Llangybi Organics news: the latest news from Llangybi Organics' two farms. It's frequently updated and replaces the old-style 'formal' (and very irregular) newsletters on this site. Why the change? All's explained here.

Llangybi Organics is based on a small farm called Mur Crusto, just outside the village of Llangybi. The well-known Ffynnon Cybi (St Cybi's well) is just ten minutes walk away. Our small company started in early 2001 and is based around a big polytunnel, field-grown vegetables, soft fruits (mostly rasperries) and small orchards which include apples, pears and plums trees, mostly planted in early 2001. Our basic aim is to provide fresh, organically-grown vegetables and fruit in the form of vegetable boxes to people in our local area. We started this scheme properly in October 2002 with our friends and fellow organic growers, Mike Langley and Jill Jackson at Ty'n Lon Uchaf farm just a stone's throw from here. Click the Veg box button (left) to find out about this.

In the future, we'd like the links to be closer than just producer and consumer. Our ultimate goal is to set up a Community Supported Agriculture group but this depends on what you want, not us. Part of the idea of getting people from the local community involved directly is so people can regain something which has been lost in Britain with industrial agriculture: a sense of belonging - linking - to the land on which we all depend for our food. To aid this, we produce a newsletter, both online (click the 'What's new?' button), and printed for our box scheme customers.

Mur Crusto farm has eleven small fields, totalling 5 hectares (13 acres) most of which are grazed by cows and sheep. It is an especially attractive place with its traditional white-painted farmhouse, the holiday cottage (formerly a cowshed) and other outbuildings. We've planted small areas of woodland for coppice. And there's a wonderful large area given over partly to wildlife which includes a lake. This lake teems with small fish and tadpoles (in the spring) and is a magnet to swallows, whitethroats and even the rare grasshopper warbler. We've even seen mergansers there. There's a resident, rather shy, heron and evidence of other larger mammals (perhaps otters). We occasionally come across hedgehogs if we happen to be out when they are - usually before dawn or at night.

The land is flat, mostly well-drained and fertile but very stony. Each field is surrounded by earth-cored clawdd walls, most of which support a good range of hedgerow plants and trees. These offer valuable nesting cover for small and medium-sized birds. The birds help us by picking off pests like caterpillars from the vegetables. That's the theory anyway. So Llangybi Organics is helping actively to protect and encourage wildlife. And in autumn 2002, we joined the Welsh agri-environment scheme Tir Gofal.

Because our land is relatively high up (about 80 metres above sealevel), most of the fields have wonderful views of the Cwm Pennant mountains (Garnedd Goch, Moel yr Ogof, Moel Hebog), Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), Cnicht, Moelwyn, the Rhinog mountains, Cadair Idris and beyond. We can also see Cardigan Bay and St Tudwal's peninsula. Take a virtual tour around the farm by clicking the 'farm photos' link on the left.

Finally, if you (or your kids) want a guide to what's wrong with 'conventional' food, why, and what you can do about it, you can find an excellent one written by an internationally-known penguin (yes, really!) on Oneworld.net's Kids Channel. It includes two interactive quizzes.