Diversification with a difference

From cowshed to clubhouse: Rupert Bates talks to Jo Butler, founder of the Barnsgrove private members' club, about how the venture is helping to future-proof her family's farm

- Rupert Bates

SHORT of a plague of locusts (and perhaps Defra is considering the release of this voracious variety of grass~hopper), it is difficult to know what the Government might throw at farmers next. If locusts are on the way, though, they'd better hurry up or there will be no crops to plunder, as never has the word 'diversification' dominated the rural agenda so urgently.

Brexit and the loss of EU subsidies was an early warning for traditional agricultural business models, and it was this trigger that first set Jo and James Butler thinking about what the fields of tomorrow could look like. With 1,500 acres of arable land, the fifth-generation family farmers had moved away from their dairy herd. This meant the dairy building was redundant and, in its place, stands Barnsgrove: a 20,000 square foot private members' club in Hampshire.