Pupils learn from the land

Many farmers still believe they don't get enough recognition or thanks for putting at least 60 per cent of the nation's food on its tables. But there's no denying that the entire profile of farming and food production has been raised enormously over the last 20 years.

And if you want to see evidence of that look no further than the West Somerset Community College in Minehead where, come the autumn, no fewer than 130 students will be signed on for land-based courses.

And in the most impressive surroundings it's possible to imagine: a purpose-built farm unit constructed on a green field site with the help of a £1 million EU grant.

While some of the finishing touches remain to be completed, at least the animals – the majority of them local breeds – are already there. A herd of Red Devons and a flock of Exmoor mules, complete with this season's lamb crop, are already in residence, as are the pigs.

And the man in charge of the unit is highly delighted that completing construction is now only a matter of weeks away.

Charlie Olive is the son of a Tiverton dairy farming family and moved to the college 10 years ago as head of biology. Now, as its curriculum team leader for vocational studies, he finds himself overseeing a unique outdoor classroom which is already attracting interest from schools across the country.

The college in its various incarnations has had a connection with farming for half a century – as it should have, with a catchment which extends across a part of the West Country where there are probably more farm animals than people.

In its early days as a secondary modern school, it taught rural science, and gradually a small farm unit grew up on an adjoining site. For some years, students have been raising turkeys and selling them at Christmas, half to a local butcher, the rest to staff and parents.

But the new unit, on leased Crown Estate land half a mile away, is an altogether more imposing one.

There are three large greenhouses, one of which will be heated to enable sub-tropical species to be grown, and an area has been set aside to create a series of gardens. Trees for the orchard – and the separate cider orchard – will arrive soon, as will the 50 birds for the poultry unit.

The main block houses a large classroom, a kitchen – students may be spending a day at a time there – and a meat-cutting room, while the airy barn provides winter quarters for the livestock, with a complete set of brand new handling equipment already in situ.

And it's even a model of sustainability and self-sufficiency. A heat pump buried under what will become the vegetable patch delivers heating for the main block, as well as all its hot water.

Links have already been forged with the local community – and look set to be strengthened. A £70,000 grant from Somerset Rural Renaissance has paid for the cattle handling system, the climate-control system in the greenhouses, the tractor, the minibus and a range of machinery.

Meanwhile, Porlock-based butcher Clive Downs also chipped in £500 to buy one of the cattle and a litter of Gloucester Old Spot pigs – destined to end up on the slab in his shop. "And we're already talking to the National Trust: they're very keen to have the Red Devons grazing in the deer park at Dunster Castle, just up the road," said Charlie.

The unit, with its three adjoining fields, extends to about 17 acres, but with rented grazing near Timberscombe, three miles away, the total acreage stands at more than 50, and the range of operations is so diverse that college students will be able to study everything from horticulture to animal management. Not only the students, either: as part of the deal to secure the European cash, the unit will also host evening classes as part of the local adult learning network.

The classroom will also have another role in training more teachers to lead land-based study courses. As Charlie Olive points out, there's no point encouraging young people to take more interest in food production, farming and the land unless there are properly qualified people to teach them.

But he is clearly thrilled with the way the project has come together.

"When I came to the college here 10 years ago there were just 30 students on agricultural courses. It's a measure of how much food and farming has moved up the agenda that we shall have 130 on various types of land-based courses in September," he said.

"There are about 60 schools across the country with their own farms and, in the last five years, another 20 have shown an interest in setting one up, and that's an indication of how things are changing as well. In the past, a school farm was a nice thing to have: now there is a proper educational reason for it.

"Different schools use their farms for different reasons. In Kent, for instance, they tend to become the focus for young farmers' clubs.

"But we have such brilliant young farmers' clubs in this area anyway that that idea wouldn't work here: it just wouldn't be cool to have a club at the school

"But we are unique: there is no other school in the country offering these sorts of courses or that has a set-up like this – and that's why we are keen to develop it as a kind of flagship."