South East Farmer November 2023 by KELSEY Media

Est 1982

HOP TALES

How a young man from Ireland began a long-lasting love affair with the hop gardens of Kent

November 2023

2023

Read our full preview on page 30

PRESERVING OUR FRUIT HERITAGE

AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF THIS MONTH'S NATIONAL FRUIT SHOW, NIGEL AKEHURST VISITS A FARMING ENTERPRISE GROWING MORE THAN 200 VARIETIES Farm business consultants with our roots in the South East 01892 770339 www.c-l-m.co.uk

• Farm business & estate management • Planning & development • Subsidies & grants • Land sales & acquisitions • Viticulture • Succession • Biodiversity net gain • Ecology • Natural capital • Residential and commercial property letting and management

www.southeastfarmer.net SOUTH EAST FARMER Kelsey Media, The Granary, Downs Court Yalding Hill, Yalding, Maidstone, Kent, ME18 6AL 01959 541444 EDITORIAL Editor: Malcolm Triggs Email: sef.ed@kelsey.co.uk Photography: Martin Apps, Countrywide Photographic ADVERTISING & MARKETING Jamie McGrorty 01303 233883 jamie.mcgrorty@kelsey.co.uk GRAPHIC DESIGN Jo Legg 07306 482166 jo.legg@flair-design.co.uk

NOV EMB ER 2023

CONTENTS

MANAGEMENT DIVISIONAL MANAGING DIRECTOR: Steve Kendall PUBLISHER: Jamie McGrorty RETAIL DIRECTOR: Steve Brown SUBSCRIPTION MARKETING MANAGER: Claire Aspinall PRINT PRODUCTION MANAGER: Kelly Orriss DISTRIBUTION

Distribution in Great Britain: Seymour Distribution Limited 2 East Poultry Avenue, London EC1A 9PT Tel: 020 7429 4000 www.seymour.co.uk Distribution in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland: Newspread Tel: +353 23 886 3850 Kelsey Media 2023 © all rights reserved. Kelsey Media is a trading name of Kelsey Publishing Ltd. Reproduction in whole or in part is forbidden except with permission in writing from the publishers. Note to contributors: articles submitted for consideration by the editor must be the original work of the author and not previously published. Where photographs are included, which are not the property of the contributor, permission to reproduce them must have been obtained from the owner of the copyright. The editor cannot guarantee a personal response to all letters and emails received. The views expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of the Editor or the Publisher. Kelsey Publishing Ltd accepts no liability for products and services offered by third parties. Kelsey Media takes your personal data very seriously. For more information on our privacy policy, please visit https://www.kelsey.co.uk/privacy-policy/ If at any point you have any queries regarding Kelsey’s data policy you can email our Data Protection Oﬃcer at dpo@kelsey.co.uk

NEWS & REPORTS

05 #GetFairAboutFarming 06 Spotlight on the National Ploughing Championships. 07 Quality conversion.

REGULARS

16 MONICA AKEHURST

Monica's favourite type of shopping is ram buying.

20 NIGEL AKEHURST VISITS...

Perry Court Farm just outside the village of Wye, Kent, to meet the Fermor family and learn more about their successful farming and food retail business.

39 STEPHEN CARR 41 ANITA HEAD 43 SARAH CALCUTT 45 NICK ADAMES 48 ADVICE FROM THE VET

Reducing the impact of calf pneumonia.

www.kelsey.co.uk Cover picture: Perry Court Farm

50 ALAN WEST 54 LEGAL 57 LAND AND FARMS

FEATURES

15 METOS UK

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18 THE GOLDEN BOOT

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28 J D RICHMOND & SON LTD

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30 VINEYARD & WINERY SHOW

Back, bigger, better and busier than ever – that’s this year’s Vineyard & Winery Show, which will be uncorked in style on Wednesday 22 November.

52 NEW FARMING SHOW

An exciting new farming event promises to showcase the latest machinery, products, developments, support and advice when it debuts at the Newbury Showground.

OP IN IO N Love-hate relationship with self service

So, who’s been celebrating the 75th anniversar y of the supermarket this year, then? Perhaps putting out the bunting to cheer on the Tesco and Sainsbury's of this world isn’t uppermost in farmers and growers’ minds, but that’s how long they have been around. Historians seem to agree that the first permanent self-service store, the forerunner, at least, of the modern supermarket, was opened in east London’s Manor Park by the Co-op on 12 January 1948, three years after the end of the Second World War. My earliest supermarket memory is of visiting the local David Greig store in Gorleston, Norfolk, as a child probably 20 years later. Like most new inventions, the convenience of self-service was initially welcomed, but it’s safe to say that many of us, particularly farmers and growers, have had a love-hate relationship with them ever since. Let's just say that their buying power has not always been used as a force for good. Like most growers, I suspect, the Fermor family at Perry Court Farm, featured in Nigel Akehurst’s farm visit this month, was initially pleased to have found a new customer and supplied strawberries to supermarkets during the late 1980s and into the following decade. Even 30-odd years ago, though, the cracks were beginning to show, and she tells Nigel of “crazy” packaging requirements, perfect fruit being rejected in favour of cheap imports and under-ripe fruit having to be supplied as the supermarkets prioritised shelf life over favour. Perry Court Farm stopped supplying supermarkets and the family has instead found other outlets for their produce. Others have followed suit over the years as the demands have become more onerous and the rewards less generous. For some, though, other options are more difficult to pursue, leaving them the weaker partner in an often unhappy marriage. The supermarkets do themselves no favours when it comes to keeping the relationship on an even keel, either. Faced with an open letter asking them to commit to perfectly reasonable minimum standard and backed by a 70,000-name petition, the ‘big six’ had, as South East Farmer went to press, not even responded. It surely wouldn’t be that difficult for a representative of the retailers that wield so much clout to agree to sit down and talk over a coffee – although they would probably insist on the growers providing two cups for the price of one and make the growers pay for both.

MALCOLM TRIGGS - EDITOR

EMAIL YOUR VIEWS, LETTERS OR OPINIONS TO: sef.ed@kelsey.co.uk or write to the address on page 3 ®

INDUSTRY CODE

OF PRACTICE NEEDED Work has begun on tackling one of the major issues raised by the Tenancy Working Group led by Baroness Kate Rock. One of the major conclusions of the Rock Review report was the need for an industry code of practice setting out the expected behaviour of all parties within the landlord and tenant system in agriculture, including those acting in a land agency or advisory capacity. The Government accepted that recommendation and tasked the new Farm Tenancy Forum to take that work forward by establishing an Expert Working Group. That working group met for the first time in early October, under the chairmanship of Matthew Morris, Rural Director at the Duchy of Cornwall. As well as the Tenant Farmers’ Association (TFA) the working group contains representatives from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Country Land and Business Association, the Institutional Landowners Group, the NFU, the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers and the Agricultural Law Association. Attending the first meeting on behalf the TFA, the association’s chief executive, George Dunn, said: "It is great, at long last, to see this work stream get underway. There was a great deal of common ground amongst the representatives present of the need for, and benefit of, such a code of practice that would be widely applicable".

LACK OF TRUST A poll by the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) on the eve of the Labour Party conference revealed a lack of trust in the party among rural voters, although many remain undecided. Nearly 300 respondents took part in the survey, with 65% of CLA members saying they did not trust Labour to support the countryside, 6% saying they did trust the party and the remaining 29% undecided. CLA president Mark Tufnell said: “This snapshot poll on the eve of the Labour conference shows how far the party has to go to win over rural voters. “Labour says it’s the party of the countryside, but so far its policy announcements have suggested otherwise. Persistent rumours around access and right to roam are of huge concern to many, while scrapping agricultural property relief and business property relief, as was recently reported in the press, would be so damaging when many farmers are already on the brink. “Removing business property relief would hit family businesses no matter their size, and stripping away agricultural property relief would jeopardise the future of farms up and down the country, at a time of profound change in the industry as it adjusts to new agricultural policies. “The poll also reveals a significant proportion of voters are undecided. It’s clear that whichever party produces a robust and ambitious vision for the rural economy will secure support.”

NEWS

#GETFAIRABOUTFARMING

Supermarkets have been accused of ignoring a plea for them to be fair to farmers after a campaign calling for them to adopt fairer principles fell on deaf ears. The #GetFairAboutFarming campaign has so far been backed by nearly 70,000 members of the British public, along with celebrities including Dragon’s Den star Deborah Meaden, chef Rick Stein and wildlife TV presenter Chris Packham. An open letter was sent to the CEOs of Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi and Lidl asking them to treat farmers fairly and warning that the British farming industry was “on its knees”. But nearly two months on, campaigners claim there has been a “deafening silence” from the high street giants to the campaign, which was launched by organic fruit and veg box company Riverford Organic Farmers, which has a long-standing Fair to Farmers charter. The company wants supermarkets to adopt similar principles as a way of spreading fair trade across farming more widely, but despite support from industry bodies Sustain and the Soil Association, along with TV celebrities, chefs and well-known names from the music industry, the ‘big six’ retailers have so far failed to respond. At the heart of the campaign is a petition calling on the Government to amend the Grocery Supply Code of Practice (GSCP) to require retailers, without exception, to: • Buy what they agreed to buy • Pay what they agreed to pay • Pay on time.

Photo: Stu Everitt – Riverford

5 Natalie Bennett, former Leader of the Green Party, also backed the campaign, telling the House of Lords: “Farmers suffer major economic loss and a huge amount of food is wasted because supermarkets order food and then refuse to take it and put it on the shelves and it rots in the fields.” The petition follows research by Riverford that suggested 49% of British fruit and vegetable farmers said it was likely they would go out of business in the next 12 months, with many blaming supermarkets and their buyers as a leading threat to their livelihoods.

The company’s founder Guy Singh-Watson paid tribute to the public’s support for the petition, signed by more than 69,700 people as South East Farmer went to press, but said the silence from the supermarkets had been “deafening”. He added: “British agriculture is on its knees, with research showing that many farmers attribute their fear of closure to the behaviour of supermarkets. And yet not one of the ‘big six’ has responded to our calls for better business practices to safeguard the future of fruit and veg farmers in this country.”

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PLOUGHING MATCHES Peter Hayler from Minster, Kent, with his shires Sid and Sam

NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT

A West Sussex ploughman made it into the national spotlight at the 72nd British National Ploughing Championships held at Bishops Lydeard, near Taunton, by kind permission of K S Coles and family. William Tupper, from Pulborough, West Sussex, won the British Reversible Plough-Off Final by 322 points. Ploughing with a John Deere tractor and Kverneland plough, he finished 32 points ahead of Thomas Sutton

Amy De Baedemaecker, from Eridge Green, East Sussex, took part in the conventional ploughing class on the first day. from Burton on Trent, who was using a Fendt tractor and Kverneland plough. Another South East competitor, Martin Kerswell from Fordingbridge, Hampshire, was named Overall Horse Ploughing Champion at the event, which attracted more than 250 competitors over the weekend. The British Conventional title went to Ashley Boyles from Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, who was using a Massey

ROUND UP The East Kent Ploughing Match held by kind permission of Mrs Vanessa McDonald at Hardres Court Farm, Upper Hardres, saw a total of 52 ploughs take part, of which 31 were vintage tractors. Two pairs of ploughing horses attended, along with the spectacular steam ploughs. Champion ploughman on the day was Stephen Batchelor (whose photograph appeared in South East Farmer’s October ploughing match roundup). The Ovenden Family class was a special attraction at this year’s match and saw eight family members, spanning three generations, take part. Adrian Ovenden was unfortunately unable to compete on the day, with the prize going to Ollie Ovenden. The showground was again the largest yet, with a frontage of well over a kilometre. The match was as always generously supported by sponsors and trade stands and there were continuous attractions in the main show ring.

Next year’s match will be held at Great Bossington Farm, Adisham, on Wednesday 25 September by kind permission of Connan and Judith Hawarden, the Hon T Maude and family, the Trustees and Robert Spencer.

PETWORTH

A misty autumn morning heralded the start of the annual Petworth & District ploughing match, this year held by kind permission of Clive Stickland at Burchetts farm, Wisbrough Green. With 48 ploughmen entered in this year’s match, coming from all parts of the district and county, the competition was fierce and watched by a record crowd. The sample of corn competition, showcasing the fruits of the years labours, saw R A Dallyn & Sons sweep the board, winning many firsts along with the McHardy cup for the best sample overall. With the ploughing completed, Lady Egremont handed the open conventional

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Champions: Back row – Stephen Watkins (Classic Reversible Champion), William Tupper (Reversible Champion); Front row – Ashley Boyles (Conventional Champion), Trevor Johnstone (Supreme Champion, Overall Vintage Champion & Vintage Trailed Champion), Richard Ingram (Vintage Hydraulic Champion). Photo credit: Paul Gregory Ferguson/Kverneland combination. This is the sixth time Ashley has won the title, on this occasion finishing 10 points ahead of another former British Champion, Nigel Vickers from Malpas, Cheshire.

honours to J Dyer of Woking, while the conventional class was won by S Hill and the classic class by P Corp. The young farmer’s class was won by local lad Ben Tilley, one of an encouraging field of six in this class. The reversible ploughing class was won by D Murphy of Midhurst, with premier reversible honours going to William Tupper of Bignor, who went on to take the champion reversible prize along with the coveted Best Farmer Shield. The vintage mounted ploughing class was won by W Collins, with the vintage trailed prize going to D Allen, along with the vintage champion and champion ploughman of the day prizes.

GREENSTEAD GREEN

The Greenstead Green Ploughing Match saw the prize for Class 1 (mounted vintage ploughing by tractors manufactured pre-1960) go to Mark Ray, while Class 2 (trailed vintage) was won by Shaun Garrod (champion), with second place going to Paul Mylie (reserve champion). Class 3 (classic tractors) was won by Colin Fenner. This year’s special prizes included the Championship Silver Challenger Cup for best work done in Classes 1 & 2 (conventional),

NEWS Petworth

East Sussex

CORRECTION: In last month's South East Farmer the results of the East Kent Ploughing match were unfortunately reversed, The correct results are: Stephen Batchelor was Reversible Champion and Ben Marsh was Vintage Champion won by Shaun Garrod, and the Reverse Championship Cup, won by Paul Wylie.

