Change your business address
If you're a full access user, you can update your business, registered, mailing and personal addresses within Online for Business and the Business banking app.
Bright Seeds: using a demonstration farm to help customers meet environmental scheme requirements
Bright Seeds has built a specialist seed-mix business around conservation and stewardship. With a Lloyds-backed move to a new base in Wiltshire, the team now trials and demonstrates mixes on-farm to help customers understand what “good” can look like under schemes such as SFI and Countryside Stewardship.
Read time: 2 mins Added: 10/06/26
Making sense of changing schemes
Environmental schemes are evolving fast, from SFI options to Countryside Stewardship updates. For farmers, that can mean uncertainty about what will establish well, what meets scheme rules, and whether seed will be available when demand spikes. Bright Seeds wanted to help customers navigate scheme requirements with practical, field-tested options that perform in different farm conditions.
From grain trading to conservation mixes
The family business dates back to 1988, when founder David Bright began grain trading. Over time, it moved into forage maize and small seeds. Around 20 years ago, David’s son Chris joined, bringing a stronger focus on environmental cropping.
By 2015, Bright Seeds had sharpened its specialism, developing conservation, stewardship and wildflower mixes to support environmental land management.
Seed mixes designed for real farms
Bright Seeds develops bespoke mixes aligned to scheme options – including herbal leys, cover crops, wild bird cover, nectar mixes and wildflower meadows. Crucially, mixes are adjusted to suit local soils, establishment conditions and scheme outcomes.
“We run an SFI mid tier scheme on-site,” says Chris. “That lets us show customers what establishment can actually look like in the field.”
As schemes change, demand can shift quickly. By buying seed in bulk and working closely with European suppliers, Bright Seeds aims to keep farmers supplied when new options launch.
If a mix isn’t performing as expected, feedback goes straight back into product development. Ratios are adjusted or alternative species trialled to improve results in different conditions.
Investing in the right base to scale
TIn 2020, Chris and his family bought Dean Lane Farm - a 72-hectare site in Wiltshire - with funding from Lloyds. The base gave Bright Seeds room to grow, trial new mixes and welcome customers on-farm.
“It had the buildings we needed,” says Chris. “It wasn’t right for conventional farming, but it’s ideal for what we do.”
Today, the farm doubles as a living demonstration site, where farmers can see stewardship and wildflower mixes growing in real conditions and talk through establishment and compliance face to face.
Looking ahead
Bright Seeds is expanding into hedging plants, tree mixes and further trials, alongside a provenance led wildflower programme using seed harvested from established UK meadows – increasingly important for Biodiversity Net Gain and restoration projects.
For Chris, the message to farmers is pragmatic, shaped by the way schemes come and go:
Chris Bright Managing Director, Bright SeedsEnvironmental schemes will keep changing. If one thing drops off, another will come up in its place. The key is to stay flexible and use what’s on offer to futureproof your farm.
You may also be interested in
All lending is subject to status. Eligibility Criteria Apply.