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Agriculture on Bodorgan Estate

Agriculture underpins the fabric of the Estate with a mixture of in-hand and tenanted farms. The island's milder climate helps with earlier lambing and the predominance is for livestock over cereals. That said increasing areas are being used to produce wheat, barley and maize although sites close to the sea are affected by the salt. The livestock bias means that large areas are down to permanent pasture giving the overall patchwork of small grassland fields divided in many cases by the original walls and providing corridors for wildlife. Within many of the farms small water courses and ponds provide further habitats for a wide range of species both indigenous and migratory. Much of the farmland falls within the Llyn Coron NVZ although farming in this area is generally low in inputs and is not dissimilar from upland farming. Farms are generally small in size often less than 200 acres but usually remain in the same families who often diversify and adapt to keep their holdings viable. The lack of intensification overall is one of the attractions of farming on Anglesey.

BEM Ltd and the Bodorgan Estate take part in various environmental initiatives:

Tir Gofal

Key objectives within Tir Gofal are to maintain habitats and features identified as having special value by following a specially created management plan. Areas that are part of the Tir Gofal scheme comply with a basic set of environmental measures that apply to the whole farm. These measures cover good environmental practices such as stocking rate, keeping farms tidy, woodland plans, wildlife friendly cover crops, adhering to SSSI regulations etc. The current plan runs to 2015.

Woodland Management

BEM Ltd is working with Anglesey County Council (through Coed Cymru) and the Forestry Commission to develop a comprehensive estate wide woodland management plan. The aim is to consolidate all aspects of woodland management ranging from tree safety to tree planting on the Estate. This plan also includes the removal of Rhododendron.

This rather exotic plant, introduced to the UK in the late 18th Century, and popular with the Victorians can be responsible for the destruction of native habits as it grows fast and then eliminates other competing native plant species and due to this needs to be monitored and growth restricted. It is also potentially a vector for Phytophera Ramorans a harmful plant pathogen responsible for killing trees over an increasingly large part of the UK.