‘It’s very challenging’: how the Duke of Westminster’s farm is taking on the climate crisis

Grosvenor Farms produces more than 34m litres of milk a year and supplies Müller and Tesco. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

There is a distinctive smell of cow manure in the air at the Duke of Westminster’s dairy farm near Chester. It is a world away from the collection of grand West End properties controlled by the duke that form the backbone of his near £10bn fortune, a decade on from becoming Britain’s youngest billionaire.

As part of his 349-year-old Grosvenor empire, Lea Manor Farm on the duke’s Eaton Estate in north-west England has fared better than most dairy farms in recent years.