In 2006, as part of the York Festival of Food and Drink, 80 people sat down to a glittering dinner in the Merchant Adventurer’s Hall. The dinner was based around some very special beef, reared in the Yorkshire Dales under a remarkable scheme created by Natural England (formerly English Nature) in collaboration with the National Trust and the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

The scheme is called the Limestone Country Project and was set up in 2002 when it was realised that the unique flora and fauna of the area around Wharfedale, Ingleborough and Malham - Limestone Country - was under threat.

Sheep that grazed the fells, and roamed the limestone pavements were eating everything in their path. A unique habitat, right in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, one of the most beautiful and distinctive areas of Britain, was being systematically destroyed.

Small scabious, bloody cranesbill, rockrose and early purple orchids thrive in the thin limestone grassland. Limestone fern and Solomon’s Seal grow in the cracks and ‘grikes’ of the limestone pavements laid down some 300 million years ago. Juniper grows on grassland. Ling, cranberry, and sphagnum moss are found in the lowland bogs. There are woodlands of ash and hazel and beneath their canopy, dark red helleborine, giant bellflowers, columbine and the herb Paris all thrive.

But this precious habitat was under pressure. Farm intensification, chemical fertilisers, invasive species of thistle and bracken, a proliferation of rabbits and the grazing of sheep had led to a decline in the flora and fauna. So severe was the threat to this areas of Special Scientific Interest, that a £1.27m scheme was launched by Natural England, together with the National Trust and the Yorkshire Dales National Park, to try and halt its decline.

The aim of the Limestone Country Project was to persuade farmers to switch from predominantly sheep to a mixture of sheep and cattle. Sheep graze over a wide area and feed on the best and lushest vegetation. Cattle, on the other hand, roam far less and are happy with tougher, less nutritious herbage. It was hoped that if farmers would be willing to rear cattle alongside sheep, the delicate balance of flora and fauna could be restored.

Louise Williams, a 27 year old Leeds University science graduate, working for the Yorkshire Dales National Park, was given the task of converting a group of diehard Yorkshire farmers to rear traditional breeds of cattle not seen in the Dales since their grandfather’s time. Belted Galloways, Beef Shorthorns, Blue Greys, Dexters, Herefords and Luings are hardy breeds that can stay out on the bleak northern fells through most of the year.

Fifteen farmers agreed to take up the grants and convert to beef. By the summer of 2005, the Limestone Project cattle were reaching maturity, but no one had given much thought to marketing this very special beef.

Sally Scantlebury and Rebecca Roberts, of Feast, a Skipton based company which helps unite regional food producers with retailers, restaurateurs and consumers, were asked if they could help. They began by holding a meeting with the participating farmers in Grassington town hall. They explained to the farmers that the beef they had produced over the last three years was of the finest quality and very special, a niche product which should be marketed to top chefs and discerning consumers.

“There we were, two girls with pink handbags in front of all these men. They just let us spout off’. Ranks of stony faced Dales farmers stood and listened with arms folded ‘and said nowt’, remembers Sally.

Only by driving out to every one of the fifteen farms and by sitting down in the farmhouse kitchen and explaining to each farmer face to face the value of the meat they were producing, did the women really get taken seriously.

In the autumn of 2005 the first Limestone Country Beef hit the market, with a workshop at the York Festival of Food and Drink. Sally Scantlebury ran a blind tasting. Different Limestone Beef breeds were tasted alongside a supermarket’s 21-day matured. ‘Side by side, the breeds looked and tasted very different,’ says Sally ‘but they stood up very well against the supermarket beef and people were quite amazed’. It was no contest; the Limestone Beef won every time. Colin Robinson a butcher from Grassington, ran a stall at the Festival market and sold all his stock in three days. He now stocks nothing but Limestone Country Beef in his shop on the High Street www.britnett-carver.co.uk

The Limestone Country Project was due to end this year but it has been so successful with a further two farmers joining the scheme, that it will continue for another year. The farmers have set up their own marketing company, Limestone Country Beef Limited, so that eventually they will market their Limestone Beef independently. Flowers are returning to the limestone Dales. The rare Mountain Everlasting is once more appearing in the limestone grassland and the limestone pavements are back to the conditions they were before intensive grazing. It will take a few more years to see the full extent of the recovery, but everyone involved considers the Limestone Country Project a success. Celebrate and support this remarkable project and enjoy some fabulous beef by buying Limestone Country beef whenever you see it on sale.

Colin Robinson, butcher, Grassington
Jackson’s of Cracoe
Town End Farm Shop, Airton, Skipton
Feast linking producers and consumer
Limestone Country Project
York Festival of Food and Drink

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