TRIBUTES have been paid to Francis Joyce of Becklands Farm, Whitchurch Canonicorum who was a pioneering organic farmer who lived by his principles.

He died of heart failure after 16 years battling cancer.

Fellow organic farmer Will Best from Dorchester said: “He did love his land and his livestock and was a dedicated organic farmer for many years.”

Friend Michael West said: “I have known him for 30 years. We used to sing in the choir together at Pilsdon and Whitchurch.

“He was a real gentleman. He was very committed to the land and his animals. I have never known him to lose his temper.

“He was just a thoroughly decent man. He had a good sense of humour and was very intelligent.

“He was one of the best men I have ever met.”

So well-respected was Mr Joyce’s Becklands organic beef it was recommended on cookery guru Delia Smith’s website and is now used at the River Cottage HQ, as well as the award-winning The White House Hotel in Charmouth.

Mr Joyce was one of the first to recognise the value of free range organic egg production as a way of increasing fertility on the land.

He designed and made his own arks, moved daily, to do just that.

Mr Joyce, 74, farmed with wife Hilary, 66, and they both shared a passion for the organic ethos, something he inherited from his own father Peter.

His father’s was a more pragmatic conversion – he had a large commercial beef, dairy and sheep farm at Bulbarrow before moving to the Marshwood Vale – and didn’t have the staff to do the spraying for him.

Doing it himself made him ill so he was forced to look for alternatives.

Mr Joyce senior became a leading light in the organic movement of the 50s.

Although he hoped to go on to university his father took him out of school at 17 to work on the farm. He went to Kingston Maurward to study.

As well as working for his father, he tried various farming enterprises, with varying success, over the years, including a poultry small holding that folded within six years under the weight of Thatcher’s 14 per cent interest rate.

He said later in life, if he had known what a good combination poultry and beef make, the story might have been different.

As well as the beef, chickens and a few geese, the Joyces had free range Berkshire pigs, but they fell casualty to foot and mouth.

The land is still farmed organically and has been for more than 40 years. Their products are sold in local shops and from their own small farm shop. They are also used in the White House Hotel, Charmouth, the Jurassic Wine Bar, Lyme Regis and River Cottage HQ.

Sixteen years ago he was diagnosed with incurable lymphatic cancer. Over the years, he had some 17 chemotherapy sessions, lasting a couple of days each, over a total of two years, plus a year of stem cell replacement procedure, but finally his heart could take no more and he died suddenly of heart failure.

Wife Hilary said: “His resilience was exemplary and, amazingly, he did not complain once.”

His funeral was last Friday at St Candida and Holy Cross, Whitchurch Canonicorum.