to professionalise and develop several business models, one of which could be the possibility of growing crops for the pharmaceutical industry.
One of the important barriers the trust encountered when starting ‘Naturally Peat’ was the neighbouring farms: Raising the water levels also effected the adjacent fields. There needed to be great awareness and collective effort to progress. Another challenge they encountered was the lack of education, information, and training among farmers. There needs to be a clear understanding of the consequences of their actions. In the near future the trust wants to play a role in providing information for farmers.
There could be testing equipment made for the farmers in a simple format to enable them to quality check their samples of soil, water, and air. This could allow them to see the imbalance between rewetted and non-rewetted lands.