East Lenham before

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refurbishment work to a wide range of farm buildings, as well as taking on new build projects. The company also offers demolition and groundworks. With the order book full, the team is about to start on converting a pole barn at Manston into four industrial units and begin another change of use project that will see a former agricultural building near Ashford put to the same use. With farmers increasingly looking to diversify as basic payments dwindle, Jez said business continued to boom as owners looked to put agricultural buildings to new uses.

EAST SUSSEX

This year’s East Sussex ploughing match took place at Warbleton Farm, Near Heathfield, by permission of Mr Steve Hutton and family and raised money for Sussex county charity WOLO. In the conventional class, the champion ploughman was named as Chris Fryer, with Philip Corp the reserve champion. Champion reversible ploughman was Mat Butler, with Graham Butler the reserve champion.

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GUEST COLUMN A PERSONAL VIEW

INTRODUCTIONS AND

RE-INTRODUCTIONS Another occasional contribution from Mike Kettlewell, a member of a farming partnership which encompasses 400 acres of arable land, South Devon cattle and stewardship in the Cotswolds.

I am old enough to remember the late 1940s, when the lions would start their nightly chorus at dusk. Total darkness was followed by the soft cough of a leopard patrolling her patch seeking an unwary dog for dinner. My childhood was in Nyasaland (Malawi), a beautiful country where these large predators, and their prey, were ever present. Sadly they are now confined to a few disconnected reserves, squeezed out by a five-fold increase in the human population. In Britain, we exterminated all our major competitors centuries ago and, not content with that, imported alien pests. Mink, grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed introductions that have been disastrous, not to mention the sins of an earlier Duke of Bedford letting loose muntjac and Chinese water deer, now widespread in England.

BEAVERS

The tide may now be turning, for there are quite a lot of beavers doing well in Devon’s River Otter catchment and elsewhere, the result of growing enthusiasm for reintroducing our relatively recently extinct native animals. Predictably, anxiety and antipathy follows. Beavers, storks and majestic white tailed eagles are just three recent examples. While few voices are raised about storks, there is opposition to beavers and eagles. Beavers make a mess, cause floods, damage trees and get in the way of farming, while eagles take lambs and perhaps even a luckless infant. You can’t be too careful. Why reintroduce anything? Man comes first. Farmers must produce food. We are fine as we are. Or are we? I would argue we are not, for it is a fact that Britain is the most eco-depleted country in Europe and ultimately our survival

and contentment depends upon being a part of a rich, healthy ecosystem.

HUMAN POPULATION

The burgeoning human population is unsustainable on this finite planet and we are becoming all too aware of the malign effects of our profligate consumption and manipulation of the earth. Mitigation is now urgent, and so I support careful reintroductions into appropriate habitats. Even the NFU is cautiously positive. Introductions should include some predators. There will be costs as well as benefits, so we must take care, make a coherent case, persuade the sceptical and modify with experience. Had we not hunted beavers to extinction for their fur, things would now be different: they are major river catchment eco-engineers. They create hugely rich habitats, build permeable dams, trap silt, create wetlands and slow the flow. They are supreme flood managers, but how do they sit with modern farming? The simple answer is uncomfortably; unlike the introductions of the large blue butterfly or the bittern, their effects are dramatic and at scale. But think of the potential biodiversity net gain and carbon capture income. Let’s look at what we have done to our rivers over past centuries. We have dammed, straightened and deepened them in the name of agricultural progress. We have drained our uplands and fields, increasing river flow, and we now reap the rewards of our well-intentioned mistakes. Flood meadows were converted to arable production at the cost of soil loss and increased downstream flooding, particularly after maize. Farmers are now putting a lot of effort into mitigating this damage to our

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rivers by slowing the flow in feeder streams, holding more water in the soil and storing water on the flood plain. These carefully planned, beaver-like mitigating measures are integral to the successful DEFRA bid from the farmers of the NE Cotswold Cluster, but there are no plans for beavers themselves… yet.

KNEPP ESTATE

A pair of beavers has recently been introduced to part of the Knepp estate, where they have bred and will be studied carefully. I wonder how they will control their numbers? The beaver’s prime natural habitat is the magnificent landscape of mountains, valleys, woods, wetlands, meadows, lakes and rivers. Diverse and rich habitats for all things wild, but perhaps not arable farming. Beavers have a range of predators. Foxes, wolves, lynx, bears and large raptors like the golden and white tailed eagle, all of which keeps the balance, for beavers are prolific breeders. In their absence it will be down to us to manage their numbers while delivering what the environment so desperately needs.

LARGE RAPTORS

If beavers become widespread there would be a strong case for encouraging large raptors to manage excess beaver kits, as well as fawns, badger and fox cubs. These large raptors will also take weakling lambs. Is that sufficient reason to ban reintroduction, or can we reach an accommodation with hill sheep farmers? Lynx and wolves have been mooted to restore predator/prey dynamics. There are parts of the country where this could reasonably be trialed, for most of Europe cohabits comfortably with wolves without an attack of the vapours.

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Kent-based vertical farm GrowUp Farms has won the Climate Award in this year's Fresh Produce Consortium (FPC) Fresh Awards – and there could be more recognition for the pioneering business later in the year. The Climate Award was one of three up for grabs in the FPC’s Sustainability Excellence category and is just one of ten awards the company, the first vertical farm to launch branded salads into major UK supermarket groups including Tesco stores nationwide, is hoping to pick up during the year. GrowUp Farms beat 13 other contenders for the award, which is presented to a business that is “driven to preserve, protect and enhance our living environment, halting or reversing land degradation, understanding ecosystem services or adopting water optimisation techniques”. The judges said: “The GrowUp Team has worked ambitiously over the past 10 years; making great progress to produce quality food without harming the environment.” Kate Hofman, who co-founded GrowUp Farms alongside Tom Webster in 2013, said: “We are over the moon to win the Climate Award in these prestigious awards. This win reflects the hard work, passion and dedication of the entire GrowUp Farms team, both at Pepperness in Kent and also at our R&D facility, the LeafLab in Cambridge. “Pepperness, our state-of-the-art controlled environment farm, represents a significant shift for the UK salad supply chain – at full capacity, a bag of ready-to-eat salad from Pepperness has 93% fewer embodied carbon emissions than the average bagged salad that you’d buy in the shops today.” The vertical farm at Pepperness, near Sandwich, combines innovative farming technology with renewable energy, using electricity and waste heat from the bioenergy plant next door, which means it is not affected by the energy price increases squeezing greenhouse and conventional farmers in the UK.

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CAN WE SAVE THE PLANET?

CONFERENCE

With this year’s South of England Agricultural Society Farming Conference just over the horizon, South East Farmer asked Duncan Rawson, chair of the conference organising committee, to introduce this year’s event, which takes place at Ardingly on Wednesday 1 November. What’s the title of this year’s conference? Can we really save the planet (from a farming perspective)? Who are this year’s guest speakers? BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today presenter Charlotte Smith will lead the conference and Sue Pritchard, Chief Executive of independent charity the Food, Farming, and Countryside Commission (FFCC), and Phil Jarvis, Chair of Albanwise Farming and Environment, are our guest speakers. What issues do you hope to cover? • Who is putting pressure on the agriculture industry? • What are the implications for the industry? • What can the industry do to change practice? • Are the demands being put on it realistic? • Is it fair that the industry is vilified so readily by many? • What is the role of the broader supply chain (retailers, processors, input providers)? • Does the industry need to acknowledge it is the cause of environmental damage? • What is the role of industry bodies, and are they doing a good job? • Are we making the necessary changes fast enough? • Is carbon zero production really possible? • What will the industry and farming landscape look like in 20 to 30 years? • Is this a time for optimism or pessimism? • AND…can we really save the planet?

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Duncan Rawson

How is the format different this year? This year’s format will be built around in-depth interviews in an armchair style with just two speakers. In a further departure from previous conferences, the speakers will not deliver a presentation – so no PowerPoints and no lectern, just three comfortable chairs

for chair Charlotte Smith and speakers Sue Pritchard and Phil Jarvis. Charlotte will lead an interview with our guests before opening it up for the audience, and there will be more time for audience participation than in recent years; broadly 60 minutes of interviews and 60 minutes of Q&A.

The Farming Conference will be held at the South of England Showground in Ardingly, West Sussex, from 7pm to 9pm on Wednesday 1 November 2023 (6pm-10pm if attending in person including pre-and post-event refreshments and networking opportunities). The conference is FREE to attend, in person or online, but visitors must register at www.seas.org.uk/farming-conference WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

DECLAN HUGHES HOP TALES

FIRST EXPERIENCE OF AN ENGLISH

COUNTRY HOP GARDEN Part one of a two-part tale of how a young man from Ireland began a long-lasting love affair with the hop gardens of Kent. By Declan Hughes, founder of the Irish Veterans military history charity.

In 1974, some friends travelled to Kent to pick hops, and I suspect I was more than a little asleep when they were making their plans, as I knew nothing about it. Roll on one year and some friends are again making plans to travel to Kent to pick hops. This time I wasn’t caught napping, and I learned that one of my mates – a fantastic blues harmonica player named Eamon – had his name on the hopping list but had decided that a few gigs in Dublin would be more important, and so decided not to go. I asked if I could go in his place, and so it came to pass that I first went hopping in Kent under the ‘nom de guerre’ of Eamon. Last minute preparations were basically the clothes I stood up in and a ferry ticket from Dublin to Holyhead, connecting with the London train – a journey well known and well-travelled by generations of Irish fleeing the strictures and poverty of Old Ireland. From London we piled onto a train to Staplehurst in Kent, where we were loaded like sardines into the blue Morris pickup of our Hop Farmer, Richard; guys in a jumble in the back and girls in the front with the Boss. Riding out from Staplehurst that late August afternoon, mindlessly joking around as only the blissfully ignorant can do, we passed the time. And then, having travelled through Cranbrook and the tiny hamlet of Hartley (which was to become our home-from-home, it consisting most importantly of a pub with a pool table) we came to Tubs Lake and took a right into Bedgebury Forest. At that point I knew that my life had just taken a course correction. In what way, I didn’t know, but I knew that change was coming. I lay on my back in the pickup as a canopy of foliage passed overhead before the left turn at the big oak tree, and on to the rough farm track we’d soon come to know very well indeed over the next four weeks. In the interests of full disclosure I should say upfront that I was

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probably the worst hop-picker they’d had in many a year. Richard’s general rule of thumb was for the guys to work in the hop gardens doing the manual work where very little brain power was required. The girls would mainly do the tractor driving (skill and intelligence required). While all the guys were given a ‘crash-course’ in driving (unintentional pun, but apt), Richard knew from years of experience that if you let a young guy loose on a tractor with no previous experience and little in the way of working grey matter, it invited trouble. The girls, on the other hand, were more intelligent users of farm machinery, by and large, and while the tractors and their trailers of hop bines were required to be driven ‘at speed’ to get the crop in, there was no requirement for young guys to be impressing the ladies with their non-existent skills or their Steve McQueen heroics. So, the guys were designated to go cutting, pulling, wire cleaning, hooking and anything that was deemed to be generally physically demanding. The girls would drive the tractors – the Fergies, Dexters, Davy Browns and Fords – and anything else Richard deemed necessary. They also did their share of sweeping the picking shed floor and keeping the Heath Robinson-type picking machine clear of blockages (intelligence required) and, of course, stereotypically, cooking. Having said that, while most guys itched to get into the driving seat, most of the girls wanted to prove themselves at the pulling and hooking, and did so at every opportunity! My first job, on my first day, was cutting, and I was given a bagging hook, a stone and a pair of gloves. How difficult could this be, I stupidly thought, as I walked out in the early morning mist. I had worked on building sites… The tale continues in next month’s South East Farmer.

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CULTURED MEAT IS SERIOUS

Dear Sir, I am sorry my recent article on cultured meat caused Jeremy Brown to have an attack of apoplexy over his morning cornflakes. He clearly didn’t notice, from the accompanying photo, that I breed beef cattle and therefore likely enjoy well-aged South Devon beef. Nor did he read the article with any care, for I was not advocating cultured meat but reporting on its development, current position and probable trajectory, since it is highly likely to affect all stock farmers fairly soon. We need to be prepared, and forewarned is forearmed. There are too many farmers in the UK having difficulty keeping abreast of the numerous changes impacting farming. Jeremy Brown is clearly ignorant of developments in his own backyard, supported by his local university, currently rated the world leader. Jeremy Brown may still splutter with rage, but cultured meat is serious and likely to be a major player, like it or not. There are many companies worldwide, including in India, producing this meat and I recommend he become better informed and read Wikipedia for an excellent summary of the current global position. He will then be in a better position to comment usefully. Mike Kettlewell

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Dear sir, The latest State of Nature report gives an alarming overview of the significant biodiversity challenges faced in the UK. While comprehensive at 215 pages and containing input from over 60 research and conservation groups, there are some startling omissions. There is no mention of some of the most progressive farmers in promoting biodiversity – namely, organic producers. The UK’s 3,285 organically certified farmers are all committed to delivering for wildlife and public goods – some have been doing so for the past 70 years. Ecology remains one of the four principles that underpin organic agriculture and there are numerous studies which scientifically evidence the beneficial biodiversity outcomes under organic’s transformational approach. In recommending targets to increase nature-friendly farming to help reverse the ongoing decline, this report could have provided further inspiration to farmers by giving a more holistic view and including the successes that organic is already achieving for our fragile ecosystems. We’re happy to share organic data for future reports – an offer that has always been there. Roger Kerr, Chief Executive, OF&G (Organic Farmers & Growers)

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FROM THE FRONT LINE

IN CONJUNCTION WITH

BACK BRITISH FARMING John Marland had a fantastic opportunity to drive home the importance of British farming and British food to the country on a visit to Downing Street. With summer finally behind us, we now have time to make plans for the future. This could involve choosing which variety of seed or best breed of stock would suit our respective farms. We may be thinking about the financial future or even the viability of our farming businesses. We can’t forget that we are fortunate to have farming and the countryside at the core of our lives and that of our families. We must never forget how dangerous the business we live and work in can be. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published figures for the year 2022/2023 showing 25 fatalities, an increase of 9% on the previous year. It can’t be forgotten that each one comes

with immense pain and loss to the families and friends involved. On the back of this, the HSE is planning a major round of farm inspections this autumn and next spring, so it would be beneficial to spend a little time looking around your farm with a critical eye or even asking a professional to assist you with ensuring your health and safety is compliant. On a lighter note, I was fortunate to be asked to attend Parliament on the NFU Back British Farming Day with other members of the NFU to support the NFU President, Minette Batters. I was probably slightly more astonished and pleased to receive an invitation for the same day from the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Thérèse

NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

Coffey, to a reception at No. 10 Downing Street. Here I also met and shook hands with The Prime Minister, which was a great honour. This day was a fantastic opportunity to drive home the importance of British farming and British food to the country. At home on my farm, I can report that I have successfully submitted a mid-tier Countryside Stewardship application and am now beginning to pull my hair out trying to get to grips with the Sustainable Farming Initiative. As the Basic Payments Scheme comes to an end, I was recently told there are now hundreds of grants, schemes and funds available to replace it. However, for a number of these, the financial gain is less than the cost of the professional help needed to apply for it. It is all very confusing. As Chairman of the NFU Tenants’ Forum, I frequently meet tenants across the country who are worried about the security of their tenure. This is because landlords are wanting their farms back so that they can themselves enter into the new environmental schemes. In my opinion, you cannot deny the increased revenue to the landlord, but you also cannot deny that almost invariably the people with the experience, skills and knowledge needed to implement and manage these schemes on that land are the same tenants who are being asked to leave. In my experience, the best way forward is for the landlord and tenant to sit down with a cup of coffee and just talk. I have been fortunate enough to speak to some of the country’s major landowners and found that, across the board, they had not realised how immensely valuable their tenants were. With mental health day just behind us, please take a moment for yourself, for your family and for those important people around you. Each and every one of us is immensely valuable. Mental health is as important as physical health and you should never feel embarrassed about asking for help. Stay safe, stay warm and stay happy. I wish you a cheerful festive season.

