A South Devon farming family is expanding its cattle operation and investing in a new breed as part of plans to secure the future of local beef production.

Ian Dennis and his son Dan run Tracy’s Farm a 600-acre beef and arable farm at Stoke Gabriel between Totnes and Paignton.

Most of their beef goes to Waitrose with a smaller amount to M&S but they would like to sell more locally through the South Devon Food Hub.

Ian said: “We've traditionally been keeping Angus and Hereford cattle But we're now in the process of expanding our numbers from about 300 up to about 500.

So we've decided to change breeds and we're moving over to an easy care type of cow called a Stabiliser cow.

“There's a whole load of reasons why.

“One is they require less work and they're easier to keep, which is not only better for the farmer, it's better for the cow because they're very easy calving, good growth rates, very, very quiet so we're making a big investment into the long-term future of beef and hoping in the long term that eventually we'll develop a market for our beef here in Devon, maybe through our South Devon Food Hub.”

Ian says there has been a fluctuation in beef prices: “The beef price has been on the way up the last two years.

“It's been steadily rising and it reached a peak last autumn but this spring it has just eased off a little bit, maybe partly down to the government's trade deal with America, but the beef price is still reasonably good.”

Tracey’s Farm also has some Saxon remains according to Ian: “We've got our own Saxon hill fort which is dated probably about 500 or 600AD.

We've got some Saxon settlements, and burial grounds.

There's a huge amount of history.

There are a large number of these Saxon hill forts, some of them might be Roman, but mainly Saxon looking out over the bay especially. and we're keen to find out more about them.

There is an old settlement where in 1992 the dry year, you could actually see the outline of the village and the huts around it.

There have been people living here and making a living there for thousands of years.

There is also a Barrow or burial mound.

The farm has seven springs which means exceptional quality water and they have also been growing Christmas trees although this is something they are coming out of.

Next door, Broadleigh Farm is home to Hunts Cider, a long-established Devon cider producer founded by NP Hunt in 1805.

The business is headed by Roger Hunt, while his son Richard and daughter Annette oversee day-to-day operations.

Alongside cider orchards, the family also keeps sheep and suckler cattle.

Around a third of the apples used in production are grown on the farm, with the remainder sourced from two other Devon farms.

The company uses only cider apples, rather than eating or cooking varieties, to achieve the tannins needed for its cider, and now produces around one million pints each year.

One of the business’s biggest recent developments has been the construction of a new bottling and packing plant.