Our Story

We are a family-run smallholding enterprise based in the south pennines near Hebden Bridge and Todmorden.

In 2018 we set about on a mission to create a way of living that was completely new to us, but one which is ancient. Equipped with some basic experience, a handful of loans and few modern farming tricks & techniques we sought to make a small patch of rural uplands highly productive, whilst creating a modest but workable income for a small growing family.

UpPlant was born from this ambition.

Our aim has always been to carry out this vision in a way that is regenerative by creating positive outcomes for the ecology of the site and the local community alike.

We received such a positive response from the community far and wide that we started to think about how the project could diversify and how we could develop other solutions. This included starting to think about how these vertical farming systems could be applied in different contexts small and large. We found such a curiosity for our approach that we are developing a workshop series to share our experience. The project quickly developed beyond the main production system as we started to think regeneratively and how we could constantly reduce our external inputs and cycle our nutrients.

Our journey has asked questions of the way new entrants can get into farming, access to land, planning and development. We hope to share our experiences so that others can save time, cost and stress in trying to achieve the same or similar results.