The Pumpkin Patch That Refused to Close and the 'Useless' Wood Now Earning About £40,000 a Pod: 9 Lessons From the 2026 British Farming Awards Finalists
On a 100-hectare farm on the Cheshire–Lancashire border, two sisters grew up selling pumpkins.
It was a childhood sideline. A few pumpkins, a few pounds, a bit of fun every October.
Then, in 2023, their father Michael died. Fiona was 24. Almost overnight, she and her sister Alison were running a fourth-generation family farm.
They could have done what most farmers do in a crisis: cut costs, keep their heads down and hope next year's prices were kinder.
Instead, they turned the pumpkin patch into a front door.
Today Bates Farm sells pumpkin picking in autumn, Meet the Lambs sessions in spring and Christmas events in winter. A coffee trailer serves visitors. A summer farm café opened in 2025, with weekend food and live-music pop-ups. And a 5K farm run, fitness classes and a cycle club bring local people back week after week. Along the way, the sisters have raised more than £22,000 for Cancer Research.
About 200 miles north, near Penicuik just south of Edinburgh, another farmer was looking at a different problem: two patches of woodland that earned nothing. Gavin Brown and his wife bought Springfield Farm in 2011, a challenging 122-hectare holding. They won planning permission for 14 holiday pods on that unused woodland. Six are open. Each one, according to the farm's awards profile, brings in around £40,000 a year.
Both farms are finalists in the 2026 British Farming Awards. The winners will be named on Thursday 15 October at VOX in Birmingham.
Win or lose, they've already taught every farmer two lessons worth far more than a trophy:
One season can grow into twelve months of income. And the land that earns nothing today may be your most valuable acre tomorrow.
I've spent more than 30 years around farms, visitors, contracts and insurance policies. Below I'll show you how these finalists did it, the government numbers that prove it isn't luck, the legal and insurance traps that catch farmers out, and 9 lessons you can use on your own land, wherever you farm.
What you will learn in this article ✅ Who made the 2026 British Farming Awards diversification shortlist, and what they built ✅ Why side businesses now earn English farms more than farming itself ✅ How Bates Farm turned one pumpkin patch into a year-round venue ✅ How Springfield Farm turned unused woodland into about £40,000 a pod ✅ The UK planning, food, animal, insurance and tax rules to check first ✅ 9 lessons you can use on any farm, in any country |
The News in One Minute
The British Farming Awards, organised by Farmers Guardian's parent company Agriconnect, are in their 14th year. The shortlist came out in July. In mid-September the organisers published profiles of every diversification finalist: five in the Small/Medium category on 16 September and six in the Large category on 18 September.
Here are the farms worth studying, and the one number from each that should make you sit up:
Finalist | Where | What they built | The number |
|---|---|---|---|
Bates Farm | Cheshire | Pumpkins grew into lambs, Christmas, a café, a 5K run and fitness classes | £22,000+ raised for Cancer Research |
Springfield Farm | Midlothian | Holiday pods on unused woodland, plus livery and meat sales | About £40,000 per pod a year |
Wallhope Farm | Gloucestershire | Own-brand milk, gelato, a self-service shop and holiday lets | Carried the farm through losing a third of the herd to TB |
Fron Farm | Flintshire | A campsite that began with walkers asking to pitch a tent in 1962 | 220 pitches today |
Rackery Farm | Wrexham | Safari tents, a farm shop and café, a dog field and dog wash | 300+ visitors on busy weekend days |
Marshall's Farm Shop | Aberdeenshire | A self-service trailer that grew into a farm shop, butchery and restaurant | 180-seat restaurant, 135 shop staff |
Glebe Farm Foods | Cambridgeshire | Gluten-free oats milled into food and oat milk on the farm | About £1.7m of sales a month |
The rest of the shortlist (New Sheepfold Farm, James Casswell, Dowsons Dairies and Let's Farm) is just as impressive. But two farms answer the question every struggling farmer asks: what do I do with the months, and the acres, that don't pay?
Why This Matters More Than Any Trophy
Here's a fact that should change how you think about your farm.