FIELD SENSORS Internet-connected devices and wireless communication are enabling growers to access data and information instantly to manage their crops better and make accurate day-to-day decisions on farm. Over the past 39 years Pessl Instruments, known for its METOS brand of in-field sensors, has been developing technology to help growers across the globe use field-specific climatic data and AI-powered analysis to make better predictions of disease risk, insect pest risk and crop irrigation needs. South East Farmer caught up with Pessl Instruments’ CEO and founder Gottfried Pessl to understand how internet-connected technology

Radu Tandarescu – Farm Manager at Adrian Scripps

SENSORS AID CROP PROTECTION DECISIONS AT ADRIAN SCRIPPS Radu Tandarescu, Farm Manager at Adrian Scripps, has been successfully using METOS sensors to manage disease and pest risk in apples on the company’s Cobham farm in Kent. He said: “We’ve been using these sensors for at least 10 years, and measuring the rainfall, temperature, humidity and leaf wetness gives us a great guide to inform our fungicide and insecticide programmes. “Our sensors send data to our RIMpro software and these reports help us choose the best time to apply either a fungicide or insecticide, depending on what we’re targeting. The sensors are in the fields and don’t need manually checking, but we do also go out and physically walk the crops, too. “The sensors give us the accurate real-time information we need to be able to adapt our programmes to react to the current conditions. Both the mobile app and the desktop software means that in just a few clicks you have the data you need.”

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METOS MAKES FIELD SENSOR

DATA MAKE SENSE is making a critical difference to crop production in the UK and around the world. “In the mid-1990s, we knew that the risk of apple scab was driven by the weather. We started to develop weather stations to measure climatic conditions and use this data to run simulations of disease risk in apples, and then also in other high value crops including vines, potatoes and more. At that time the software was desktop based,” said Gottfried. When internet usability rapidly increased in the early 2000s, remote servers enabled wireless data transfer to take place through the cellular network, which sped up the process of data collection. By 2003, Pessl Instruments had created the first server-based system to process weather data for crops and provide risk-based analysis, and by 2010 it had developed a mobile phone app to display the data and provide an assessment of risk. Gottfried explained that the internet’s connectedness provided the biggest advantage for growers. “Previously the farm’s weather station was based in one place on the farmyard and required daily manual measurements to be taken. Now, with wireless connectivity, growers can receive climatic data and soil condition status every few minutes from stations in the field without having to physically visit them. “This near-instant access to data and risk modelling reduces mistakes and supports more accurate decision-making, leading to better planning and more informed use of plant protection and water inputs.” In fruit crops, for example, weather conditions are a strong predictor of the forthcoming risk level of particular diseases, including botrytis, downy mildew and apple scab. Similarly, new advances in imaging and artificial intelligence are enabling insect pests to be monitored remotely in crops, and growers alerted when thresholds are reached. Sprays can then be timed more accurately and pinpointed to fields according to actual risk. “Not only can growers use this technology on a day-to-day basis, but data collected over time gives information on trends. Climatic conditions by field, changes in disease or insect

pressure over the seasons all provide growers with information on which to base future crop protection decisions. In permanent crops it can also help with forward planning and variety choice for new plantings,” explained Gottfried. One aspect still challenging this growing area of technology is compatibility and interconnectedness. When different apps and software won’t talk to one another, it can make rounded decision making more arduous and time consuming. “It’s important that growers can integrate their weather and soil condition data into their farm management software and easily access it. Our desire is always to bring people, data, crops and machinery together, so that better decisions can be made,” said Gottfried. Pessl Instruments has gone on to secure integrations for its METOS brand sensors and stations through APIs with the most-used farm software management systems worldwide, along with the John Deere Operations Centre and many other apps and applications, including RIMpro, that provide data analysis and risk assessments.

Metos weather station and soil moisture sensor installed in a Kent stone fruit orchard

DAVID WHATTOFF

METOS UK managing director T: 07752 426006 E: david.whattoff@metos.uk www.metos.uk

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

MONICA AKEHURST AT THE KITCHEN TABLE

Do you like shopping? I’m not a huge fan, but it’s a necessity of life. Going around supermarkets is a chore I don’t relish; shopping locally is more interactive and better fun. My favourite type of shopping is ram buying. Admittedly if it’s an auction I find it a little nerve wracking, but that makes it an enjoyable challenge. It can be quite entertaining, especially when a ram takes a flying leap in the direction of the auctioneer and jumps out of the sales ring. That ram certainly had fire in his belly and, come the tupping season, let’s hope he puts his excess energy to good use. Over the years we’ve purchased rams in a variety of different ways. Livestock markets, at Dolphin fair and on-farm privately from breeders. Years ago, we visited a breeder in Cheshire who took us to a field where his dogs penned a couple of hundred rams, and he told us to take our pick. I found the large choice slightly overwhelming, but after much deliberation we picked out the ones which in our opinion had the best conformation. Over-fed rams melt, but these were in their working clothes and mainly grass fed, supplemented with a little sugar beet. We bought three and when put to work they kept their condition well, so nowadays I always feed sugar beet in preparation for tupping. This year we needed just one Suffolk ram, so we ventured through the leafy lanes that lead to Hole farm, Hadlow Down. Here, James Hamilton had 25 smartly presented, registered high index Suffolk rams penned for inspection, prior to the inaugural on-farm sale. I must admit that I’ve never studied EBVs (Estimated Breeding Values). This means the breeder has performance recorded the flock, weighing the lambs at eight weeks and again at 17 to 21 weeks when they are ultrasound scanned for

MY FAVOURITE TYPE OF SHOPPING

IS RAM BUYING loin muscle and fat depth. My understanding is that selecting a ram with a higher index score indicates the ram has better genetical potential to improve flock productivity and thereby profitability. The latter is what I’m after. These Suffolk rams had indexes ranging from 257 to 390. I bid on several of the rams, so was quite chuffed when finally my bid was successful. The index for this particular ram is 313. I’ve named my new purchase Hamilton and I’m looking forward to seeing his progeny next spring. It’ll be interesting to discover how well the lambs grow and finish. Initially we penned Hamilton with our other rams, allowing them to get acquainted and sort out their egos before being turned out together into the field. There’s a footpath that runs through our farm and I was not best pleased with the walker who couldn’t be bothered to use the stiles or shut gates. While hosting a family lunch, looking through the kitchen window I spotted the ewes all clustering around our rams, who looked somewhat bemused by this sudden unexpected pleasure. Lunch was put on hold while the rams were hastily removed. I’m really hoping we don’t get too many early lambs.

Walking the cull ewes home NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

I’ve sorted the ewes, culling hard, consulting records and outing a few old favourites. I’m not buying in or keeping any replacements and anything that doesn’t lamb will be going. I’ve decided to consolidate the flock, only keeping those that are prepared to earn their keep. I’m not going to miss the lambing challenges associated with ewe-lambs. I will miss Thelma. Her dental state is grim, she’s been a true leader of the flock. There’s one old ewe who had bottle jaw, which was treated, and who got quite weak. I’ve been giving her sneaky individual feeds to boost her energy levels and I’m happy that she’s recovered. Conflictingly, I’ll feel a mixture of sadness and relief when she’s no longer my responsibility. This autumn has been kind, giving recently sown crops the chance of a good start. The hedges are laden with berries, which does rather make me wonder whether there’s a harsh winter on the horizon. I’ve distant memories of the winter of 1963, and with today’s energy costs, I’m hoping such conditions are consigned to history. The little tree in the garden went plum crazy, boosting our food stores, with much jam making and freezer filling done during September. Most recipes used now include plums or apples, both of which actually go well

Dexter with his saddleback sow

Introducing Hamilton to other rams

Tilley bringing back a duck

Tilley loves the shooting season

Ewe with bottle jaw

17 Paddle boarding was tranquil No fighting yet with pheasant, which is handy as the shooting season has started, much to the spaniels’ delight. In the field with my lambs, I was amused to see a stag with magnificent antlers having a nap in the sunshine. A couple of does standing nearby alerted him to my presence; he soon jumped up and hopped over the fence and together they disappeared into the wood. Autumn sunshine is precious, because with winter looming it’s understandable that everyone wants to soak up the last of the natural warmth. One afternoon, two of my daughters persuaded me to accompany them paddle boarding. The gentle sounds of the water were relaxing. It was fascinating seeing the swallows flitting above the water chasing after the insects, topping up their reserves before migrating. The setting sun was stunning. In a world of discord and with news stories full of atrocities, it’s good to redress

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the balance and see that beauty still exists. The next morning I ached; I suppose paddle boarding uses non-farming muscles. At least I didn’t fall in. Hockham farm has new inhabitants. They’re known as ‘The Trotters’, two boys named Del Boy and Rodney, Saddleback X Gloucester Old Spot weaners bought from Dexter, a young man starting out on his farming ventures who lives on a nearby farm. Loading them proved tricky, so we decided to unload by carrying them. The pigs protested loudly about this undignified method, but were safely transferred to Fort Knox pig palace. On arrival the piggies weren’t very brave but were clever at disguising their location by hiding in the straw. They’re getting bolder and proving to be entertaining in a comical way. They certainly love food. Pig movements have to be registered online. if you phone the help line, our telephone bill revealed it’s expensive.

Plum crazy

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

CLOTHING & FOOTWEAR

FAMILY OWNED AND PROUDLY

INDEPENDENT SINCE 1790 18

While a long and distinguished history is undoubtedly something to be proud of, it is no guarantee of ongoing business success. That depends on innovation, ambition, customer focus, strong partnerships and an understanding of the market and the opportunities it offers. As the seventh generation of the family that has owned the iconic Golden Boot store in Gabriel’s Hill in Maidstone Town Centre, Edward Martin could have been forgiven for relying on the shop’s history to bring in new customers. Instead, he has vastly increased the size of the store, added a range of top quality

country clothing and footwear brands, developed a successful online operation and become a regular attraction at the Weald of Kent Ploughing Match and other ‘pop up’ locations. While it has always been a magnet for customers looking for expertly fitted quality footwear, with generations of families having trusted Golden Boot, particularly for children’s shoes, it has now become a “destination store” for farmers and growers looking for well-made, reliable, practical lifestyle countrywear, with many travelling long distances to seek out a favourite brand. From Schoffel, renowned for making the

NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

ultimate shooting jacket for the UK climate, through R. M. Williams boots and clothes to Fairfax & Favor, with its quality boots and handbags, Holland Cooper, Dubarry, Le Chameau, Hunter and Barbour, Golden Boot has a golden selection of country-focused clothing. Most of the ranges are only available through selected retailers, which highlights Golden Boot’s focus on building strong partnerships with suppliers. The same is true of shoe brands such as Dr Martens, which has now cut its network to 60 stores, one of which is Golden Boot. Golden Boot’s commitment to its customers

FEATURED COMPANY:

and its community is highlighted by its recent expansion into running shoes. As well as stocking shoes from On Running and Hoka, Edward has begun sponsoring Maidstone Harriers and is planning to sponsor the Maidstone Half Marathon. It is a measure of the strength of the brand that Golden Boot isn’t actually the name of the company but refers to the large golden boot hanging outside the shop. Originally aimed at reaching customers who couldn’t read when the shop opened in 1790, it’s since become synonymous with what is certainly the oldest independent shoe shop in the country and probably also the largest. The company name is actually F W Randall and Co, having been founded by William Randall at 29, Gabriel’s Hill before being taken over by Frederick William Randall in the mid-19th century. His daughter Henrietta (‘Etta’) married Robert Martin and the business has stayed in the Martin family ever since.

