Farming with room for nature.
Our fields aren't separate from the hedges, meadows, woods and streams around them. Together they form one landscape. That's why, at Bree-Eik, alongside organic farming, we deliberately choose to make more room for plants, insects, birds and other animals.
Organic farming is our foundation, not the end point.
At Bree-Eik we farm organically. But organic farming remains farming: we work fields, mow meadows and produce food.
That's why we look beyond the organic label alone.
A farmed landscape is also a habitat for wild plants and animals. With nature-inclusive farming, we try to deliberately make room for that. In some places we intervene less intensively, or not at all. Elsewhere we adapt the way we work when that gives nature more chances.
That sometimes also means less yield, or a patch of land that can't produce at maximum. We make that choice deliberately.
Not a collection of separate measures.
Planting a hedge, mowing a meadow later, or reopening a stream only really matters when it fits within the landscape around it.
That's why we look at Bree-Eik as one whole.
Fields, meadows, hedges, tree lines, woods, water and buildings each have their own function, but are constantly connected to one another. A bird, for instance, doesn't just need a place to nest, but also enough food and shelter in its surroundings.
That's why we try to choose and place measures so that they reinforce each other. In our biodiversity vision, this is described as a puzzle in which different species must be able to find a place.
The Bree-Eik landscape, seen from above.
In different places, in different ways.
Biodiversity doesn't call for the same approach everywhere. What's good for a bird of the open field isn't necessarily what a species in a tree line needs.
Hedges & tree lines
Hedges and tree lines were a familiar part of the Pajottenland farming landscape for centuries. They offer shelter, food and nesting sites, and connect different habitats to one another.
Many of those structures disappeared as farm plots grew larger. At Bree-Eik we're rebuilding that network. What matters here isn't just how much we plant, but especially where a hedge is located, how wide it can grow and what it connects with.
Meadows
Not every meadow needs to produce at maximum.
By managing certain meadows less intensively, mowing later, or temporarily leaving patches of vegetation standing, herbs and flowers get more of a chance.
That, in turn, provides food and habitat for insects, birds and other animals. That's why flower-rich plots are also mown more slowly, with parts deliberately left standing, so the entire habitat doesn't disappear all at once.
Fields
Our fields are there first and foremost to produce food. But they can be a habitat at the same time.
On one of our grain fields, old arable flora is therefore deliberately given room again. Among the grain, cornflowers and poppies appear, along with many lesser-known arable plants.
The flowers attract insects, and the same plot is used by farmland birds. According to our biodiversity survey, skylark, lapwing and yellow wagtail breed there every year.
Water
Water has always helped shape how the landscape around Bree-Eik looks.
In the past, some small streams were culverted underground to make farmland drier and easier to work. Where possible, we're reversing that process.
Old waterways are being reopened and given wider, vegetated banks. This makes flowing water visible again and creates new habitat for plants and animals.
Woods
In the wettest parts of Bree-Eik we find, among other things, wet woodland. Woods provide habitat for birds, deer, owls and other animals, and at the same time form part of the larger network around our farmland.
Here too, we try to deliberately create extra opportunities. For instance, dozens of bat boxes hang in Bree-Eik's wet woodlands.
Buildings
It's not just fields, woods and hedges that offer room to nature.
Old farm buildings are important nesting and roosting sites for, among others, sparrows, swallows, owls and bats. During renovations, we try to preserve or recreate that space wherever possible.
For example, nest boxes are built into buildings, and the attic of the gatehouse has been set up as a roost for bats.
Making room also means making choices.
Nature-inclusive farming only becomes meaningful once it also affects how we work.
The skylark is a good example of that.
This bird still breeds at Bree-Eik. A breeding cycle takes about 45 days, while some plots of grass, clover and lucerne used to be mown on average every 37 days.
That's why, in places where skylarks breed, we now aim for about 48 days between two mowing rounds.
For the bird, that means more time to raise its young. For us, it means later-mown grass of lower feed quality and possibly one fewer mowing round during the season.
Sometimes making room for nature means we have to give something up ourselves. That, too, is part of nature-inclusive farming for us.
When the landscape responds.
Biodiversity can't be restored overnight. A newly planted hedge needs time to grow. A meadow changes gradually. And it sometimes takes years before a species discovers a suitable spot.
Still, we see the landscape responding.
The number of species observed at Bree-Eik is increasing. Part of that is due to more intensive surveying, but according to our biodiversity monitoring, the measures we've taken also play a role.
Sometimes that produces a very special sighting.
In 2025, a red-backed shrike chose an old, dense hedge at Bree-Eik as a breeding site. Three young were raised — according to the survey, the only confirmed breeding case with young in the Pajottenland that year.
For us, biodiversity is not a project with an end date.
We plant and manage, watch what happens and adjust. New hedges need to grow, meadows develop, and species respond each at their own pace.
And there are always new possibilities: from orchards and a vegetable garden with room for pollinators, to wetter zones, reed vegetation and more spring flora in our woods. Bree-Eik's biodiversity vision therefore describes that development as an ongoing process, in collaboration with everyone who works on the farm and on the landscape.
Because at Bree-Eik, farming and nature aren't two separate stories. They share the same place.