In England, Defra's latest Farm Business Survey (2024/25) found the average farm made £71,200 of Farm Business Income. Farming itself, the crops and livestock, contributed just £14,200. Diversification contributed £22,400, or 31%. On the average English farm, the side businesses now out-earn the farming.
This isn't a handful of hobby farms. 72% of English farm businesses had at least one diversified activity in 2024/25, up from 61% a decade earlier. Among the farms that diversify, the average side business brought in £31,100, and for 26% of them it provided at least half of their total income. (If you want the bigger picture from the US and elsewhere, see my roundup of agritourism statistics.)
Scotland tells the same story from the visitor side. VisitScotland's agritourism survey, published in April 2026, valued Scotland's agritourism and farm retail sector at £292.9 million, with 2.5 million visitors and 888 businesses. In 2022 the figures were £170 million and 1.5 million visitors. The industry had set itself a goal of £250 million by 2030. The latest figure is already above it.
The Scottish Government's own farm income figures show the gap growing. In 2024-25, farms with diversified activities earned on average £32,600 more than farms without them.
And more farmers are coming. NFU Mutual's 2024 research found 17% of farmers planned to start a new diversification within five years, and 40% of those already diversified planned to grow it further.
So the question isn't whether visitors will pay farmers. They already do. The question is whether they'll pay you, and whether they'll do it all year round.
Story 1: The Pumpkin Patch That Refused to Close
Most pumpkin patches are a two-week sugar rush. October arrives, cars fill the field, cash fills the tin. Then November comes, and the farm goes quiet for ten months.
Bates Farm did something smarter. The sisters treated October not as the business, but as the first introduction.
Look at the order in which things were added:
Pumpkin sales, a childhood sideline.
Pumpkin picking, turning a crop into an experience.
Meet the Lambs, giving the same families a reason to come back in spring.
Christmas events, giving them a reason to come back in winter.
The Uproot coffee trailer, giving every visitor something to buy while they're there.
A summer farm café from 2025, with weekend food and live-music pop-ups to fill the warm months.
A 5K farm run, fitness classes and a cycle club, turning one-off visitors into regulars who come every week.
Each step reuses the crowd the previous step built. Nobody had to find a brand-new audience. The family who picked pumpkins in October already knew the way to the farm in March.
That's the real lesson. A pumpkin patch is a seasonal product. A relationship with local families can be sold twelve months a year. (For more ideas to fill your quiet months, see my list of 30 farm events by season, with real ticket prices.)
There's a second lesson in how the sisters split the work. Fiona leads the farming and day-to-day operations; Alison drives the creativity, marketing and commercial side. Many diversifications fail not because the idea is bad, but because one exhausted farmer is trying to be stockman, builder, barista and marketing department at once.
And there's the heart. After their father died, the sisters sold pink pumpkins at £8 each for Cancer Research in his memory, and quickly raised nearly £5,000. That isn't a marketing trick. It's a real story told honestly. But it shows something every farm should understand: people don't just buy pumpkins, they buy into the family behind them.
Field-Tested Play: Sell the next season before this one ends On your busiest weekend, tell visitors what to come back for next. Put a sign by the till, a card in every bag and a QR code for your email or WhatsApp list: "Lambs arrive in March. Be the first to know." The cheapest visitor you will ever get is the one who has already been. |
Bates isn't the only UK farm to build on pumpkins. Read how Farmer Copleys grew to 300,000 pumpkins and 8,000 visitors a day, and how a weekend pumpkin patch in the US now pulls in 150,000+ visitors a year.
Story 2: The Wood Nobody Used
Springfield Farm's story starts with a problem many farmers know too well: land that is hard to farm.
Gavin Brown and his wife bought the 122-hectare holding in 2011 and built it up piece by piece. Today it runs more than 200 commercial ewes, 30 pedigree Suffolk ewes and pedigree Simmental and Highland cattle. Around that core they added a livery yard with 16 stables, a meat business called Springfield Game and Country Meats, wind turbines and 60 acres of new woodland.