Edward, who helped in the shop as a teenager before studying for a degree in business retail and then working for Clarks in the US and Charles Clinkard in the north of England, took over the management of the shop from his father Lawrence in 2005. In 2011 the men’s shop doubled in size to allow the introduction of clothing, and in 2018 Golden Boot moved into what was the Ship Inn, latterly the Strawberry Moons night club. Doubling in size again, it created the space for top quality women’s brands including Holland Cooper, Schoffel and Dubarry alongside top hand-made European makers such as Gabor, Panama Jack and Hispanitas. Many farmers and growers will already be familiar with the range and quality of the Golden Boot offering, having come across Edward and his team at a Weald of Kent Ploughing Match, where the pop-up shop has been a staple for many years. “Our products are popular not just with

farmers and growers – both male and female – but also with land agents and other professionals who spend time outdoors in all kinds of weather,” said Edward. “We attend the show not just to sell product and make new customers but because we value their feedback. It helps us to evolve our product range and stay relevant.” As well as the customers, Edward values his team, many of whom have been around for many years. With 25 years’ service under her belt, general manager Clare Wigston has been with Golden Boot for longer than he has, as has women’s manager Jane Taylor, while men’s manager Trudi Hood, now 34, joined the team when she was 16. “We make sure our employees are welltrained and highly skilled people,” said Edward. “When you have customers travelling for several hours to spend several hundred pounds on a pair of boots they deserve to be well looked after – and we make sure they are.”

www.thegoldenboot.co.uk 25-33 Gabriels Hill, Maidstone, Kent. ME15 6HX TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883

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NIGEL AKEHURST VISITS: PERRY COURT FARM

HUGE, RUSTIC AND FILLED

WITH FRESH PRODUCE

Nigel Akehurst visits Perry Court Farm just outside the village of Wye, Kent, to meet the Fermor family and learn more about their successful farming and food retail business. 20

Perry Court Farm is located just off the main A28 Ashford Road and not far from the picturesque village of Wye. Arriving at the farm mid-morning on a Tuesday, I am impressed by the number of cars already

in the car park. I find a spot in front of a polytunnel and make my way over to the farm shop, located in what appears to be an old oast house. By the entrance is a lovely display of

NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

pumpkins and fresh veg. Inside I am struck by the size of the shop – it’s huge, rustic and filled with fresh produce. Eager to see the new shop extension, I walk past the bakery section and arrive in a modern double height barn

FARM FACTS

Heidi, Martin, Jess, Tom and Torty Gordon space with polished concrete floors. Housed in the light-filled, steel framed extension is a dedicated UK cheese and cured meat deli, a butchery counter selling freshly cut locally sourced meat and a large café looking out onto a farm courtyard. It’s the sort of retail space most farm shop owners dream of, and wouldn’t look out of place on a Grand Designs show. It’s buzzing with people, too – a group of walkers from nearby Wye is enjoying refreshments in the cafe. Jess, one of the family, is busy serving customers behind the counter. A few more family members are on their way, she said. I look around and check out their display of heritage apples, all grown on the farm. Blenheim Orange, Adams Pearmain and Belle de Boskoop were just a few of the dozens of heritage varieties they grow on site that you won’t find in the supermarket. Each box contained a description of taste and a brief history of the variety’s origin.

The rest of the family arrives on the scene. I meet Martin and Heidi, their youngest son Tom and his girlfriend Torty Gordon. The only members not present were Cherry, who was on a Royal Horticultural Society training course, and Charlie, who runs his own business locally. We had a brief discussion about their favourite apple varieties. Heidi favours Court Pendu Plat, the wise apple, and Jess likes Pitmaston Pineapple, a small golden apple (they give me one of each to take home). With the rush over, eldest daughter Jess joined us and, after a quick group photo shoot, we sat down for a chat over some coffee and cake. It’s been a busy morning, said Heidi. They’ve had one school group visit from the local Wye Primary and are expecting another one after lunch. There’s also a man from a chocolate company who’s come to talk about their plans to create a chocolate deli and a new member of staff on a trial day. >>

• 800 acres of land owned, including 400 acres of arable, 55 acres of apples, 32 acres of pears, 30 acres of cherries (with some under nets) including pick-yourown in the summer, 15 to 20 acres of strawberries on tables in tunnels, 42 acres of veg, nine acres of potatoes and four acres of asparagus; the rest is pasture. • Recently planted 15 acres of organic Red Windsor apples • Planted a 3.7-acre vineyard in 2022 • Soil types range from brick earth to sandy loam, silty loam (Romney Marsh ground) and chalk • Grow over 200 varieties of apples and pears • 600 tonnes of top fruit storage space on the farm • Started selling their fruit and veg direct at farmers’ markets in the late nineties in London and Wye • Attend 15 farmers’ markets in London plus a few local ones. • Carried out a bird survey in 2018/2020 with Natural England • Countryside Stewardship Mid-Tier • Run their annual Apple Fayre since 1987 • 25 staff on the payroll plus a few seasonal pickers (mainly from Ashford) • Just completed a new modern farm shop and café extension at a cost of £200,000 • 115 South Down ewes; all lambs sold direct in boxes • Berkshire and Oxford Sandy and Black pigs • Veg box scheme set up by youngest daughter Cherry with customers and area increasing • Work closely with Wye primary on farm apple trail visits; the children make crumbles with the apples

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SUPPORTING OUR FARMERS TODAY AND TOMORROW Our specialist farming team continue to visit farms in your local area, to help ensure that you have the right cover For a real conversation about your insurance, give your local agency a call Ashford, Tenterden and Whitfield | 01233 500822

D P Jackson, G R Ashby & D M Smith is an appointed representative of The National Farmers Union Mutual Insurance Society Limited (No. 111982). Registered in England. Registered Office: Tiddington Road, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire CV37 7BJ. Authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. A member of the Association of British Insurers.

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NIGEL AKEHURST VISITS: PERRY COURT FARM

<< It’s also all go in the orchards and fields, said Tom. They are busy harvesting the last of the Marii red apples and also drilling wheat, he explained. Any spare time is spent clearing up from the annual Apple Fayre at the weekend.

HISTORY OF THE FARM

Martin and Heidi started the Apple Fayre in 1987 to showcase British apples and added to their number in 1990s to reach more than 200 apple and pear varieties. The fayre has grown year on year and in addition to their fruit displays they have craft stalls, games and tours, steam engines, morris dancing, refreshments and more. All the proceeds are donated to the Pilgrims Hospice in Ashford. This year they had over 6,000 people through the gates at an event that also marked the unveiling of the new shop extension, said Jess. The original plan was to open in September, but this was pushed back due to a few delays and meant they had to pull in a few favours to get it ready for the weekend.

Martin’s parents Lionel and Jessie Fermor purchased Perry Court Farm in 1951 and started the company L J Fermor Ltd. Initially they specialised in growing strawberries and rearing pigs. At their peak Lionel grew about 200 acres of strawberries, selling into the London open markets. Thousands of people from Ashford came and picked strawberries through the years, he said. Pre supermarkets, strawberries provided a lucrative income, allowing them to buy extra land nearby as it came up for sale. They now own around 800 acres, with arable accounting for about half the acreage. During the late 1980s and 1990s they supplied the supermarkets with strawberries. Initially the relationship was acceptable but after a couple of years things became more restrictive, said Heidi. The packaging requirements were crazy, and towards the end perfect fruit would be rejected in favour of cheap imports, she said. In addition, fruit would be picked under-ripe for increased shelf life, so the desired flavour was not being reached. >>

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WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

PERRY COURT APPLE FAYRE AND NEW SHOP EXTENSION

G. J. ELGAR

NIGEL AKEHURST VISITS:

CONSTRUCTION Ltd

• Steel frame buildings • Building conversions • Sheeting and cladding • Refurbishment and change of use • Demolition and asbestos removal • Groundworks and drainage • Concrete flooring and external concrete • Concrete frame and steel frame repairs • Internal stainless-steel drainage • Insurance and general repairs • Guttering and repairs

www.gjelgarconstruction.co.uk For more information contact us: t: 01233 623739 m: 07860 414227 e: office@gjelgarconstruction.co.uk NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

<< SELLING DIRECT In 1997 farmers markets started in Bath, soon followed by Wye, where they were organised by Richard Boden, and Islington, run by Nina Plank, an American who started the London Farmers’ Market group. Initially they sold their fruit to customers and quickly realised they could expand their range by growing vegetables too. Martin had worked his middle year from Hadlow College for local veg grower Tony Redsell and began growing a wider range of his own veg on their own Romney Marsh ground. It proved to be an ideal site due to its silty loam soil. “We try to follow our customers’ feedback, focusing on flavour, whereas the supermarkets are only interested in looks and shelf life,” explained Martin. A lot of their fruit and veg is now sold via the 15 London farmers’ markets they attend every weekend. “It’s non-stop selling,” said Martin, who loves the interaction of dealing directly with the public. He still takes his produce to the same weekly Islington market he helped start 23 years ago.

Emily and Cherry in the vegetable field

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PERRY COURT FARM Excellence in Electrotechnical & Engineering Services

Knowledge where it counts is critical to providing the right cooling system to ensure produce is kept in excellent condition during storage. Tom in the orchard In addition to the London farmers’ markets they sell at a few local farmers’ markets in Kent and from their own farm shop, which has grown substantially over the years. To begin with they started selling from a stall and honesty box by the farm gate. The next step was a shop housed in a small shed. As demand increased, they converted the oast and expanded their range of products. “We’ve always been a farm shop, not a shop on a farm,” said Martin, who added that they took pride in selling all their own fruit and veg and sourced local meat. With the opening of the new shop extension, Perry Court now has a butcher's counter selling fresh meat sourced from local farms next to their British cheese and cured meat deli counter.

MULTI-GENERATION FAMILY FARM

The farm and shop employs 25 staff, explained Heidi, including three of their four children. Jess, their eldest daughter, is responsible for running the shop as well as looking after her own pedigree Southdown flock, which includes 115 Southdown ewes, with all the lambs sold in boxes to shop customers. In addition there are a few Berkshire and Oxford Sandy and Black sows which rear piglets for sale, mainly as sausages, a couple of donkeys and a few egg layers. Before joining the family business, Jess trained as and practised architecture for 10 years, a skill that came in handy for the design and build of their new shop extension. After studying and working in computer science, their youngest son Tom now works on the farm full time with his girlfriend Torty Gordon. Together they make all the fruit juices, pressing and processing the fruit on site into litre bottles to sell direct. Tom and Martin handle all the day-to-day farm management, from harvesting fruit and veg to planting and arable work. Cherry Fermor, Martin and Heidi’s youngest daughter, graduated with a degree in graphic communication and worked in London on many of the top magazines, including Country Living, BBC Good Food and Cosmopolitan before returning to the farm to start up a successful veg box delivery business. On the day of my visit she was not at the farm as she has recently started a Royal Horticultural Society course in horticulture and is developing a new venture in cut flowers, on top of being responsible for the graphics for the farm and assisting the various enterprises. >>

We are pleased to carry out service and maintenance work for the Fermor family on their six cold stores at Perry Court Farm Specialists in controlled atmosphere stores Rapid chilling systems for soft fruit and fresh produce Secondary cooling systems with energy efficient defrosting using air source heat pump technology Retrofitting of existing high cost electrical defrost heaters with air source heat pumps Electrical engineers and contracting Refrigeration and Electrical service, maintenance, and breakdown cover Testing and certification to NICEIC Mains power solutions for distribution and installations Temperature controlled wine storage solutions using DX or Secondary refrigeration with heating options Qualified to install EV chargers Refrigeration gas leak detection systems F-gas compliance and record keeping Refrigeration system controls with remote monitoring Dave Reynolds Director 07418 005959

Sean Macoy Service Director 07872 557934

Rob Burbridge Director 07858 195633

Paul Kennett F.Inst.R Refrigeration systems 07903 462933

Heather Borland Admin 01622 861989

TEL: 01622 861989

www.orchardcooling.co.uk | info@orchardcooling.co.uk Rumwood Green Farm, Sutton Road, Langley, Maidstone, Kent ME17 3ND

TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

The UK’s leading research and development led agronomy services. The Agrii fruit team is comprised of 13 horticultural agronomists, together with ancillary product specialists and decision support services who collectively advise on soft fruit, top fruit and vineyard business across the UK.

For more information, please contact our Customer Services Team on 0845 607 3322 or email info@agrii.co.uk

www.agrii.co.uk

Bell Agricultural Ltd Support That Lasts a Lifetime

Support That Lasts a Lifetime

THE TEAM AT BELL AGRICULTURAL ARE PLEASED TO BE WORKING WITH THE FERMOR FAMILY

Ivychurch, Kent TN29 0AW www.bellag.co.uk | 01797 344 688 NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

NIGEL AKEHURST VISITS: PERRY COURT FARM

27 << Their eldest son Charlie set up a pioneering, successful fruit crisp brand and currently runs Freddie’s Farm, making healthy fruit snacks. Innovating and working as a team are key drivers of the success behind Perry Court Farm. Instead of grubbing up orchards in response to falling farm gate prices, their direct sales model has allowed them to invest in new disease resistant ‘organic varieties’ of apples such as a recently planted 15-acre orchard of Red Windsor. This year they also planted a small acreage of grape vines on some of their chalk ground, an exciting new project spearheaded by Howard Fox, Jess’s husband. There is more about the farm, shop and events at www.perrycourt.farm and on social media, @perrycourtfarm on Instagram.

FARMING POLICY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

I asked what the family made of the Government’s farming and food policy? Half joking, Martin replied: “Have they got one?”. Heidi added: “There’s no long-term vision and everything farmers do is very long term.” Martin admitted he felt fortunate to have developed a niche market but said it wouldn’t work if all farmers sold their produce direct. Without more clarity and support from government, the reality for a lot of small family farms looked bleak, he suggested. On the environment, he thinks traditional mixed rotational farming is the answer to declining bird numbers. They have noticed many more birds on their chard crop compared to their bird seed strips. They carried out a bird survey with Natural England five years ago and

TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883

found a huge diversity of birds, including many migrating species

ON THEIR OWN VISION FOR THE FUTURE

The farm business will continue to be led by their customers, said Martin, who hoped the new farm shop and cafe would enable them to grow their on-farm customer base and “trim the fat” on some of their farmers’ markets. With our chat over, we headed out to the nearby orchard to take a few pictures of the team apple harvesting. Then it was time to go. Leaving Perry Court, I felt inspired by my visit and determined to learn a few more heritage apple varieties. I can also confirm that the Pitmaston Pineapple apple was delicious and I look forward to eating my Court Pendu Plat at Christmas.

