Pilot arable Monitor Farm

Robert Atkinson, an arable farmer from Yorkshire, was HGCA’s first monitor farmer in England and this winter completes his two years in the scheme.

Following on from a respected and successful programme of Monitor Farms in Scotland and New Zealand, HGCA’s network of now 16 Monitor Farms in England began with Robert Atkinson in Doncaster.

The pilot started in 2012 on the mixed-enterprise Adwick Grange, which Robert and his wife Jill run in partnership with Robert’s parents. The Atkinsons farm 180ha of limestone, medium and heavy (low lying) loam soils, around Doncaster, holding most of the land on an Agricultural Holdings Act tenancy. Robert and Jill also have a small area of contract farmed land and some in a joint venture with a neighbour. Their cropping includes milling and feed wheat, oilseed rape, sugar beet and, new for harvest 2015, beans. In addition to arable crops, the Atkinsons finish approximately 4,100 pigs per year.

Robert said: “I got involved because I wanted to raise the standard on the farm. I knew I was doing ok, but I thought there was more to learn. I wanted to access the brightest minds in the industry, and engage with people. I know that knowledge is a two-way process, and that we all learn from each other so the Monitor Farm programme was a great opportunity.”

Along with 20 other local farmers, both arable and mixed, Robert is a member of a group which initially was focused on agronomy but which was able to use the Monitor Farm project to discuss business issues.

“The Monitor Farm programme helped the group to stay together, and everyone got involved in the new project. As a group we compared costs at the beginning, and my fixed costs were quite a bit lower than the rest of the farmers – that’s one of the reasons they nominated me to be the host farmer!”

During the two years of the pilot Monitor Farm project, Robert and the Monitor Farm group, facilitated by Pat Thornton, worked on benchmarking, machinery and combine costings specifically, as well as having meetings on soil health with independent soil specialist Philip Wright.

“The work on machinery costings highlighted to me that depreciation was one of the biggest costs on farm. I share a combine with a neighbour, because I’ve always been keen on collaborative working. The work we did during the business analysis showed us that, on paper, it would have been more cost-effective to use a contractor, but the practicalities of having livestock on my farm meant that we needed to have the reassurance of our own combine. So we decided that we would keep the combine and run it for as long as we could, to get the cost benefits spread over a longer time span.

“Benchmarking and calculating the full costs of running the farm, even down to depreciation, was quite an eye-opener for me. Some of the parts of the farm I’d thought about dropping turned out to be the most profitable. So doing this exercise helped me determine the direction of the business.”

Robert has had a long-term interest in min-till farming, and the cost analysis exercises allowed him to calculate the value of direct drilling.

“We found that direct drilling gives a massive cost saving – if you’ve got the land type and the soil organic matter, as we have. As well as saving us lots of time, for every 1,000ac we saved £10,000 in fuel alone. And although sometimes direct drill might cause a bit of a yield drop, you can afford that if you save this much in fuel. We were able to bring our costs of production right down, and consequently increase our profits.”

For harvest 2014, Robert’s yields were good to average, with wheat at 9.6t/ha, OSR around 3.75t/ha and sugar beet 90t/ha.

Robert is adamant on the positive impact that the Monitor Farm project has had on his business.

“I’ve learnt to be more open and honest about what I’m doing. The only way to improve is through learning from your mistakes and looking at what other people have done. Be honest about how your business is doing. Having the full audit of the business and then analysing it, showed me where I was going right and going wrong.

“If the new Monitor Farmers get as much out of this as I have they can’t help but make it a success. The things I’ve learnt have really been useful for my business and personal development – meeting other farmers and realising you’re not on your own. Everyone has challenges, and in this day and age where there’s not as much time as there used to be to chat with other farmers at the market – this all means that it’s easy for farmers to be isolated. We’ve lost opportunities to share problems and ideas, so the Monitor Farm project and the group were really valuable.”

With such value placed on meeting and sharing ideas, it was fitting that Robert was able to attend a group farm tour and Scottish cross-sector Monitor Farm conference in Perthshire, along with five of the new English Monitor Farms at the end of November.

“During this conference we had a presentation on personality types, which helped me work better with my business partner, even though I was sceptical about the value of this kind of psychology at first. I also picked up some management tips during the farm visits and I’ve now got a whiteboard with a year planner to set target dates for basic operations. It’ll give us and our staff something to aim at and help with planning.”

The work doesn’t stop here, though. After the group’s next meeting in the new year, Robert and the group of Yorkshire farmers are joining a study tour to California with funding from the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE), led by HGCA’s Regional Manager Harry Henderson.

For more information on HGCA’s arable Monitor Farms in England, Wales and Scotland, visit www.hgca.com/monitorfarms. There is a new Monitor Farm on the outskirts of York, hosted by David Blacker.