Then came the move that put them on the shortlist. They gained planning permission for 14 holiday pods on two areas of woodland that weren't being used for anything. Six are open now, and according to the awards profile each one brings in about £40,000 a year.
Do the arithmetic. Six pods at roughly £40,000 each is about £240,000 a year from ground that was producing nothing. If all 14 consented pods matched today's average, that would be somewhere around £560,000. That's my own projection, not the farm's figure, and real businesses rarely grow in a straight line. But it shows why that wood was never really "useless".
Why do they earn so much? Holiday listings describe pods that sleep up to six, each with a kitchen, a private hot tub and a barbecue, open all year and about half an hour from Edinburgh. Guests can buy the farm's own meat for that barbecue: another till. Location, comfort and a real farm story, working together.
Reality Check: £40,000 is turnover, not profit Pods are expensive to buy, install, connect to water, power and drainage, furnish, clean and insure. Hot tubs need daily care. Cleaning and laundry between every booking are real labour costs. Before you copy this, build a simple budget: build cost per pod, yearly running cost, realistic occupancy for your area and how many years it takes to pay back. Then compare it with what the same land earns now. |
Field-Tested Play: Get permission for more than you build Springfield won consent for 14 pods but has opened 6. That lets the business grow from the cash the first pods earn, instead of borrowing for all 14 on day one. If you are going through planning anyway, ask for the full scheme you would one day like, then build it in phases. |
If you're weighing up accommodation, compare these numbers with my breakdown of how much Hipcamp hosts earn on a farm and why simple cabins can outperform luxury farm stays.
The Pattern Behind Every Finalist
Read all eleven finalist profiles and one pattern jumps out. None of these families walked away from farming. Each found a way to sell the farm's people, place and produce more than once.
In Gloucestershire, Sarah Bevan and Paul Williams took on Wallhope Farm in 2022. They began pasteurising their own milk in 2023, opened a self-service shop, launched gelato and added holiday accommodation. Then bovine TB cost them a third of their herd. Their finalist profile says the diversification income proved vital. That's the part people miss: diversification isn't only extra money. It's an insurance policy that pays out when farming has a bad year.
In Flintshire, Fron Farm's tourism began in 1962, when walkers asked to pitch a tent for the night. Today it has 220 pitches, a farm shop and a café, and the tourism income helps fund a herd of more than 450 Wagyu cattle.
In Wrexham, the Jones family sold their pedigree Holstein herd after Andrew Jones was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2018. Rather than leave farming, they put three luxury safari tents in an eight-acre field. Their daughter and son-in-law opened a farm shop with an 80-seat café in 2024 that now draws 300+ visitors on busy weekend days. A dog field and dog wash followed in 2025, and pumpkins are next.
And in Aberdeenshire, the Marshall family's diversification began in the 1990s with a self-service trailer. Today there's a farm shop, a butchery and a 180-seat restaurant that opened in 2021, with 135 farm-shop staff.
Small beginnings, every one. A tent. A trailer. A childhood pumpkin sideline.
The mind map above is the whole business model in one picture. A visitor who comes for one thing can buy five more, and if you capture their contact details, they come back next season too. That's exactly how Hunt Club Farm built a year-round money machine.
9 Lessons for Your Farm, Wherever You Farm
Start with what you already have. Bates already grew pumpkins. Springfield already owned the woodland. Walkers were already passing Fron Farm. Your first attraction is probably on your farm right now.
Treat your seasonal attraction as a front door, not the whole house. Use it to meet local families, then give them reasons to return.
Add one season at a time. Pumpkins, then lambs, then Christmas, then a café, then fitness. Each step was small enough to manage and learn from.
Put a till in front of every visitor. Coffee, cake, meat, eggs, gelato, gifts. The entry ticket is rarely where the profit is.
Look hard at your "dead" land. A wet corner, a steep wood, an empty shed. If it earns nothing today, ask what a visitor would pay to stay, play or park there.
Turn visitors into members. A run club, a fitness class or a cycle club brings the same people back every week, in every season.
Divide the jobs. Someone runs the farm and someone runs the guests. Bates split farming from marketing. Rackery brought the next generation in to run the shop.
Build in phases, paid for by cash. Get permission for the full plan, then build what the first stage can pay for.
Get the legal and insurance basics right before you open. It's the part the glossy photos never show, and it's next.
The Legal and Insurance Homework Most Farmers Skip
This is where my years in law and insurance come in. Every finalist above is a licensed, insured business. Too many farms open first and ask questions after the first complaint, accident or tax bill. Use this flow chart as your checklist. It's written for England and Scotland, but every country has its own version of each step.
1. Planning and licensing
In England, a permitted development right called Class BC lets you run a temporary campsite for up to 60 days a year with up to 50 pitches, if you provide toilets and waste facilities and notify your council each year. It doesn't cover permanent structures, so pods and shepherd's huts normally need full planning permission.
In Scotland, pods need planning permission, and the host will usually need a short-term let licence too: government guidance names glamping pods and shepherd's huts as examples. Operating without a required licence is a criminal offence with a fine of up to £2,500, and licence conditions include public liability insurance and fire, gas and electrical safety.
2. Food and drink
Coffee trailer, café or weekend pop-up: register as a food business with your council at least 28 days before you start trading. The rule is the same in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, and registration is free. My guide to selling food on your farm covers the permits each kind of food business needs.
3. Animals and visitors
Meet the Lambs is magic for families. It also carries real risk. In 2009, an E. coli O157 outbreak linked to Godstone Farm in Surrey affected 93 people, most of them children under 10. Seventeen children developed haemolytic uraemic syndrome, a serious kidney complication, and eight needed dialysis. The review that followed concluded that handwashing alone cannot be relied on.
Today's Industry Code of Practice, endorsed by the Health and Safety Executive, expects soap-and-water handwashing near the exits of animal areas (gels and wipes are not a substitute), no eating where animals can be touched, and supervised children. My petting zoo handwashing guide shows how to set it up. And at lambing time, UK government guidance says pregnant women should avoid ewes giving birth, newborn lambs and afterbirth, because of infections such as enzootic abortion, toxoplasmosis and Q fever. Put that on your booking page and your signs.
4. Runs and events
A 5K farm run brings people back every month, but a stumble on a rutted track can become a claim. A race licensed through England Athletics' RunEvents service or scottishathletics brings public liability cover for the event, up to £50 million on England Athletics licences. Licences go to affiliated organisations, so partnering with a local running club is often the easiest route.
5. Insurance
Under the Occupiers' Liability Act 1957 (England and Wales) and the Occupiers' Liability (Scotland) Act 1960, you owe visitors reasonable care, and you must be prepared for children to be less careful than adults. Many farm policies include £10 million of public and products liability, but a policy written for farming may not cover a café, accommodation, fitness classes or animal encounters unless you declare them. Tell your insurer about every activity, in writing, before you open. My agritourism insurance guide lists the questions to ask.
6. Tax and succession
The Furnished Holiday Lettings tax regime ended in April 2025, so pod income is now taxed under ordinary property rules, with tighter treatment of finance costs and the loss of reliefs such as Business Asset Disposal Relief. And from 6 April 2026, 100% Agricultural and Business Property Relief from inheritance tax is capped at £2.5 million per person. Land taken out of farming for visitors may no longer count as agricultural, and in the Pawson case (2013) a holiday let was ruled mainly an investment, so it didn't qualify for Business Property Relief. Talk to a tax adviser before you build, not after.
Reality Check: This is a map, not legal advice This section is general information, not legal or tax advice, and rules change. Farming outside the UK? Your country will have its own version of every step: planning or zoning, food registration, animal-contact rules, event permits, liability law and tax. Check each one locally before you open the gate. |
What This Looks Like on My Own Farm
On my durian farm in Malaysia, Bloopy Durians, the durian season is my pumpkin patch. It's short, it's intense and it brings the crowds. The challenge is the same one Bates Farm solved: what happens when the season ends?