GRUBBING, TIMBER & GROUNDWORK SERVICES W.H.Skinner & Sons

Orchard grubbing Windbreak removal Timber extraction Fallen tree removal Ground contouring Land clearance Excavations Cultivations Pond dredging

01622 744640 - 07711 264775 www.whskinnerandsons.co.uk

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

CONSTRUCTION

FEATURED COMPANY: J D RICHMOND & SON LTD

QUALITY WORKMANSHIP Ben Richmond has always been in the engine room of the construction company set up by his late father John, and now he’s also very much in the driving seat. J D Richmond and Son Ltd was incorporated in 2008, but John and his workforce had been known for quality construction projects across the South East since the early seventies and the man himself was active in the business until very recently. “Everyone knew dad. He was a real character and together we built up a strong customer base among farmers, particularly in the dairy sector,” Ben recalled. “I joined him in 1992, when I left school, but he was always the front man and I know he is missed by a lot of people.” Ben took over at the helm of the business in February, shortly before his father died at the age of 72. “He left a great legacy of agricultural and industrial buildings, and I am proud to be continuing where he left off,” Ben said. “J D Richmond and Son has built an impressive reputation and a strong order book based on word-of-mouth recommendations and returning customers, and I’m making sure that continues.” It’s a tribute to the company’s outstanding focus on quality

NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

workmanship that its impressive customer base includes both Waitrose and the Royal Farms at Windsor, the location for some fond family memories. “I was working building a silage clamp at Windsor in 1992 when the late Duke of Edinburgh came past in a racing pony and trap,” Ben recalled. “He said ‘hello’ as he went past and I said ‘hello’ back – and then added ‘your royal highness’ as he disappeared into the distance. “On another occasion dad was working in the heather garden at Windsor Great Park and found that someone had moved the security fencing from around an area we were working in, so he went through to find a chap wandering around the site. He was about to tell him in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t supposed to be there when he realised it was Prince Philip.” J D Richmond and Son, which has a ten-strong full time workforce, created much of the showpiece Waitrose & Partners Farm on the Leckford Estate in Hampshire from what was a greenfield site. The team installed rotary milking parlours, silage clamps, lagoons, washdown systems and calf sheds amongst other things, and did the groundworks for a fruit store on the site.

J D RICHMOND & SON LTD

All aspects of agricultural and industrial construction

Ben with his sister Victoria Richmond Based in Horsham, West Sussex, the company also built Plumpton College’s dairy unit over a three year period between 2010 and 2012, a project that included constructing a teaching block, handling area, loose yards, slurry tank, dung midden, silage clamps and a straights store. Many customers have been regulars for more than 30 years, including T and M Gue at Huddlestone Farm, near Steyning in West Sussex. The Gues have used J D Richmond and Son since 1989, and the team recently completed the construction work related to a new installation of eight robotic milkers. Ben, whose sister Victoria has been part of the team since 2017, looking after the vitally important admin side of the business, also keeps Sussex cattle – bred at the Royal Farm – at the company’s base at Dalehurst Farm. He also keeps British Whites and has bought an adjacent plot on which he plans to keep Golden Guernsey goats. “Dad wanted a dairy for goats’ milk so that we could make cheese, and I am committed to carrying on the project,” said Ben. “It seems to be a growing market and I am looking forward to a new challenge.” J D Richmond and Son does all kind of agricultural construction, from planning and groundworks through to erecting and fitting out steelframed buildings. The company has also worked for vineyards including Nyetimber at West Chiltington, erecting two new buildings. “From silage clamps and rotary milking parlours to beef units and other general buildings, we can tackle any agricultural or industrial project,” said Ben. “We do power-floated floors, and we even built an aircraft hangar at the Goodwood Estate.” The company has a range of well-maintained machinery in house, including excavators up to 30 tonnes, dumpers, rollers, telehandlers, a concrete crusher, cherry picker and scissor lift. “We have the equipment and manpower to tackle any job. More importantly, we have an overriding ambition to do an excellent job and make sure the client is happy when we leave,” said Ben.

TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883

- Steel framed buildings - Demolition - Plant hire - Groundworks - Asbestos removal - Concrete works - Retaining walls - Design - Planning For more information contact us

T 01403 266124 M 07880 746474 / 07921 123920 E richmond.46@btinternet.com www.jdrichmondandson.co.uk WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

UNBEATABLE

2023

22 NOVEMBER 2023

OPPORTUNITY

Back, bigger, better and busier than ever – that’s this year’s Vineyard & Winery Show, which will be uncorked in style at 9am on Wednesday 22 November at the Kent County Showground, Detling. Vitifruit Equipment Sales and Hire

After two amazing years, this celebration of UK wines shows no signs of slowing down, with last year’s record-breaking statistics again set to be eclipsed as the viticulture industry continues to go from strength to strength. The free-to-visit Vineyard and Winery Show

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

◆ Viticulturists and vineyard owners ◆ Winemakers ◆ Viticulture suppliers (vines, trellising) ◆ Packaging suppliers (bottles, labels, corks, cases) ◆ Vineyard machinery and equipment suppliers

In association with

will give growers, winemakers, the committed and the merely interested an unbeatable opportunity to check out the latest machinery, explore the newest techniques, talk to an impressive line-up of suppliers, hear the best speakers and, of course, taste some of the best home-grown wines available.

Two wine hubs will offer visitors to the show the chance to sample the very best – wines that have appeared in Vineyard magazine as part of Matthew Jukes’ list of top UK wines or those which are either gold or silver WineGB medal winners. The two hubs will this year be split, with

◆ Winery machinery/equipment suppliers ◆ Companies that supply winemaking sundries and supplies (yeasts, nutrients, cleaning products) ◆ Winery services (contract winemaking, contract bottling) ◆ Labour providers

◆ Business services (marketing/PR, legal, insurance) ◆ Retail, wholesale or wine trade ◆ Soil and plant health companies ◆ Students and educational organisations ◆ Consultants ◆ New entrants to the sector

NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

DON’T MISS OUT

◆ Network with the key players in the UK wine industry ◆ Meet with industry experts ◆ Learn the cutting-edge technology and see demonstrations of the latest machinery ◆ Visit the Wine Hub and taste some the UK’s best wines – up to 100 different wines available to try on the day ◆ Attend the WineGB seminars – Expert speakers will cover viticulture, winemaking and marketing topics – aimed at new entrants to the industry as well as those already established ◆ Talk to some of the biggest names in the industry such as Core Equipment, Vigo, Vitifruit, NP Seymour, Agrii and Defined Wine – and many more

31 talks in a dedicated seminar area, a large, heated marquee with seating for 200 people. Research following last year’s show suggested that on average visitors travelled from 100 miles away to reach the event, highlighting its importance as a national showcase. The show opens to the public at 9am at the start of a day that will provide a unique opportunity for networking, sourcing new suppliers, looking at the latest machinery, uncovering innovative ways of doing things, learning from the experts and tasting a drop or two of some of the best wine around. 23

Jones, the John Lewis Partnership’s drinks brand experience development manager, a Trustee of the Sustainable Wine Roundtable and a WineGB sustainability ambassador. With the event having become a highprofile industry highlight in just three years, the programme will be introduced by Nicola Bates, the incoming chief executive of WineGB. Other speakers include Julia Trustram Eve, the organisation’s head of marketing, Ben Smith from Itasca and Bruno Estienne, CEO of Bucher Vaslin. The popularity of the seminars, as demonstrated by the large audiences last year, has prompted the organisers to site this year’s

sparkling wine tastings available in the John Hendry Pavilion and still wine on offer in the Maidstone Exhibition Hall. In total there will once again be 100 of the country’s top wines available for growers, winemakers and buyers to compare, contrast, admire and perhaps learn from. Top wine writer, speaker and all-round expert Matthew will also once again be leading an exclusive wine tasting masterclass – virtually sold out as the magazine went to press – while new for this year is a second tasting event focusing on the up-and-coming Piwi wines and led by Volker Freytag and Sam Doncaster from Piwi experts Rebschule Freytag. The Piwi masterclass also looks set to sell out, highlighting the interest in these new varietals and the expertise the speakers bring to understanding the topic. The growing interest in viticulture and the draw of this industry-leading show is highlighted by the fact that exhibitor space is sold out, despite organisers Vineyard magazine making an extra 500 square metres of space available for the 2023 show in response to demand from businesses that have recognised the potential of this growing market. It means that visitors will be able to see a huge range of machinery and equipment, from specialist tractors and bottling lines to packaging materials and labels, and talk to specialist advisers, agronomists, funders and experts of all kinds. The 120 trade stands will offer support, knowledge, services and technical advice for everyone, from existing growers and winemakers looking to move to the next level or streamline their processes through to those who are just thinking about dipping a toe in the water. The list of seminars, and the speakers delivering them, is equally impressive, beginning with a keynote address by Anne

The Vineyard & Winery Show will be an unmissable event for anyone working in viticulture and wine production in the UK. The show takes place on 22 November 2023 at the Kent County Showground, Detling, Kent.

TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883

Organised by Vineyard magazine and supported by WineGB, it will be an invaluable opportunity for all viticulturalists, winemakers, suppliers and the trade to come together. There will be a packed programme including a series of seminars from WineGB, tastings

2023

GET YOUR FREE TICKET TO THE SHOW

2023

of the UK’s top wines, lots of machinery and equipment to see – as well the opportunity to network with peers. To register for your free ticket go to ww.vineyardshow.com

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

22 NOVEMBER 2023

THE SEMINARS

2023

Sponsored by

The seminar programme on 22 November has an exciting line up of presentations from speakers, all experts in their fields, who will share their experiences, communicate their ideas and encourage discussion and networking. The sessions this year have been compiled by WineGB with the aim of providing some bite-sized and thought-provoking and informative topics. Nicola Bates, CEO, WineGB 09.00 - 09.10

Keynote speaker: Anne Jones 09.15 - 09.30

Welcome address

John Lewis Partnership drinks brand experience development manager, Trustee of Sustainable Wine Roundtable and WineGB sustainability ambassador

If incoming WineGB CEO Nicola Bates needs any reassurance regarding the importance of her new role, the Vineyard & Winery Show will surely expel any doubts. The show at the Kent County Showground on 22 November will be her first major engagement since taking on the top job and will surely highlight the strength and the potential of the product her organisation champions. The trade body’s mission is “to advance the multiple interests of all our members to establish Great Britain as one of the world’s great quality and most sustainable wine regions”, and the show, now in its third, sell-out year, will highlight the strides that have already been made in that direction. Nicola will be delivering the opening address for the seminar

NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

NICOLA BATES

programme which WineGB has once again organised and which will be addressing topical issues, challenges and opportunities for the GB wine industry. Looking ahead to the show, she commented: “As the trade body representing the English and Welsh wine sector, [WineGB is] well-placed to assess the needs of our vineyards and wineries. With the help of our work group chairs, we've created a programme that deals with current and future trends to help you secure and develop your business now and in the years ahead."

SEMINAR 1

09.30 - 10.30 Wine tourism Exploring growth and opportunities

Julia Trustram Eve

Visit Britain

James Osborn

Head of marketing, WineGB

A representative to be announced shortly

Partner in rural consultancy, viticulture, Knight Frank

SEMINAR 2

10.40 - 11.10 Breaking into the US market How to simplify your export supply chain

Kirsten Polyansky Director of Americas and CLO, Ferovinum

SEMINAR 3

Mitchel Fowler Founder & CEO, Ferovinum

11.15 - 11.40 Is your brand market-ready? Five ways to stand out

Alex Ririe DipWSET Director, The Collaborators

SEMINAR 4

11.50 - 12:35 E-labelling The new regulations and planning ahead

Lauritz Merkel,

Jonas Schenk

Matthew Johnson

Business development manager, Imero

Co-Founder, Imero

Head of business development, Bottlebooks

SEMINAR 5

12.40 - 13.10 Sustainabili‫ ﬚‬in wine production 33

Bruno Estienne

13.10 - 13.30: BREAK

CEO, Bucher Vaslin

SEMINAR 6

Ian Robertson

Flora O'Brien

Nick Cooper

Director, Sustainable Soil Management

Specialist in Root Biology, NIAB

Agronomist Director, Mycolife Ltd

SEMINAR 7

14.20 - 14.55 Herbicide driﬅ Its impact and how to deal with it

Simon Day

Tony Purdie

Head of production, Kingsthorne

Vineyard manager, Yotes Court

SEMINAR 8

VITICULTURAL & WINEMAKING CONSULTANT - SIMON DAY. •

30+ years of experience in UK viticulture and winemaking,

•

Full site assessments and variety / rootstock and trellis advice pre-planting.

•

13.30 - 14.15 Long-term impact of copper and cultivation on soil

15.00 - 15.45 Wastewater Measurement, treatment and reduction

Ben Smith

Vineyard management advice and mentoring.

•

Winery design and ongoing winemaking advice.

•

Business planning & legislation, HMRC, WSB, etc.

•

On an Ad-hoc, project, or annual retainer basis.

Contact: e: sday@kingsthorne.co.uk t: 07796 141390 w: www.kingsthorne.co.uk

Head winemaker, Itasca

SEMINAR 9

Nick Lane Head winemaker, Defined Wine

15.50 - 16.25 Calcium instabili‫ ﬚‬Risks, analysis and solutions

Belinda Kemp Group leader - Viticulture and Oenology Research, NIAB TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883

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22 NOVEMBER 2023

2023

MEET THE EXHIBITORS

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Arc Integrated Systems Ltd

H16

Fruit Support Europe b.v.

