Lynbreck Croft is a farm near

Tomintoul Tomintoul (; from gd, Tom an t-Sabhail, meaning "Hillock of the Barn") is a village in the Moray council area of Scotland in the historic county of Banffshire. Within Cairngorms National Park, the village lies close to the banks of the River ...

in the

Highlands of Scotland The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Sco ...

. The land is held under crofting tenure and the activities of start-up farmers Lynn Cassells and Sandra Baer were showcased on the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

programme ''This Farming Life'' in 2019. The property enjoys the “magnificent backdrop of the Cairngorms”.

Farming activities

Located in

Strathspey Strathspey may refer to one of the following: * Strathspey, Scotland, an area in the Highlands of Scotland * Strathspey Camanachd Strathspey Camanachd is a shinty club based in Grantown-on-Spey, Strathspey, Scotland, currently competing in the ...

at a height of about above sea level, Lynbreck Croft was purchased by Cassells and Baer in 2016.“Working with nature to produce sustainable food in the Cairngorms”
Scottish Wildlife Trust. Retrieved 8 December 2019. They had been working as rangers for the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

in southern England but shared “this pipe dream of living closer to the land and having more connection with the food we eat.”Taylor (2019) p.12 Originally looking for a small holding of up to in size they “instantly fell in love” with Lynbreck when they visited it and set about re-creating the property as a viable farm after three decades of neglect. They practice

regenerative agriculture Regenerative agriculture is a conservation and rehabilitation approach to food and farming systems. It focuses on topsoil regeneration, increasing biodiversity, improving the water cycle, enhancing ecosystem services, supporting biosequestration, ...

using rotational grazing and see themselves as “nature friendly farmers”. They have planted up to 30,000 trees on the croftTaylor (2019) p.13 and as of 2019 they have nine Highland cattle, 70 laying hens, 12 rare breed

Oxford Sandy and Black The Oxford Sandy and Black is a breed of domestic pig originating in Oxfordshire. Named for its colour, which is a base of sandy brown with black patches, the breed is also sometimes called the "Plum Pudding" or "Oxford Forest pig." Related to ...

pigs and 6

beehive A beehive is an enclosed structure in which some honey bee species of the subgenus '' Apis'' live and raise their young. Though the word ''beehive'' is commonly used to describe the nest of any bee colony, scientific and professional literature ...

Media interest and awards

In 2018 they won Best Crofting Newcomer awarded by the Scottish Crofting Federation at the Spirit of Crofting Festival and the Cairngorms Nature Farm Award awarded by the

Cairngorms National Park Authority Cairngorms National Park ( gd, Pàirc Nàiseanta a' Mhonaidh Ruaidh) is a national park in northeast Scotland, established in 2003. It was the second of two national parks established by the Scottish Parliament, after Loch Lomond and The Tross ...

. In 2019 Cassells and Baer (who come from Irish and Swiss backgrounds respectively) featured in the third series of ''This Farming Life'' in 2019 from episode 3 onwards. Interviewed about the filming, they said: “It was a terrifying experience to begin with, as we were doing everything for the first time and we were doing it in front of cameras”. In 2019 they also won the Nature of Scotland Food and Farming Award, sponsored by

The James Hutton Institute The James Hutton Institute is an interdisciplinary scientific research institute in Scotland established in 2011, through the merger of Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) and the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute. The institute, named a ...

and were the UK winners of the Newbie award for innovative new entrants.Mackenzie, Gemma (20 April 2019
“A Highland crofting enterprise has been crowned New Entrant Farm Business of the Year.”
''Press and Journal''. Aberdeen. Retrieved 8 December 2019.

Notes

Citations

References

Taylor, Claire (30 November 2019
“TFL”s Lynn and Sandra: Building a diverse and profitable croft”.
''The Scottish Farmer''. Glasgow. Retrieved 7 December 2019

External links

{{Commonscat, Lynbreck Croft
Lynbreck Croft website‘’This Farming Life’’ at BBC2
Badenoch and Strathspey Farms in Scotland Crofting Organic farming in the United Kingdom Environmentalism in Scotland