One answer is a WhatsApp list of loyal customers who buy durians whenever they're available. That list keeps the relationship alive between seasons, the way a café and a run club do in Cheshire. We also supply durians for corporate events, tents can be pitched at the farm for customers, and Taylor's University and TAR UMT have each sent a busload of students to the farm. Small steps, each one reusing the trust the last one built.
My farm has been featured in Bloomberg News and Asahi Shimbun. But the lesson I'd pass on isn't about press coverage. It's the one these British finalists prove: a farm that sells only one season is always one bad season away from trouble. A farm that sells a relationship can earn all year.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who are the 2026 British Farming Awards diversification finalists?
Small/Medium: Bates Farm (Cheshire), Sarah Bevan and Paul Williams of Wallhope Farm (Gloucestershire), James Casswell (Lincolnshire), New Sheepfold Farm (North Yorkshire) and Springfield Farm (Midlothian). Large: Dowsons Dairies (Lancashire), Fron Farm (Flintshire), Glebe Farm Foods (Cambridgeshire), Let's Farm (Cheshire), Marshall's Farm Shop (Aberdeenshire) and Rackery Farm (Wrexham). The winners are announced on 15 October 2026 at VOX in Birmingham.
How much can glamping pods earn on a farm?
Springfield Farm in Midlothian reports about £40,000 a year per pod. That is turnover, not profit, and results depend on location, price, occupancy and running costs.
Do I need planning permission for glamping pods in the UK?
Usually, yes. England's 60-day temporary campsite right (Class BC) does not cover permanent structures such as pods, and in Scotland pods will usually also need a short-term let licence.
How much of a UK farm's income comes from diversification?
In England in 2024/25, diversification brought in £22,400 of the average £71,200 Farm Business Income, about 31%, more than farming itself (£14,200).
Your Next Step
Every finalist in this article started small: a tent, a trailer, a childhood pumpkin sideline. None of them started by guessing. They started with what their farm already had.
Find out what yours has. Take my free Farm Readiness Quiz. In a few minutes it shows which parts of your farm are ready for visitors and what to fix first.
Then download the free 21-Point Agritourism Blueprint, a step-by-step checklist for getting your farm ready for paying visitors.
The British Farming Awards trophies will be handed out on Thursday. Your farm's best season could start the week after.
Stephen Loke, AgritourismSuccess.com
This article is independent and is not affiliated with the British Farming Awards or the farms named. Figures are as reported by the sources below at the time of writing and may change. Photos marked illustrative are not of the farms named.
Sources
Farmers Guardian: 2026 British Farming Awards shortlist announced (24 Jul 2026)
NFU: Family farm sells pink pumpkins for worthy cause (Bates Farm)
Scottish Agriculture Awards: Diversified Farm of the Year finalists (Springfield Farm, Marshall's)
Farmers Weekly: Almost three-quarters of farms diversify to subsidise income
Scottish Government: Scottish farm business income 2024-25, diversified income gap
The Scottish Farmer: Scotland agritourism sector value and 2030 target
FarmingUK: More farmers seeking to diversify (NFU Mutual research, 2024)
legislation.gov.uk: Class BC temporary recreational campsites
Scottish Government: Short-term lets licensing guidance for hosts
GOV.UK: E. coli O157 report and recommendations from the 2009 Godstone incident
GOV.UK: Pregnancy, advice on contact with animals that are giving birth
legislation.gov.uk: Occupiers' Liability Act 1957, section 2
legislation.gov.uk: Occupiers' Liability (Scotland) Act 1960, section 2
GOV.UK: Abolition of the Furnished Holiday Lettings tax regime
GOV.UK: Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief changes
Upper Tribunal: HMRC v Personal Representatives of Pawson (2013)
Photo: Pick your own pumpkins, Andy Beecroft / Geograph, CC BY-SA 2.0
Photo: Glamping pods, Silverburn Park, Bill Kasman / Geograph, CC BY-SA 2.0
Photo: Lamb feeding at Pennywell Farm, AngusMurray1989 / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
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