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Rastal Gmbh

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Bale Baron UK Ltd

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GJ Elgar Construction

H10

The Carling Partnership Ltd

H11

Bell Agricultural Ltd

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Grown Green Ltd

H15

Rootwave

Biopythos

Hampton Steel Ltd

RVS Consultants Viticoles

Bordeaux Aquitaine Inno'Vin

H14

Haynes Agricultural Ltd

UPL UK Ltd

Clemens GmbH & Co

Humphries & Parks Ltd

Vidacycle Ltd

CO2 Winery

International Water Solutions Ltd

H13

Vigo Ltd

J13

Compagnie des Agrafes a Vigne

Laboratoires Dubernet & SRDV

Vine Equip Ltd

Crop Candle Co. Ltd

H17

Micro Can Ltd

Vineyard magazine

Ernest Doe & Sons Ltd

J16

Natura Grow

Whitehead Monckton Ltd

EtOH

NFU Mutual

J11

Winebox Co Ltd

Evolution BPS

PARSEC

WineGB

J18

Fermentis Si Lesaffre

J12

Protech Future Ltd

Wiston Estate Partnership

K26

Acres Insurance Brokers

K48

HL Hutchinson Ltd

K12a Russell IPM Ltd

K19

ACS Farm Image

Horse Power UK Ltd

K45

R W Crawford Ltd

Agricare Group

K22

Idelys

S29

Sarl Velletaz Groupe

K50

Agrii

K14

Integrated Processing Technologies Ltd

S35

SCDC Le Fil Metallique

S32

Agrovista UK Ltd

K51

Itasca Wines Limited

S18

Sencrop

S42

Animal and Plant Health Agency

Kirkland UK

Southern Farmers Ltd

S26

ArborAgri Ltd

S21

Knight Frank LLP

K12

Stakes & Canes

S20

Ascend Broking Group

S40

Laboratoires Dujardin-Salleron

K46

Tech Ltd

S22

Azets Holdings Ltd

S16

Landseer Ltd

K28

The Grape Exchange

S15

BASF plc

S31

Litmus Wines Ltd

K28

The Vineyard Store

S12

Berkshire Labels Ltd

K39

Mayo Wynne Baxter LLP

S14

TL Guys Ltd

K42

Berlin Packaging

S13

Murphy & Son Ltd

Torran Construction Ltd

K25

Bevtech Ltd

K10

N P Seymour / SJ Barnes

S41

Valagro UK Ltd

K37

Bourrasse S.A.S

S27

NIAB

S25

Vetreria Etrusca Ltd

S19

Boxes and Packaging (Oxford) Limited

S17

North Kent College

K47

Vignetinox

K18

Cazaux Rotorflex SARL

S37

Oak Creative Design Limited

K28

Vine Care UK

K49

Core Equipment

K21

Omex Agriculture Ltd

K29

VineWorks Ltd

S36

Craig & Parsons

K32

One Pay

Vines Direct Ltd

Croxford Wine Estates Limited

K40

Orchard Cooling

K36

Vinescapes Services Ltd

Custom Crush

Pepinieres Guillaume

S39

Vineyard Solutions Limited

K31

Defined Wine Ltd

Pinks Group Ltd

S24

Vitifort SAS

K35

Designcubed

Plantex UK

K41

Vitifruit Equipment

K16

Fargro Ltd

S23

QCL

Vitikit Ltd

K44

Ferovinum Ltd

S11

Rainbow Professional Ltd

K11

Vivagro

K13

Forma Management Ltd

K33

Rankin Brothers & Sons

K27

Warners Law LLP

S30

FOSS UK Ltd

K15

Rebschule Freytag GmbH & Co. KG

K23

Wealden Agricultural Marketing Ltd

S38

Four Jays Ltd

K17

Richard Burton Specialised Machinery

S28

WR Services

Gaiago SAS

K34

Royston Labels Ltd

NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

2023

MAIN ENTRANCE

FIRE EXIT

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RECEPTION

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National Fruit Show

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2019

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SEMINARS 53a High Street, Tonbridge, Kent, TN9 1SD Telephone: +44 (0)1732 358835 Email: sales@holdsworthdesigns.co.uk www.holdsworthdesigns.co.uk

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Floorplan 2023 – John Hendry Pavilion

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Detling Show Ground Venue Stand no. John Hendry Event date

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Drawing Maidstone MATTHEW Hall Number Option 7 JUKES ASTOR PAVILION 22/09/19 1966.11

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Floorplan 2023 – 35 Maidstone Exhibition Hall MAIDSTONE EXHIBITION HALL 53a High Street, Tonbridge, Kent, TN9 1SD Telephone: +44 (0)1732 358835 Email: sales@holdsworthdesigns.co.uk www.holdsworthdesigns.co.uk

2023

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National Fruit Show

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2019

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Stand W W W . SEvent O Uno. T John H Hendry E A S T F A RDrawn M byE RMGH. N E T | NDateO V E M22/09/19 BOption E R7 2 0 2 3 date

53a High Street, Tonbridge, Kent, TN9 1SD Telephone: +44 (0)1732 358835

Client

National Fruit Show

www.holdsworthdesigns.co.uk

Project

2019

T O A D V E R T I S E C A L LEmail:0 sales@holdsworthdesigns.co.uk 1303 233883

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Maidstone Hall

1966.11

2023

For viticulturists in Great Britain

In association with

22nd November 2023 Kent Event Centre, Detling, Maidstone, Kent ME14 3JF

SEMINARS | WINE TASTING | MEET INDUSTRY ADVISORS

R U O ER Y

T E K TIC

T S I G RE

The Vineyard & Winery Show is an unmissable event for anyone working in viticulture in the UK and abroad. The Vineyard & Winery Show will provide vineyard owners, winemakers and growers with a fantastic opportunity to keep up to date with the latest technology, meet with suppliers & allied trades that are supporting the industry as well as having the chance to network with key players in the UK wine marketplace.

FREE TO ALL ATTENDEES

You will be able to meet with industry experts, learn about new technology and view demonstrations of the latest machinery. Come and taste some of the UK’s best wines – up to 100 different UK producers are making their wines available for tasting on the day.

FREE SEMINARS & WORKSHOPS

Giving you the chance to learn from industry leaders and hear about how they built their businesses. Expert speakers will cover viticulture, winemaking and marketing topics.

Vitifruit Equipment Sales and Hire

LEGAL

DIVERSIFICATION AND THE

PUSH FOR NET ZERO

37 With direct payments under the basic payment scheme ending at the end of the 2023 scheme year, to be replaced by delinked payments until 2027 and then, to a certain extent, Environmental Land Management schemes, diversification is becoming more important than ever. In line with the push for net zero, one option available to landowners is to consider allocating land to green energy projects such as solar and wind power. These schemes provide landowners with a reliable income stream, and larger projects are typically more lucrative than traditional farming. The general focus is currently on solar, with onshore wind taking a back seat due to a de-facto ban since 2015. Although recent amendments to the national planning policy framework hope to improve the chances of future onshore wind development projects by giving local authorities more flexibility to approve suitable planning applications, it remains to be seen whether or not the changes have the desired effect. The safer bet, therefore, continues to be with solar projects, and it is clear that policy is changing. Depending on the class

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of land available in the local area, and the availability of grid connection points, as of this year planning permission for renewable energy projects has been granted on grade 1 agricultural land and land near an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Landowners looking to diversify in this way have a number of options available to them. The most common solution is to enter into an option agreement with an operator for the grant of a lease. The operator applies for planning permission for a new generation site and, if it receives the desired planning permission and grid connection, it can elect to take a lease of the land for a period, typically 40 to 50 years. During this time the operator will pay a rent based on the extent of the land and the generating capacity of the site. Before the lease is completed, the landowner can typically use the land for farming, so that no time is wasted. If the operator’s planning application is successful but it chooses not to lease the land, the landowner will have a more valuable property that it can market to other operators who may be interested now that

the land already has the benefit of planning permission. The team at Whitehead Monckton handles all forms of development work and would be happy to assist landowners in their efforts to diversify.

BEN GALLAFANT

Associate Solicitor T: 01622 698001 E: bengallafant@wmlaw.uk www.whitehead-monckton.co.uk

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

SEED

FERTILISER

GRAIN

STORAGE

T: 01264 321 595 www.openfield.co.uk

ELVED PHILLIPS ARABLE NOTES

IRRESPECTIVE OF

SUPPLY, THE DEMAND

HAS FALLEN AWAY 38

By the time you read this, Israel will probably have commenced its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. Like Ukraine, this will be another conflict where neither side can win and neither can afford to lose. Indirectly, escalation can affect our grain trade. If Iran decides to support Hamas, oil prices will rise as 20% of the world’s oil has to pass through the vulnerable straits of Hormuz, so freight rates will increase. Despite a seemingly never-ending supply of Russian wheat, the world markets are beginning to tighten. As the Chinese economy recovers, it has recently been active buying maize and wheat again and not just from Australia, where a much lower wheat crop and logistical issues with barley mean they cannot continue to “keep going to that well”. Most recent attempts by the 'bulls' to get the markets moving positively have been snuffed out, usually by reports from the USDA or other agencies about crops being better than expected. However, futures markets have been stubbornly refusing to go below some critical chart points. These markets have now seen a ‘bounce’ from these lows, but any recovery is still very fragile. You must pay respect to the so-called ‘big hedge funds’; they have gambled big time in the past 18 months, correctly anticipating

ELVED PHILLIPS Openfield

either larger than expected world crops or, more significantly, the fall in demand. The economic recovery from the pandemic has been slower than expected, and just when it got going it was hit with huge inflationary costs and, worst of all, interest rates which have rocketed. So, almost irrespective of supply, the demand has fallen away. A good example of this is the malting and brewing industry. This year the brewers decided that they would try to pass on the high extra energy and other inflationary costs to the beer drinkers. Well, that hasn’t worked! Instead of drinking out, consumers are buying beer as cheaply as possible in supermarkets and drinking at home. This is one reason why many pubs no longer open on many days in the week and closures continue, so in a year when Europe has had one of its poorest malting barley crops, demands for the end product has fallen. Brewers, by trying to maintain margins, have created profit-led inflation, but the strategy of passing their costs to the end user has failed so far. Instead of an incrementally improving market for malting barley, which you might expect in circumstances of reduced EU supply, you have a stop, start affair. Big brewers don’t want to break ranks and price malt for fear of making themselves uncompetitive with other brewers. Maltsters are limited to what they can buy. Meanwhile, premiums remain high. Two things will happen. The UK will continue to export its surplus which, I said last month, is

NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

probably already committed up to June 2024. Reluctantly, brewers will have to come in to price malt. On farm, quality will continue to deteriorate as the original harvested quality is nowhere as good as last year, so be vigilant about moisture, temperatures and bugs as you can only mess it up from here. And the loss of premium will be immense. Also, last month I presaged the AHDB announcement that the UK wheat crop was only 14 million tonnes. It’s encouraging that UK shipments of wheat to our usual EU outlets have re-commenced. It may be that the stocks of feed in northern and eastern EU countries are beginning to dwindle. My view remains that if you have the quality, taking the high premiums for milling wheat and malting barley must be right. Feed wheat and barley require a longer burning fuse, but take comfort from the wheat crop figure, which means the UK surplus is modest. As I said, the hedge funds have probably read the world market better than the UK grain trade in the past year or so, but the Israeli/Arab conflict will be causing them concern because of their mostly short positions. Quite apart from the oil supply issue, a large amount of the world’s internet traffic travels through the Red Sea and Egypt, so it is vulnerable to disruption. Russia also may be thinking that supporting its Arab allies may distract the world from what it’s doing in Ukraine. All of this has potential for grain market volatility, so be prepared to sell into any sudden large market spikes.

prod and

STEPHEN CARR

Offe in so serv your

DIFFICULT TIMES

With grain and oilseed rape prices currently £100 per tonne lower than they were a year ago, my harvest 2023 does not look likely to produce a lot of profit. There’s not much I can do about that except cross my fingers for a mid-season surge in arable commodity prices. But what hope is there of things improving in 2024 and beyond? Weak grain prices are worrying enough, but my other problem is the slow but now advanced demise of my beloved BPS. My payment this year will be barely half what it was three years ago and will disappear completely by 2027. The post-Brexit erosion of my BPS would not have been such an issue had the introduction of the Government’s Environmental Land Management scheme and Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) not become such a shambles. As we are all painfully aware, there have been endless delays and disappointments, particularly at the poor payment rates on offer for some of the SFI options. But, like so many farmers in the South East, I am particularly hard hit by the withdrawal of the BPS because the average quality of my land is so low. Farming poor land has never been much fun but, thanks to climate change, the viability of my more marginal arable acres is being eroded. These poorer fields either have shallow soil, poor soil structure or lack drainage, so they struggle to produce good crops in the face of ever more unpredictable and extreme periods of hot, dry, or wet weather. But can I expect to see any relief from these pressures? Well, nothing can ever upgrade my soil classifications, but the UK Government is hardly leading the way in the fight against climate change. In recent months it only seems interested in abandoning its timetable to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If the UK is going to make any progress in feeding itself, governments will have to devise a subsidy of some sort to deliberately encourage grain production, rather than relying on market forces to keep arable land of lesser quality in production. Such a policy might be necessary, given that the UK already has a massive food trade deficit and is not a net exporter of any food commodity (except barley in some years). But this government is ideologically opposed to any such initiatives. Indeed, it’s already signed catastrophic food trade deals with Australia and New Zealand that threaten to ruin Britain’s beef and sheep farmers within a decade. Even ex-DEFRA secretary George Eustice, who was farms minister when the deals were signed, described them as “not very good”. My father, who was certainly no socialist, used to say that farmers always did better under a Labour government. So, perhaps a Keir Starmer victory in the next general election, might be just what my farm needs. Could it make things any worse?

