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Voices from the Fields

Andrew McKee on why the grass is greener as a regenerative farmer

Northern Ireland
direct selling
food system
grazing
Livestock
native breeds
ORFC
regenerative farming

At a time when so much of the farming sector seems plunged into doom and gloom, NFFN member Andrew McKee explores how working in a nature-friendly way gives him much more hope and positivity for the future, even if that does mean being something of an outlier in rural communities.

It's fair to say that aiming to farm cattle in a low-input, regenerative way isn't something that sits easily with a lot of people here in Northern Ireland (my dad being one of them).

And being a beef farmer who thinks we should all be reducing the amount of meat in our diet definitely isn’t that common!

However, despite some of my opinions being rather different from mainstream thinking, the way I farm also gives me an optimism and hope for the future which is increasingly precious in a farming environment surrounded by negativity and worry.

My brother Nigel and I grew up in a farming family, but the farm wasn’t passed down to my dad so I headed to London to spend a decade working as a property investment analyst.

However, I gradually tired of the city rat race and longed to return home. The grass definitely seemed to be greener on the other side of the Irish Sea, so when the opportunity came up to buy a smallholding close to home I knew I had to do whatever it took to snap it up.

That was four years ago. Since then, Nigel and I have gone from zero to looking after a herd of 30 Irish Moiled cattle. 

Also known as the Moilie, the Irish Moiled is a rare native breed that is perfectly suited to a nature-friendly system. They are hardy, thrive on marginal ground, calve easily, have an excellent temperament and produce delicious marbled meat without needing meal or expensive silage.

The first time we came across the term 'regenerative agriculture' was in 2023, when we decided to make the trip to Groundswell in England for the first time. We came away from the event excited, inspired and desperately wishing to see something similar in Northern Ireland.

Then I came across NextGen ReGen, a three-year leadership programme to empower NI’s next generation of regenerative farmers. I was accepted and attended a five-day residential course with 20 other farmers - the perfect incubator for ideas and a close-knit regenerative agricultural community.

After that came Fields Good, Northern Ireland’s first regenerative agriculture festival. That’s how I got to know the NFFN along with other farmers working in a similar way to us. For the first time, we truly felt part of a community dedicated to doing things differently. 

If we really want to support the farmers implementing more regenerative agricultural practices, we need to take sourcing produce seriously and ask a few more questions about what we are eating.

Andrew McKee

I felt so privileged to be there at the start of the regen ag journey in Northern Ireland. Walking through Groundswell 12 months previously I had assumed it would never be possible to put on an event like this at home, and yet a year on I was attending one.

At the start of 2025 I travelled to the Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC) to speak about NextGen ReGen on a panel showcasing amazing food stories from across Northern Ireland.

With agricultural news filled with negative headlines and stories, whether that's concerns over inheritance tax, backlashes against agri-environment schemes in England and Wales or the sudden closure of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) to new applicants, it is striking just how different it feels when you attend regenerative farming events.

At Fields Good the atmosphere was so positive and exciting.  At ORFC I got to attend so many thought-provoking sessions. Our own panel gave me such a buzz, sitting alongside so many of my new connections in the regen world and enjoying the audience interaction. 

Looking forward, one of my biggest hopes is that the buzz being created by the growing movement of regenerative, nature-friendly farmers in Northern Ireland resonates more with consumers.

In recent years that link between people and what they eat has been lost. We need to reconnect the public with where their food comes from.

Every decision on what goes in the shopping basket is, in effect, a vote for a style of farming. It would be great to see consumers demonstrating their desire for more regeneratively-reared produce and demand increasing.

We are doing our bit, supplying a supper club in Bangor with our beef, with plans for a second one in Belfast.

It would be great to see more local, sustainably-grown food on the menus of our cafes, restaurants and pubs. When we go out we need to ask if the places we visit are supporting local producers, and if not why not. If you’re eating meat, ask who has farmed it, what the breed of animal is and what farming system is used to produce it.

If we really want to support the farmers implementing more regenerative agricultural practices, we need to take sourcing produce seriously and ask a few more questions about what we are eating.