A fifth-generation fruit farmer has grubbed 80% of his orchard, saying apples simply don’t make money any more.

James Smith’s family has owned Loddington Farm for nearly 150 years, but he is now hoping to safeguard its future by diversifying the business, moving away from conventional, single-crop farming.

Faced with climate change and adecline in the fruit-growing business which has seen trade plummet, it is out with the apples and in with asparagus. As well as turning to vegetables, he is planting vines, reintroducing livestock, and has just opened a farm shop.

That, in turn, will sell products made by other businesses based at the farm, such as cider and coffee.

The 49-year-old has been working at Loddington, in Boughton Monchelsea near Maidstone, for around 20 years and at its peak the orchards produced around 2,000 tons of apples.

They have been growing at the farm since 1882 but, due to such low returns on his produce, James has decided to rethink his business

He has done away with chemicals and is looking to rotate produce in a more nature-friendly way.

He said: “We grubbed a lot for our orchards and stopped actively farming a lot of them.

“We’re concentrating on a small amount of them which we’re growing organically which is about 20% of what we were farming.

“The risks associated with growing the crop have increased dramatically with mild winters, cold springs, prolonged wet spells, spring frosts, hail events and drought all of which make the success of a crop less and less likely.

“The costs associated with growing the crop have risen dramatically, fuel, fertiliser - sprays, labour for pruning and thinning and harvesting costs have all more than doubled in the last three years.

“Since Brexit the availability of harvest workers has almost disappeared and those that are available are now much more expensive. The government’s high wage/high skills economy ambition has pushed wages up while they continue to keep food prices low.

“Domestic production is being priced out of the market by our government’s own policies.

“Energy costs for cold storage have trebled in the last three years so even if you manage to grow and harvest a crop the cost of storage is prohibitively expensive.

“If indeed you managed to grow, pick, store and send your fruit for packing and sale to the UK retailers they refuse to pay what the crop has cost to grow and will not allow growers to make a profit.

“This means that a perfect year might break-even and when things go wrong growers stand to lose a lot of money.

“Our high-risk, low-reward businesses are now even higher risk with no reward when selling to UK supermarkets.

“Combine that with the government opening the gates to imports from questionable origins around the world the humble UK apple is rapidly disappearing.

“We’re having to move away from commodity crops.

“We were producing 95% red apples to two or three customers in the UK and with that comes a lot of risk and we weren’t making any money.

“The way we were farming didn’t align with the way I want to farm.”

As part of a more self-sustaining business model, James is now growing pears, cherries, apricots and asparagus alongside his apples, which continue to be his main crop.

He also has chickens producing eggs and keeps pigs.

On April 27 he opened his farm shop where he hopes to sell produce grown at the farm directly to customers.

James continued: “It’s part of the future of farming. We need to break away from the stereotype and the modern system - it’s not working for producers, and I don’t think it works for the consumer either.

“Anything we do produce will first and foremost be in the shop.

“We’ve planted some vines for wine production and have multiple businesses working with us so we’re trying to make it a destination where people can come and learn about their food.”

The shop will sell Campra Coffee, made by Neil Cotterill who roasts coffee at the farm, and craft beer from the Musket Brewery, run by father and son duo Tony and Rhys Williams, which is also based there.

It will also stock Turners Cider which uses apples from Loddington.

James added: "My vision would be we can produce nearly everything in the shop from Loddington.

“Everything we do tends to complement something else. Having the shop here gives us the opportunity to see what works and go with it if it does."

“We want this to go from strength to strength and really be a little demonstration that farming can be profitable.

“We can run a successful rural enterprise and we’re going to be here for a few more generations with a bit of luck.”