STEPHEN CARR Stephen farms near Eastbourne in East Sussex in partnership with his wife and four of his daughters. The farm has a pub, the Sussex Ox at Milton Street, which serves the farm's pedigree Sussex beef, Southdown-cross lamb and fruit and vegetables from the farmhouse kitchen-garden. TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883

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WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

AGRONOMY

THE SUSTAINABLE FARMING

INCENTIVE 2023 IS OUT OF THE BAG

As many farmers across the country look at what options are available to them, Georgina Wallis, Hutchinsons’ environmental services expert, visits a 228ha mixed farm to hatch a plan of ‘action.’ At this farm, the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) is going to be utilised on land which is already out of ‘traditional production’. The client has been out of an environmental scheme since 2014 and is looking to enter back into a scheme on the proviso that it will offer some flexibility and practicality for years to come. It’s important to remember that success in any agri environment scheme comes from fitting the scheme around the farm rather than the farm around the scheme, and being realistic with desired outcomes. So this opened up two options for this farm; either mid-tier countryside stewardship or the SFI. Based on the additional flexibility offered within the SFI, this is a better option for this farm. As the SFI is not competitive, there is no issue with early commitment, especially around the establishment of winter cover crops. It is worth noting that the rules do, however, give 12 months to establish the mix. The agreement length is also slightly shorter; three years with SFI but five years with mid-tier. There is also the attraction within the SFI of a management payment. This is worth £20/ha for up to 50ha. Given this farm’s size at 228 ha, this works out at the maximum annual payment of £1,000. Working through the various SFI actions available, soil analysis and the production of a soil management plan is already being done, so that’s £1,400 towards the cost of this. Similarly, the farm is already utilising winter cover crops, and although the payment is not particularly substantial, it does go towards plugging the gap with seed costs. There are ample hedgerows on this farm, and not all of them have been entered into the scheme, to allow ongoing flexibility. However, there is some money to be had for the management and assessment of hedgerows and hedgerow trees within the SFI; this is not an option to be hung up on here as it makes up a small proportion of the total value. This farm is already carrying out integrated pest management (IPM) as part of the service from its Hutchinsons’ agronomist, so it makes sense to utilise the IPM plan, giving an annual payment just shy of £1,000. The farm is also looking to improve its public image, with regular visitors to the site in the form of business units, so flower-rich margins,

GEORGINA WALLIS

T: 07825 431647 E: georgina.wallis@hlhltd.co.uk Canterbury: 01227 830064 www.hlhltd.co.uk NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

KEY MESSAGES FOR ENTERING SFI ACTIONS IN 2023 • There is a range of options so pick and choose what suits your farm or what you may already be doing • There is no minimum or maximum area • Keep it simple • Build up rather than over-committing, as you can only reduce actions to 50% of original commitment • Future actions for 2024: – Reduced tillage – Precision farming; soil and nutrient mapping blocks or in-field strips provide good visual, habitat and nectar benefits and other beneficials within the field. The ‘no insecticides’ action has not been applied for here as, after discussions with the agronomist, the risk/reward was out of sync for this action on this farm, with too much risk associated with not using insecticide. The nutrient management plan can, however, be well implemented as it is already produced annually by the agronomist. Combined with the soil management plan, this creates a practical document to refer to in terms of improving soil health. Using the legume fallow which can now be rotational provides an opportunity to use this as a break crop and improve fertility and as part of a grass weed control strategy. The farm has historically utilised winter bird food options so is interested in bringing those back into a scheme for 2023. The grassy field corner option is also a great addition to the 2023 SFI offer as it provides an option for those fiddly field corners which are too small to drill with a mix or perhaps unsuitable for standard cropping. This option allows natural regeneration, so there is no need in most cases to seed. The farm also bolsters several grass buffer strips on the arable land. These are primarily unproductive strips next to hedges, ditches and environmental features and offer a network across the farm to join up habitat. Consider areas on the farm which are already out of production which fit well within the SFI. Finally, we have also made use of the low-input grassland option, with 10ha of permanent grass used to graze some beef cattle which are produced and sold locally. Combining all the actions considered above brings the amount for this farm through SFI payments to a nice annual income of £28,064. Although this payment is not equal to the farmer's annual BPS income, this scenario hopefully shows the farm is already carrying out several actions which allow for ongoing productive and sustainable farming on this holding.

ORGANISED CHAOS ANITA HEAD

ANITA HEAD Farmer

It’s now back to school after a lovely two-week half term. We even managed to fit in a family trip to Nausicaa in France. Ted is obsessed with life underwater, and we had a fab day, the first day out in a very long time. Unfortunately the clocks have now changed and the evenings are drawing in. We keep saying that the sooner the shortest day of the year comes the quicker the lighter evenings will be here. Christmas is on its way. Drilling at home certainly seemed to go without too many hiccoughs this year, and when the rain came it didn’t seem to stop. Fields were cultivated, drilled and rolled on the same day. Thankfully everything is safely in the ground and progressing as it should. A quieter time on the arable side now, with Fergus in Australia, and after a few major visa hiccoughs with more tense moments than I care to imagine, he is now in full-on Australian harvest mode. Long hours and late nights, but they seem to be getting on well, although it would appear that the yield may be down on the previous year. The eventing season came to an abrupt end, with the last event cancelled due to flooding, so I was looking forward to enjoying a relaxing

PLAGUED BY WATER ISSUES few weekends but alas there’s no rest for the wicked and it’s a winter of dressage and show jumping for Zara. An 18th birthday, an 80th birthday (my Mum) and lots of university open days to contend with this month. Happy 18th Monty, our fun loving, hardworking, 6’4” lad. This year Monty has exceeded all our expectations and has been such an invaluable part of our farm team. Fingers crossed that he gets the grades he deserves in his ‘A’ levels. We had a substantial amount of rain throughout the month of October, causing serious flooding issues throughout the country. We seemed to have less rainfall in the South East than in many counties further north. Rivers burst their banks and many bridges collapsed. A farmer in Scotland was left trying to water 600-plus cattle after a bridge corroded, taking with it the main water main. The water company could not give any indication for a repair timeframe as it was a substantial job. They also said that they were not obliged

to provide water for the cattle and were only obliged to provide water for human consumption. It would seem ironic to have been discussing this after three days of torrential rain. The call centre explained that they would provide bottled water to be delivered to the site for anyone to use. I would estimate that for 600 cattle you would need at least 20,000 litres a day. Eventually the gentleman spoke to the relevant contractor, who explained that if they couldn’t reconnect the pipe, they would lay a temporary pipe to enable the cattle to drink. Thankfully someone with common sense prevailed and all ended well. I believe the next port of call would have been DEFRA to explain that it had become a welfare issue. We seem to have been plagued by water issues this year, with lost meters and leaks. The water company has had three or four searches for a meter that has involved digging the drive etc, but to date the whereabouts of the meter remain a mystery! Plan B or C is now in place… Until next time, stay safe

APPLE RETAILER OF THE YEAR

Aldi has been named 2023 apple retailer of the year by UK top fruit grower association British Apples & Pears Ltd (BAPL). The award is based on BAPL member sales to British supermarkets from September 2022 to end of August 2023, during which period Aldi sold 32,165 tonnes of British dessert apples, ahead of Tesco, which sold 28,954 tonnes and beating Sainsbury’s total of 24,448 tonnes into third place. Ali Capper, executive chair of BAPL, said: “Aldi’s commitment to British has been growing every year. With a grocery market share of only 10.2%, we are delighted to see Aldi significantly over-indexing for British apples. “Aldi sold 23% of all British apples last year – the greatest volume of any UK supermarket, just pipping Tesco’s 21%. For Aldi to sell more than double the expected volume (based on grocery market share) is an excellent performance and one which we hope other

retailers will emulate.” BAPL has also looked back over the past three years to identify longer term support for the category. In terms of all apple and pear sales from the 2019 crop to 2022 crop inclusive, Sainsbury’s sold the most (117,892 tonnes), with Tesco second (116,869 tonnes) and Aldi in third (111,373 tonnes). “It’s so important that all our supermarkets get behind British farmers and our wonderful British apples and pears. Buying British over imported fruit saves on food miles, and we know consumers want British if at all possible. “When we have such wonderful fruit available in good quantities, that will store well, there really is no reason to look overseas. It would be great to see every retailer making it much easier for the shopper to find British apples and pears in their stores and online.”

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WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

EDUCATION

SUPPORT AND DEVELOPMENT Alan Johnson, curriculum manager for agriculture, reports.

The number of students who enrol on agricultural courses at Plumpton College reflects the support and development offered to students and the success they have in progressing their careers after leaving. Our students are rewarded for their effort, determination, achievement and contribution to the college or wider community through the development of exceptional employability skills as they move into the world of work. Several students stand out yearly because they go above and beyond what is expected. All students complete over 150 hours of work experience each year, receiving excellent feedback from local employers and reflecting their passion to impact the agricultural industry positively. Two first-year students are keen to contribute to a monthly diary highlighting what they do while at College. They are Alice Hudson from Kent and Ollie Mattocks from Wiltshire.

ALICE HUDSON

"I am a Level 3 agricultural student at Plumpton College. The main reason I chose to study agriculture is because I have a passion for animals and would love to work on a farm and have a positive input in the industry in the world of farming. I am from Sittingbourne, Kent and my secondary school had a farm that I was a massive part of for five years, competing at various shows, exhibiting cattle and other livestock. I became Young Farmer of the Year in my Young Farmers' Club, which was one of my biggest achievements while winning many rosettes. I chose Plumpton as I believe it has one of the best college farms and opportunities

for students as it allows me to expand my knowledge and offers support, helping me find something I want to specialise in. I have learned so much here and have had the chance to drive a tractor, assist in disbudding calves and in administering the correct medication. In routines, I have learned how to milk the cows, care for the calves and rotate livestock in fields. In the classrooms, we are learning about the welfare of the animals, the importance of correctly raising them and how to produce good feed for them. We also learn about the safety on a farm and different legislation. Plumpton was a great choice as it has opened up opportunities that will help me to achieve all my goals."

OLLIE MATTOCKS

"I am a Level 3 first-year student at Plumpton College and I come from Wiltshire. Why do I like farming? Why did I choose Plumpton? And why agriculture? These are the questions I will be answering. Starting with: ”Why do I like farming?”, I love farming because it is outside and working with animals. Agriculture also provides a lot of food for the nation, e.g. bread from our crops or a nice fillet steak from our beef herds. I also love working with the livestock and helping them when lambing or calving, but I also love catching that one isolated ewe in the field that needs help to lamb and getting it back on its feet. I guess I am trying to say that I love helping the livestock. “Why agriculture?” I have grown up working on farms my whole life. I have seen it all, from lambing to calving, and you can't forget about the big harvest. Then there's my favourite – raising the turkeys for Christmas, which we sell to the local pub.

FIND OUT MORE

At Plumpton College we have apprenticeships available at level 2 and level 3, with a potential start at any time of the year, and we are currently recruiting for both levels. Talk to our team to find out more by phone or email: Business@plumpton.ac.uk

This is why I love agriculture. It is different from some career options as we do different things at different seasons. “Why did I choose Plumpton College?” I chose Plumpton because it is a nicely sized college, not too big and not too small, it's also not my local college, so I'm experiencing something different from East Sussex, for example how they do things at the college. As an example, Plumpton has two milking robots. They still have a herringbone parlour as a comparison and milk a total of 130 on the parlour, which is a low input system, with higher inputs on the robots, which have a higher milk yield. I am enjoying my time at Plumpton and have already learned so much. "

Ollie and Alice

Further information can be found on our website: www.plumpton.ac.uk/business-services/apprenticeships-for-employers NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

FOCUS ON FRUIT SARAH CALCUTT

SARAH CALCUTT Chair, National Fruit Show

The selection of the new crop of Nuﬃeld scholars is always a tense time. These days it’s my turn to sit on the selection panel on behalf of the Fruiterers, thinking back to my own anxiety about the 20-minute interview upon which so much depended. Like many Nuffield scholars, my study opened up my horizons, helped me see beyond the everyday and introduced me to so many opportunities. Farming in the UK has benefitted enormously from the generosity of the Nuffield sponsors, building on William Morris’s initial investment in his brother and then neighbours. Previous scholars include Ali Capper, who will be speaking at the fruit show this year and has affected so much change and heightened awareness of the challenges for fruit and hop growers, Feli Felicidad at NIAB EMR, responsible for breeding a generation of delicious berries, Chris Newenham at the helm of the UK’s quintessential jam brand, and we cannot forget Paul Kelly, who introduced the world to bronze turkeys. This year’s clutch of candidates was outstanding, submitting well thought-out, intelligent applications from people with a clear vision of what was needed in their sector, already skilled but aware of the need for continual evolution and development. Our latest Fruiterers scholar is Polly Hilton, the founder of, and cider maker at, Find & Foster Fine Ciders. Her study is on "Elevating the value of and respect for fine cider to safeguard the future of orchards." She is erudite, driven and absolutely thinking about the future opportunities for the broader industry, not just her own enterprise, I’m really looking forward to learning more from her and seeing where her study takes her. The mission statement of the Nuffield Farming Scholarships Trust is Leading positive change in agriculture – Inspiring passion and potential in people. The Trust gives approximately 20 individuals each year the opportunity to research topics of interest in farming, food, horticulture or rural industries. A bursary of approximately £7,000 is given towards travel and subsistence expenses. In addition, the trust and the individual award sponsor meet travel and expenses in relation

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INSPIRING

PASSION AND

POTENTIAL Photos: Bern James / Shutterstock.com

to the pre-study briefing and contemporary scholars conference, which takes the total value of an award to in excess of £12,000. Scholars are able to travel anywhere in the world for a period of no less than eight weeks to further their knowledge and understanding of their chosen topic. When they return from their travels they submit a written report which is then published, with the findings, conclusions and recommendations to the focus industry presented at the annual Nuffield Farming Conference. Scholars are also expected to use

every opportunity to share their findings and spread their new knowledge as far and wide as possible. With any luck you’ll be reading this column at the National Fruit Show. If not, please come to Detling, meet with the speakers, learn about all the new tech and support available from exhibitors and take the opportunity to say thank you to Minette Batters for the hard work she has done during her term as NFU President. I’m really interested to see where she will end up next; there is clearly an interesting future ahead for her!

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

EDUCATION

EDUCATING THE FARMERS

OF THE FUTURE Hadlow College takes great pride in producing farmers of the future, and one of the hot topics at the moment is regenerative farming and horticulture. But what is regenerative farming and horticulture? And why is it so important?

WHAT IS REGENERATIVE FARMING AND HORTICULTURE?

In simple terms, regenerative farming and horticulture is a way of growing food and raising animals that considers the long-term health of the environment, society and economy. In other words, meeting our current needs without affecting the ability of future generations to meet their needs. So in regenerative farming and horticulture, practices are used that minimize harm to the environment. At the heart of regenerative farming and horticulture is creating a more resilient and sustainable food system that will benefit the world for centuries to come.

WHY IS REGENERATIVE FARMING AND HORTICULTURE IMPORTANT?

In short, regenerative farming and horticulture is important to safeguard the future of the planet. It is estimated that by 2050 we will need to grow 40% more food, using less land, optimising yields and emitting fewer greenhouse gases. This means we need to change the way we treat our land, grow our crops and produce our food. Here are just a few statistics that show the impact regenerative farming and horticulture can have: • Regenerative farming reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 50% compared to conventional agriculture. (Source: Food and Agriculture Organization – FAO) • Increased water efficiency can result in 20% to 50% less water usage per unit. (Source: FAO)

• Regenerative farming preserves biodiversity, with organic farms supporting up to 50% more plant, insect, and bird species. (Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B) • Regenerative farming methods can improve soil health, leading to 10% to 20% higher crop yields. (Source: FAO) The benefits of regenerative farming and horticulture are numerous, and that is why it is vital that, as a leading rural and landbased college, Hadlow College ensures that its students are aware of how important regenerative farming methods are.

WHAT ARE WE DOING AT HADLOW COLLEGE?

We have already joined forces with numerous education providers from around the world to take a stand against climate change by signing the UN’s ‘Race to Zero’ campaign. A big step towards this came in 2022 with the creation of a new ‘robotic orchard and vineyard’ here at Hadlow. This two-hectare area will showcase the latest technology, including automated AI management systems, a state of the art irrigation, fertigation and frost protection system and automated fruit picking .

