Farmer Lewis Winter with the crop of cucumbers at Trinity Farm(Image: Nottingham Post/Lynette Pinchess)

Inside the daily struggles at Nottinghamshire farm shop as desperate plea for help issued

21 Jun 2026, 05:00 by Lynette Pinchess · NottinghamshireLive

Labour costs and taxes are crippling small farms

Nottinghamshire's s oldest organic farm grows more than 150 different varieties of fruit and vegetables, while the free range eggs sell out every day.

Trinity Farm boasts a farm shop, cafe and a camp site within a verdant green valley surrounded by the conurbation.

On the face of it, it's idyllic. But behind the scenes at the 20-acre farm, it's an every day struggle. Like farms up and down the country, the cost of labour and taxes is crippling.

The farm employs around 12 staff but because of "tax on tax on tax" the tenant farmer can't afford to expand the workforce to take care of the many tasks around the site — from digging and picking crops to clearing woodland paths and watering the plants on sale.

Farmer Lewis Winter and his wife Cheryl took over the farm, off Awsworth Lane, Cossall, 35 years ago when it was barren land.

Today there's greenhouses, polytunnels, orchards, free range chickens who reside in old caravans, wildflowers, ponds and a campsite, complete with a new shower and toilet block.

Mrs Winter, a retired school teacher, said: "With the wages as they are now, £12.71 is the minimum wage an hour, so for land like this you need at least four or five people. You can imagine the amount of money that's going to put on the produce. You can't do it. No farm can. We are desperate for volunteers.

"We're not mechanical so everything we do, we do by hand. We don't want to use a tractor as it impacts the land. No chemicals or sprays are used."

Volunteers would be rewarded with a lunch provided by the cafe and refreshments.

The farm grows cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, peas, celery, pumpkins, kale, courgettes, all variety of beans and Swiss chard to name but a few.

The orchards are abundant with apples, plums and pears but there's no longer any soft fruits, such as strawberries, because the labour picking cost is so punitive. That's why so many farms now do pick-your-own, getting customers to do the work.

Mr Winter said: "In an ideal world a few volunteers a day would be wonderful, even a couple a day just to take the pressure off.

"There's so many things this time of year. Depending on people's physical attributes, if it's a young strong male, and they wanted to get a sweat on, there's plenty of digging and physical graft but someone getting to an age could pick cucumbers. It would be very helpful.

"A classic time is when it's the apple harvest. To have a mob of hands to pick all the apples would be a great asset. All the elderflowers are flowering at the moment. I've got all sorts of producers begging me for organic elderflowers but I can't justify the cost of paying around £13 an hour for someone to pick blossom."

Other jobs include litter picking, clearing weeds and grass near the beehives, and making beetle banks.

Mr Winter said previously people with mental health problems and special needs have found volunteering very rewarding.

"There's a lovely rhythm here and a gentle environment. They do find succour from actually just being with nature. We get wild deer wandering through and the bat collection is quite incredible and we have three types of owls that we see hunting every night. It's just a lovely environment."

It's never been a more challenging time for farmers.

Mr Winter said: "Traditional farming is making no money. It's losing money everywhere. The supermarkets have taken control of all the supply chains and it's bankrupting farms across the nation. And with all these government taxes there's not a lot of hope for farmers. It's very scary.

"It's just tax on tax on tax on something that's a very small percentage of profit, because of the sheer labour involved in growing a vegetable doesn't reflect in the price. We have to match prices within reason to supermarkets and they're bringing it in from all quarters of the globe and often the Third World where labour is incredibly cheap.

"We used to grow for Sainsbury's and Waitrose when they first went organic around 2003. Now we will not supply supermarkets because they are too ruthless and very difficult to work with. That's why we opened to the public."

Inheritance tax means farms are getting smaller as families are forced to sell off a sections of land to pay it and less land means fewer crops.

"It means over the next few decades there won't be any small farms left. They'll just be the corporations and I'm not sure that's healthy for our community. It's very worrying," said Mr Winter.

Trinity Farm used to sell fresh milk but foot and mouth disease put an end to that. The site has become popular with campers, operating under the government's 60-day rule which allows farmers to set up temporary campsites for up to 60 days per year without the need for a planning application.

But the decision to change from pop-up to permanent has brought a whole new raft of costs — not just for planning permission but pushing them into a new tax band.

"Now we have got to find another X-thousand pounds a year so anything we're earning from the camping is completely negated."

Mr Winter used to attend the same school as TV star Jeremy Clarkson, who bought Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire in 2008. Ironic, since he took the mickey out of Mr Winter, calling him a hippy when he became an organic farmer 35 years ago.

"I went in as a young dad because I wanted to get my children out of the rat race and the city and provide them with food," he said.

Now nearing the age of 66, none of his grown-up children have an interest in farming. "They chose safer careers and make fun of me, saying they've got proper jobs because they get two days off a week whereas often we do seven days a week, all year round."

Recently the farm has been fundraising to buy livestock to make visits by young school children more interesting.

"We'd like a couple of interesting rare breeds of sheep, some miniature pigs, a couple of Dexter cows and goats because we used to have a whole milking herd of goats here years ago and I've got a real soft spot for goats.

Farm shop customer Linda Kirk, of Wollaton, has volunteered to help out. "I said I'd give them one day a week and I thought he was going to hug me. He said we're happy if someone wants to give a couple of hours here and there. It doesn't have to be whole days or weeks. It's a dire situation really.

"Trinity Farm has some lovely products. I'm always up there for my peppers and kale. It's nice food. And the cafe is definitely worth a visit.

"This time of year the weather's nice and I love being out in the fresh air anyway, gardening and stuff. It's going to be a joyful experience for people and you're going to see something at the end of it that makes you feel part of something really good."

Anyone interested in volunteering is asked to contact info@trinityfarmorganics.co.uk