This story was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful
Andrey Ivanov remembers 2011 and 2012 all too clearly. A drought had been declared across much of England. The spring of 2011 was named the driest in the country since 1893, followed by the region’s driest autumn since 1985.
This put a brief end to the usual complaints about the stereotypically rainy English weather. But for Ivanov, general manager of Wilkin & Sons, the farming operation known for producing the country’s most iconic fruit, this was bad news.
Ivanov had a tough decision to make. With the farm’s reservoirs running low and no rain in sight, he decided to use the remaining water supply to irrigate half the farm’s signature strawberry and raspberry crops. The other half would be sacrificed, to give the irrigated crop the best chance of being fully harvestable. The alternative would be unthinkable: continue to irrigate all crops equally, then run out of water and lose everything.
Then, on April 12, 2012, “the heavens opened,” Ivanov recalls, the date clearly imprinted in his memory. The driest season on record turned into the wettest, saving all of the crop. But Ivanov didn’t want the farm to reach such a crisis point again, so he began looking for solutions — and realized the answer had been above his head, and on the farm, all along.
Rainwater harvesting had been introduced at Wilkin & Sons on a small scale in the 1980s, by diverting rainwater traveling through the gutters from the farm’s buildings into newly built reservoirs to store it. Ivanov then expanded the process to include the roof space of all the farm’s greenhouses and polytunnels (smaller greenhouse-like structures) and built more reservoirs to increase the amount of rainwater the farm could store. Now, pipes are attached to all the gutters within the farm’s 50 acres of covered structures, so rainwater can travel to seven reservoirs across the 650 acre property, rather than being lost to the sea.
“After that scary moment we had to do something to become water resilient, and rainwater harvesting seemed like common sense,” Ivanov says. He also introduced a system for recovering and treating the water that is used to wash the harvested fruit, to be able to use it again for irrigation. Condensation from the greenhouses’ external walls is also captured and reused.
Today, all seven reservoirs are full, holding 125 million liters of water, the equivalent of around 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools. It’s the first time Wilkin & Sons has been fully self-sufficient when it comes to water, with no need to divert water from nearby streams and ditches (although the farm still has a license to do so; this used to be its primary water source).
There are no nearby rivers or underground water sources. The irony of the original Wilkin family choosing 200 years ago to farm fruit in what is officially England’s driest county is not lost on Ivanov. But, he acknowledges, changes in farming have led to a greater need for regular, reliable water access.
“The crops used to be outdoors, now they are undercover in greenhouses to protect them, so they don’t have direct access when it does rain,” says Ivanov.
“Our footprint in terms of growing area is much more intensive, and our harvesting season is becoming much longer, so they [previously] didn’t need as much water then as they do now.”
The transitions Ivanov describes began when Wilkin & Sons entered the fresh fruit market for the first time in 2002. It was one of the changes the Bulgarian expat introduced when he joined, not long out of his science and agricultural economics degree in his home capital, Sofia.
This saw Wilkin & Sons expand beyond its famous Tiptree jam, which it has been making since 1885. The jam has become a central part of afternoon tea served at the 10 Tiptree tea rooms and is also sold internationally.
