A field guide

    Rewarding nutrients, not yield.

    Farming is paid by the tonne. We think it should be paid for what a plant contains. This is the idea we call functional farming.

    How farming is paid

    The tonne, not the content.

    Most farming is rewarded for yield: tonnes per hectare, litres per animal, uniformity per crate. The buyer weighs the load and pays for the weight.

    What is almost never measured — and therefore never paid for — is what the crop actually contains. The aromatic compounds in a leaf, the acids in a fruit, the polyphenols in a root.

    A grower who farms for composition, with slower growth, lower yields and more demanding land, usually earns less than a neighbour farming for volume.

    What yield does to a plant

    Bigger is rarely richer.

    Pushed for yield, a plant puts its energy into size and speed. Pushed less, and grown where it suits the light, soil and season, it tends to develop a denser, more complex composition.

    This is why the same cultivar can measure differently from one place to another, and why the cheapest source of a plant is rarely the most interesting one.

    Composition is not an accident. It is a farming decision — but one the market has not historically paid for.

    A different contract

    Functional farming.

    We call the alternative functional farming: growing a plant for what it contains and what it expresses, rather than for how much of it fits on a lorry.

    In practice it means agreeing with a grower what the plant should achieve — its composition, its character, its measure — and rewarding that, even when it means a smaller harvest.

    It asks more of everyone. The grower farms more carefully. We measure more honestly. And the land is farmed for quality of output, not quantity of it.

    How it is measured

    If you cannot measure it, you cannot pay for it.

    Rewarding nutrients rather than yield only works if composition is visible. So we measure: the raw material, and the finished edition, independently analysed.

    That record travels with each edition in its Plant Passport, so what the grower achieved in the field is still visible in the pouch.

    Measurement is what turns a nice idea about farming into a contract a grower can actually be paid against.

    Where it leads

    An estate of many places.

    Functional farming is why the Botanical Estate is not one farm. It is Home Farm in Somerset, and grower partners in the landscapes where a particular plant can reach its fullest character.

    Each place is chosen for what it gives a plant. Each grower is rewarded for what the plant becomes there.

    That is the kind of farming we think a drink should pay for.

    Questions

    What is functional farming?
    Our term for farming that is rewarded for a crop's composition and character — what the plant contains and expresses — rather than for yield alone.
    How is functional farming different from organic farming?
    Organic standards govern how a crop is grown. Functional farming is about what the crop is grown for: measured composition, not volume. The two can overlap, but they answer different questions.
    How do you reward a grower for nutrients?
    By agreeing the composition a plant should achieve, measuring the raw material and the finished edition independently, and recording the result in the edition's Plant Passport.
    Does Ebbor farm this way everywhere?
    That is the direction of the whole Botanical Estate: Home Farm in Somerset, and grower partners chosen for the landscapes where a plant can be most expressive.
    The Botanical Estate →The Plant Passport →Whole plant vs extract →