A C Goatham and Son Farms

Farms

AC Goatham and Son own and manage 14 farms across Kent. In the last 25 years the business has gone from two farms to growing 50,000 bins or 16.5 million kilos of apples and pears.

This is our headquarters site; we store, pack and distribute around 30% of our fruit from this farm. Our orchards grow Gala, Cox and Bramley apples which are destined for Sainsbury, Morrisons or the wholesale markets.
We have replaced hedges and trees around our orchards, creating a great habitat for a wide range of insects and bees which work hard in the orchards.
Howt Green became part of our business in 2008, it is planted with different varieties of apples – Bramley, Braeburn, Gala and Fuji, we also have 2 orchards of conference pears and 2.25 hectares of protected cherries. At this farm we have invested heavily in new cold storage to meet the rising volume of fruit we produce, we have been able to build these with the assistance of a SEEDA grant.
Griffin’s farm became part of our business in 2008; it is planted with Gala, Cox and Zari apples and Conference pears. The whole farm is in a stewardship scheme; this means that we use an Integrated Pest management plan (reduced Pesticides) and through grass and hedge land management we work hard to raise the numbers of beneficial insects and bees who also help with fruit tree health. We have a large irrigation lake on the farm which is let to a local angling society; they tell us that the water quality is excellent and there good population of very healthy fish in there.

Our other farms

Gore farm is an ambassador farm for the Kent Wildlife Trust, we grow Gala, Braeburn and Rubens apples and it is our only farm which is open to the public. Gore farm is home to The Barnyard www.the-barnyard.com , we have a big collection of animals for all the family to meet, from reindeer to rheas to rabbits, a large restaurant, a farm shop and we are also a wedding venue.

Many visitors to The Barnyard also take the time to walk around the farm; we have many information boards talking about our farming practices, the wildlife which lives in the orchards and the fruit industry as a whole. Gore farm won the East Kent Fruit Society orchard competition of 2011.

We grow apples, pears, cherries and strawberries across 10 other sites in Kent. We maintain an integrated pest management system throughout all orchards, this delivers low residues and low pesticide usage, we are also working hard to restore hedges, small areas of woodland and to ensure that there are extensive wildflower margins around irrigation reservoirs. We work hard to ensure that our business is one of a low environmental impact.