Jody Scheckter

Nikki Spencer-2009-01-12

 

He’s deadly serious about producing the “best tasting, healthiest food without compromise” and Laverstoke Park Farm, his 2,500 acre organic and biodynamic estate near Basingstoke in Hampshire, now supplies everyone from Waitrose and the Gourmet Burger Kitchen chain to Michelin star restaurants and hotels including Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck and Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons.

 

It’s understandable that a past motor racing champion should have an interest in tyres but what’s bothering Jody on the day we meet is not how fast they will take him but the damage they may do to his precious soil. Jody has just taken delivery of a new composter and he is concerned that the tyres on it are not wide enough.
“I like big fat tyres,” he declares as he gives me a guided tour of his farm and we drive past vast piles of steaming compost. “Narrow tyres compact the soil which means plants will grow less,” he explains.

 

Jody is passionate about soil which he believes is “90% of farming”.
"Healthy Soil = Healthy Grass = Healthy Animals = Healthy Meat and Milk = Healthy People!” he declares in his company brochure which is fronted with a smiley portrait of Farmer Scheckter (painted by his son Freddie when he was four) surrounded by happy looking sheep and pigs.

 

It’s quite a turn around for the man who used to make a living driving flat-out burning rubber, not to mention carbon, and now enthuses about being the owner of the first tractor in the UK adapted to run on pure pressed rapeseed oil.

 

“It all started in America” explains Jody as we whiz around in a shiny silver Mercedes 4X4.”I had a high-tech company and I bought a farm just to go to at weekends. My wife gave me a book on organics. I read it and it became a passion.”

 

On returning to the UK 11 years ago (Clare, Scheckter’s second wife is British and wanted to educate their children here) Jody originally purchased 530 acres of land with the intention of producing food for himself and his family but when he realised that meant, as a smallholder, he had to eat beef continuously for eight weeks whenever a cow was slaughtered he decided to make his food available to the public.

 

Six years ago he bought Laverstock Park Farm and set about turning his vision for future food production into a reality. For him that means two vital factors. “One is that slow growing animals and plants are generally healthier and taste better, and two that biodiversity is the key to a healthier natural environment. We go to extremes in every way to follow these two principles,” he explains.

 

Biodynamics was started in 1924 by Rudolf Steiner. Under biodynamic philosophies the farm is regarded as a whole unit, biodynamic preparations are added to the compost and the land and planting follows the cycles of the moon as closely as possible.

 

At Laverstoke Park they have created their own “mixed salad” of 31 different herbs, clovers and grasses for their rare-breed animals and poultry and planted approximately 13km of new hedges and over 130,000 locally native trees.

 

“We haven’t analysed the impact on wildlife” Jody says “but the River
Test runs through here and there has been an amazing difference in the number of insects since we started and people in the village say that there is a difference in bird life too.”

 

Scheckter says that it has taken a while for some locals to come round to his way of thinking (a few apparently suggested he “go back to Africa!”) but that “neighbours have learnt that what we are doing is the right thing and are becoming more and more positive. Every week they had someone spraying chemicals now they have buffalo breaking into their gardens,” he quips.

 

“I don’t go to cocktail parties that often,” he reveals,” but when I do, chances are people will tell me that they have had a visit from our buffalo. They are actually very placid animals but they are very strong and obstinate!”

 

Buffalo, Jody believes are a greatly underdeveloped bovine with meat that is like good quality beef but leaner and juicier. He sells his award-winning buffalo burgers to the Gourmet Burger Kitchen chain and has just started supplying Waitrose with buffalo milk. “They produce half the milk of traditional cows but it¹s twice as good,” he declares.

 

The milk can be used as a substitute for those with allergy problems relating to cow’s milk but is probably most well known for producing mozzarella cheese. Jody claims that theirs is the “best mozzarella you can get in England as it’s fresh” and that their buffalo milk ice cream is “fantastic!”

 

Although Scheckter may look to the beginning of the last century for his inspiration – he has a whole library of over 500 reference books, many of which date back to that time and declares it to be “the best era for natural farming” – he is also very much an advocate of 21st century technology. “We follow nature strictly, but use the latest scientific research, techniques and equipment,” he explains. He calls Laverstoke a “university of organics” and the farm has its own
on-site Biology and Chemistry laboratories where they study ways in which their system of farming affects the taste and health of the food they produce, and provide a soil analysis service for research centres, farms, horticulturalists and gardeners.

 

There is also a state-of-the-art abattoir designed to minimise distress to animals in the last minutes of their lives, something Jody believes makes a big difference to the end product. “The way meat is killed changes the taste and colour so it is critical to make sure the animals are not stressed when they are slaughtered,” he explains adding that to him “this is nature’s way of telling us to be humane to animals”.

 

As we pick up speed on the straight and head back to the house it comes as no surprise to discover that Jody is not prepared to rest on his laurels quite yet. “I always look at what I haven’t done and there is so much more to do,” he declares.

 

“We are saying we want to be want to self-sustaining on energy and carbon-neutral within two years. We have a biomass boiler which heats the glasshouses and I am about to put a biomass boiler on my house. I am also looking at installing an anaerobic digester for the production of electricity supplemented by a wind turbine.”

 

He also plans to expand their product range. Last summer saw the launch of Laverstoke Park Farm Organic Ale, made from traditional hops and barley grown on the farm. They have also established a vineyard and are currently applying for planning permission for a winery.

 

Jody harks back to his time on the winner’s podium when he declares that he hopes to have his own champagne ready “to spray for the Olympic Games in England in 2012”. An interesting aim for a man who was once drenched in the stuff.

 

 

Laverstoke Park Farm has two farm shops stocking a variety of their produce including meats, milk, ice-cream, cheeses, pies, bacon, eggs and seasonal fruit and veg.

 

The Overton Farm Shop two miles south of Overton near Basingstoke in North Hampshire is open Tues - Sat (01265 771571) and has its own butcher’s shop.

 

The Lymington Farm Shop, at their fruit and vegetable production arm at King’s Lane Nurseries, Sway, Hampshire (01590 683 139) is open on Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays.