Cropping

From the ‘About Us’ page you will see we have grown various crops on this farm over the years but in the year 2000 we made a fairly drastic decision to stop growing a number of crops. At the end of the day a farm is like any other business in that it needs to be profitable to survive, so we became a bit cut throat with what we would produce. This had a good knock on effect because it made us become better at producing fewer crops because it allowed us to spend more time with each type.

At the moment we are growing:

The wheats are grown to produce bread, biscuits and animal feed. The oil seed rape is grown to produce oil and bio diesel. The potatoes are grown by a local grower on our ground. The set a side is crop we put game cover on and the grass is grown to provide grazing and hay for horses.

The idea of this page is to give some information about ‘why’ and ‘how’ these crops are grown instead of being very specific and naming varieties etc. The first thing to point out is the fact that we are not an Organic farm. We produce all our crops in an environmentally friendly manner within all guidelines laid down by the government and European Union.

Organic farming has a relatively small following compared to normal farm practices. There are many reasons for this but it’s ultimately down to the fact that its not necessarily any better for the environment, because there is more mechanization required to grow an organic crop with results in far far more carbon being released into the atmosphere. Organic crops are also prone to disease which we feel cannot be good for human health.

All of the crops we grow are treated with chemicals and fed with fertlisers, water and sunlight. These are all called ‘Inputs’. The water and sunlight comes from the atmosphere, which is something beyond our control, but is without a doubt the most important input required to grow a crop. If we do not get the correct amount of water and sunlight it can be detrimental to the crops. This is why countries like Australia can suffer badly from droughts due to their hotter climates than what we get in the UK.

So why do we apply ‘Inputs’?

Many people are scared of the words ‘Chemicals’ and ‘Fertilisers’ but this is because our industry is very poor at telling you what they are! Space is limited here but whenever I get asked about this, my reply is as follows:

Q: “ So why do farmers put chemicals and fertilisers onto crops?”

A: “ A ‘farmer’ and a ‘crop’ is very similar to a ‘parent’ and a ‘child’ respectively. As a parent you look after your children and should they become ill, you take them to the doctors where they might be prescribed with some medicine. Chemicals applied to crops are very similar in that the crop becomes ill so we as farmers use an Agronomist (effectively a crop doctor) to prescribe a medicine for it, to make it better. Fertilisers for crops are very much like food and vitamins for children, in that a parent will feed the child a healthy diet to enable it to grow and become strong, so that it can survive on its own. Well a crop is no different because fertilisers are feeding it to enable it grow to produce food to for people to eat. Contary to popular belief we as farmers do not just put any old amount of chemical and fertilisers on to crops. We put on just enough to keep the crop growing. The rules and regulations around this area of farming are extremely strict. The UK has some of the hardest rules and regs to stick to compared to anywhere around the world. All food produced in the UK is produced to a far far higher standard than any other place on the planet.”