The Organic Research Centre has a long and proud relationship with Wakelyns. Established through first-mover agroforestry planting by Martin and Ann Wolfe in 1994, Wakelyns in Suffolk has become a lighthouse site for progressive farming and land use. Wakelyns prioritises environmental protection and enhancement, community and social engagement, scientific research and education. It has become an oasis in the East Suffolk industrial farming landscape – supporting habitats including meadows, scrub, mature hedges, herbal leys, rewilding and agroforestry treelines.
In 1998 Professor Martin Wolfe was appointed as ORC’s Research Director (from 2009: Principal Scientific Adviser) and we started to work with Wakelyns Agroforestry as a trial site. Over that time our businesses have formed a strong mutual bond. ORC’s work celebrates and builds upon the work of Martin and Ann Wolfe in researching how to achieve sustainable and resilient agriculture and spans everything from the role of agroforestry systems in enhancing biodiversity through to the evolution of the YQ ORC Wakelyns population wheat (now grown around Europe, adapting to its local environment). See Wakelyns Agroforestry: Resilience through diversity and our new Wakelyns hub.
Wakelyns has been an inspiration for academic research – it was one of eight sites across Europe chosen to assess the long term benefits for habitats and nature of agroforestry (see: Agromix) and features in many other research projects. PhD students at Wakelyns study soil health, tree and crop interaction and climate forecasting.
Since the passing of Martin and Ann, Wakelyns passed to David and Toby Wolfe. David Wolfe and Amanda Illing have run it since 2020 and now want to secure it as a public asset for the long term. 14 Wakelyns supporters in 2025 established a charity (the Wakelyns Charitable Community Benefit Society) to secure the future of the Wakelyns site through community ownership. If they can raise enough to pay half its value by the end of 2026, the other half will be gifted to the Society and the goal of securing its long-term future will be completely achieved. If they fail, it will be placed on the open market and its long-established legacy as a public facing agroecological, scientific, and social project will likely be lost.
Wakelyns has evolved and is now a venue for a wide variety of local community programmes and events, including the Wakelyns annual Dal Festival, nature walks and related activities, which engage diverse communities from across Suffolk. It is an incubator for micro-businesses linked to the land, including through cooking/ baking, craft or as a space for learning and wellbeing. Integral to the farming, the businesses create economic, health, environmental and social synergies, and business opportunities for local people combining production with habitat protection and enhancement.
To help raise the funds they have launched a community share offer. Please help tackle the climate, nature and social crises by securing Wakelyns in community ownership. Please donate (which attracts Gift Aid) and/or buy between 114 and 100,000 shares at £1 each to become a voting member of the charity.
Read all about in this recent Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/30/suffolk-agroforestry-farm-wakelyns-community-ownership-survive and in the Wakelyns newsletter.
Former ORC researcher Jo Smith (Now Senior Researcher, MV Agroecology Research Centre, Portugal and Associate Editor, Agroforestry Systems) said: “Having been involved in agroforestry research for over 15 years in both the UK and Europe-wide, I can’t over-emphasise the importance of Wakelyns as a mature and unique silvoarable system that demonstrates a number of practices ranging from alley cropping short rotation coppice to timber and fruit production. Such sites are incredibly rare across Europe. Over the years, I have collected data from Wakelyns on everything from tree yields, energy use and production, economics, crop and ley growth, pests and diseases, through to biodiversity both below and above ground. While other UK long term agroforestry research sites have been sold off or removed, it is so important that Wakelyns continues as a functioning farm, not only providing a research site but also an inspiration to students and researchers.”
The importance of Wakelyns as the leading agroforestry research site in the UK cannot be underestimated and ORC is delighted to offer our support to the Wakelyns Charitable Community Benefit Society in order to secure its future and the vital role that it plays in British agriculture
We need to raise just over £ 1 million to secure the future of this key site.
https://www.zeffy.com/en-GB/ticketing/wakelyns-ccbs-community-shares
If you are going to be at Groundswell this week, do come and say hello to David Wolfe and Amanda Illing, who along with Rosemary Venn from the CCBS will be at the Agroforestry Tent throughout, talking to people about the CCBS plan and the community share launch. David, along with Harry Read from Wakelyns Nature and ORC’s Christian Gossel will be talking about the nature at Wakelyns at 3.30 on Thursday.