Visit www.hadlow.ac.uk to find out more or call 01732 850551 NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

The crops will be grown with sustainability in mind at all times. Drones will be used to monitor bud set, predict yields and monitor the growth of the crop, allowing precise applications of nutrition, pest and disease control methods. Sensors will be installed throughout the orchard to monitor, amongst other things, moisture, relative humidity and rainfall, while other exciting sensors are currently being developed. It is hugely exciting and will ensure Hadlow’s students are at the forefront of the regenerative farming industry.

FIND OUT MORE

Hadlow is Kent’s only rural and land-based college and as such offers a huge number of courses at its beautiful campus set in 265 acres of prime arable land. Hadlow’s courses cover agriculture, horticulture, gardening, agricultural engineering, aquaculture and fisheries management, land and wildlife management, equine, animal management and floristry. With a history dating back over 100 years, the college is a warm and welcoming community.

WEST SUSSEX DIARY NICK ADAMES

Digestate spreading

Wet again down Brooks

LOGISTICAL PROBLEM FOR HAULIERS All farmers know about the effects of seedbed consolidation. This observation is particularly related to the environmental requirement to use digestate, and the like, as an alternative to NPK fertiliser, primarily due to last year’s Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is a big logistical problem for hauliers and spreading contractors, who need big equipment to be viable. Lorries, handlers, field tankers; digestate itself may be cheap, but it requires some big and heavy tackle to move it. Then what doesn’t help at all is to get wet weather around the main planting period, late April into mid-May. That happened around the south last spring, setting much maize drilling back up to six weeks in some extreme cases. The problem is transporting the digestate by field spreaders which, when loaded, weigh something between 25 and 30 tons. Then, when they often have to travel along quite restricted routes, they rut or consolidate the soil to an almost unworkable state. As an old dairy farm, we have some quite small fields, so those routes used suffered extreme compaction, which this year was apparent from crop emergence until harvest. It’s a problem I imagine many maize growers have also suffered. The obvious solution would be to put a deep subsoiler over and along these tracks immediately after the spreading and before sowing, but in this spring’s wet conditions that was nigh impossible. In a dry spring it would be no problem. One quite understands why contractors need such machines, and I’m sure most would

NICK ADAMES Former dairy farmer

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rather be handling traditional fertilisers with mounted spreaders, but it will doubtless be harder and costlier to obtain those fertilisers, so we must be prepared. If following crops, and soils, are seen to suffer like this, some questions will have to be answered. I fully understand why this is happening, but we need to have a solution, because you cannot just order up a dry fortnight online. Having said all this I have to report the final tally of the crop was quite satisfactory, far exceeding earlier expectations, and the total sent off to the anaerobic digestion (AD) plant was very good, with large cob size and a fair proportion this year of full-sized double cobbed plants. I hesitate to mention it, but it was both good and disturbing to see the water companies, Southern Water being one of the main culprits, exposed recently for their regular discharges of raw sewage into waterways and eventually to the sea. Obviously, one understands that in times of high rainfall this practice can be unavoidable, but their points of discharge are many rivers/ rifes which have been largely neglected since 1996, meaning the only option for the sewage is to flood back onto lower lying farmland upstream. What I find odd is that we don’t hear more complaints about this. Do the companies concerned have some hold over landowners, to protect the environment and water companies from their own negligence? There is an almost complete lack of complaints from affected farmers, but why? I understand if those farms are dairy farms, because they are always the first to be threatened over perceived pollution, but there are not many dairy farmers around these days, yet still there is no real backlash against this official pollution. If you are affected, make a fuss! Speak to your MP

or write to the editor of South East Farmer. But don’t do nothing. We have had several sightings recently on the home farm of a rare winged visitor, a white tailed sea eagle. It is a very big and impressive creature and recently the NFU invited farmers to a meeting about reintroducing them. I don’t think I am alone amongst the farming community in saying this, but do we really need to encourage any more of these large predators? If they stick to fish then it’s probably acceptable, to all but fishery managers, but I imagine if they get hungry a tasty young lamb, or even a newborn calf, might be quite attractive. I think it’s great to see these exotic visitors occasionally, but let’s not encourage them just to satisfy the small minority of Mr Packham’s supporters who don’t realise, or even care, about the damage they may cause on farms. The next thing we will be asked to encourage will be golden eagles, birds which I have seen ‘up close’ in the Swiss Alps and not quite so close up in Scotland. Beautiful and impressive, but best seen rarely, and from a distance, not feasting on farmers' livestock in the south of England. Last month’s news that a number of the Government’s biodiversity net gain schemes, which farmers had expected to come before parliament this month, had been delayed was very unwelcome. Planning becomes difficult when there is so little recognition of what these political delays cause in the countryside in areas such as service suppliers, forward cropping plans and staff requirements. So many things need to be arranged, often many, months ahead, yet civil servants can sit in offices and change things at a whim. Fortunately our woodland planting scheme has progressed and remains on target.

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

VET DIARY

LARGE ANIMAL

I recently enjoyed attending a course run by BARTA (British Animal Rescue and Trauma Care Association), learning how to work with rescue services in accidents involving farm animals. Once the large animal rescue team from the fire department is called to an incident involving an animal, they will call a vet for assistance. Once on scene, we have several responsibilities as the veterinary surgeon involved: 1. We are there to carry out a specialist role within the incident management structure; we either have a direct role such as assisting an animal’s extraction or more of a support role, such as providing first aid to animals injured as a result of a larger incident. 2. We advise on animal welfare and the safety of the people working around the animals. Sometimes to assist an animal’s extraction we will need to use sedation. This poses challenges in situations which are stressful and makes our sedatives less effective. To make life easier, intravenous access means further medication can be administered with ease, as placing a cannula into a patient in a difficult position can be challenging. As many patients will have been injured or made unwell by their situation, supportive care such as intravenous fluid may be necessary if an animal has become dehydrated after being stuck for a prolonged period or has lost blood or is in shock. Antibiotics may be required to treat wounds or aspiration, or if an

RESCUE TEAM

animal has suspected smoke inhalation from a fire. Pain relief is often necessary after an animal has been trapped or for any wounds or injuries sustained in the accident. The day was very practical and I enjoyed learning how to rescue ‘Greg’ the plastic horse using the telehandler and strops, kit that we don’t usually encounter in our day-to-day work. On occasions, the skills of these dedicated rescue teams from the fire service are needed in cases such as a down cow in a parlour, helping to get them to a safe location where we can treat them. The day enlightened me as to our role in the team, but I hope to not see you on the roads or in ditches any time soon. For more information visit www.bartacic.org

LIBBY KEOGHANE www.cliffefarm.co.uk

Cliffe Veterinary Group T: 01273 473232 E: elizabeth.keoghane@cliffevets.co.uk

on behalf of Stanfords ATFor andCOLCHESTER MARKET

TIM BRASSINGTON

T: 01206 842156 E: info@stanfords-colchester.co.uk www.stanfords-colchester.co.uk

STORE CATTLE

TRADE BUOYANT A rapid decline in the suckler cow herd in the UK over the past few years is now feeding through into a reduction in the suckler calves and store cattle coming forward for sale this autumn. The store cattle trade continues to be buoyant as the finished cattle trade remains firm and consistent. The manufacturing beef market trade has eased for cull cows due to the large volume of ex-dairy cows coming forward as a result of the reduction in the milk price. The finished cattle trade at Colchester continues to be firm, regularly selling good conformation steers and heifers between 260p/ kg and 310p/kg. The sheep trade at Colchester is still doing well, with finished lambs between 270p/kg and 300p/kg, with meat lambs being keenly competed for by retail and wholesale butchers. The cull ewe trade has eased, with a large proportion of plain ewes on offer.

NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

The store lamb trade is excellent, with many finishers looking for lambs given the plentiful feed situation this autumn and the excellent establishment of stubble turnips. The pig supply is tight throughout the UK and Europe and the resulting pig trade is firm, especially for cull sows. The outlook for the red meat sector is currently good, mainly due to the low availability of cattle, sheep and pigs, but as we know from past history it only takes a problem somewhere in the world and we could be inundated with cheap imports. However, the behaviour of the consumer still has the biggest impact and inflation pressure is likely to continue.

AT ASHFORD MARKET

It was a busy and successful autumn trading period for sheep at Ashford Market, with good throughput on a par with last year and prices generally up across all sectors. From 1 June to mid-October, some 100,000 head of sheep were traded from 510 individual vendors and purchased by 256 buyers from throughout the country. Impressive figures again highlight the continued loyal support from both vendors and purchasers and the efficiency of the live auction system. Although finished lamb numbers have eased in recent weeks as concentrate-fed lambs come to an end, throughput for the above period is slightly ahead of last year, reflecting the better finishing conditions. Again, a big premium has been available for the better quality, well-fleshed lambs and those with weight. These have been in short supply and consistently grossed in the £120 to £150 bracket well into October. These are encouraging and impressive returns considering that national slaughterings have been up by some 3% throughout this period. This bodes well for those selling later in the year and the first quarter of 2024. The Friday store lamb and breeding sales have attracted big entries from the first sale in July, with between 4,000 and 7,500 traded each week. The sales got off to a flying start with an average price of £92.50, some £17 up on the year, with the best in excess of £100. This was well beyond sellers’ expectations and probably beyond what the market could justifiably stand. Store lamb producers were suitably encouraged, and big entries followed despite the abundance of keep at the time. Of course, prices at this level were unsustainable and quickly settled and levelled at very acceptable returns, with averages around £82 and the best selling readily in the £90 to £100 bracket – some £7 to £8 per head above last year’s figures. All the sales have been well attended, with regular and new customers from the West Country and Welsh Borders competing with regional buyers. The abundance of keep throughout the country this autumn and the strong returns for finished lambs are the main factors in drawing this favourable trade. The special autumn sales have again proved successful, with a similar entry of 1,800 Suffolk

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OPTIMISM IN THE SHEEP INDUSTRY

x Mule ewe lambs sold in early September. Trade was brisk throughout, with the betterbred lambs in excess of £110 and an overall average of £108.50, up by some £8 per head on the year. A superb run of 400 from D Howard Farms took top honours, with their 1st prize winners topping the market at £132, with an impressive overall average of £124. The Monday afternoon ram sale continues to grow and increase in popularity, with a quality show attracting fierce competition from start to finish. A total of 188 rams sold to a top of £800 (average £517) with 84 successful individual buyers. The Romney day sale attracted over 5,000 head and was well attended, with 86 individual buyers competing for all on offer. There was a wide range of quality on offer, and while the best sold well in excess of £100 and up to £140, the poorer sorts were discounted, with bottom ewe lambs at store value. Best tegs were £150 plus and up to £190 but there were plenty of second quality tegs at £110 to £130. While the future is difficult to predict, I believe the much improved trade for lamb in recent years is set to continue. Of course this needs to happen, and some would argue it needs to keep improving to cover increasing costs and the ongoing replacement of BPS by

environmental, non-productive schemes. The tightening lamb supplies not only in the UK but globally, with only Australia bucking the trend, will help to maintain these strong prices. There are obvious concerns regarding the UK/ Australia tariff-free trade agreement, but that has had little impact to date as they continue to focus on the more lucrative Chinese market, and unless circumstances change are unlikely to divert product to the UK. At the same time, UK exports into key EU markets remain strong, with shipments up 22% in the first quarter of 2023, filling the gap left by declining production in European countries and the diversion of southern hemisphere product into Asia. Domestically, although consumption is expected to weaken linked to recessionary pressures and tighter consumer budgets, there will always be strong demand for quality UK lamb from the strengthening ethnic Market throughout the year and particularly at times of the major Muslim festivals, Easter and Christmas.

ELWYN DAVIES

Reporting on the livestock market at Ashford T: 01233 502222 www.hobbsparker.co.uk

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

ADVICE FROM THE VET Calf pneumonia, or bovine respiratory disease, accounts for more than 20% of all disease in pre-weaned calves and costs the UK cattle industry up to £80 million per year, according to Kingshay, writes Oliver Giles. On an individual basis, the cost per affected dairy calf can range between £30 and £80, but increasing to £500-plus if the animal dies. A large proportion of the costs and consequences of pneumonia are hidden, which can have a significant impact on the overall business. Due to the potential economic burden of an outbreak of calf pneumonia, AHDB Dairy has set up a campaign and webinar series that will run during November, led by industry experts, to enable farmers to reduce the impact of pneumonia and encourage discussions with their own veterinary surgeons.

THE HIDDEN IMPACT

A majority of the costs associated with calf pneumonia are unseen, with the cost of veterinary medicines playing a minor role and reduced growth rates and failure to thrive making up the rest. In the short-term, affected animals with be impacted on their daily liveweight gain and feed conversion efficiency, as well as the increased labour costs. For replacement dairy heifers, a case of pneumonia can affect lifetime productivity. Kingshay data suggests heifers treated for pneumonia had a delay to first service and took on average an additional 30 days to reach age at first calving. Those animals which received multiple treatments for pneumonia as calves produced 337 fewer litres in their first lactation and 849 fewer litres in the second lactation. On a beef enterprise, it takes on average an additional 14 days to reach breeding weights and there are increased replacement costs due to culling of young breeding animals. Average daily liveweight gains can be reduced by up to 0.2kg/day, increasing the days to slaughter and resulting in poorer carcase classification. Mortality in the grower/finisher stages would represent the maximum financial loss per beef animal.

THE CAUSE

Pneumonia in calves is a multifactorial disease, where infectious agents (pathogens) couple up with issues in environment, management and the immune status of the calves to result in the disease complex. A multitude of pathogens, including viruses,

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bacteria, mycoplasma and parasites, is involved in different combinations on different farms. Primary infections are typically caused by virus or mycoplasma, with bacteria adding to the complex as a secondary infection in an animal whose immune system has been weakened by the first infection. Environmental contributions to disease presence include low environmental temperatures, high humidity, poor ventilation and direct draughts. There may be some determinable relationship with management practices such as calving pattern, and stressors, such as mixing of different ages of calves. As with any calf-related issue, the importance of colostrum protocols is raised. Inadequate colostrum management can affect the immune status, especially when animals are exposed to pathogens and poor environmental factors.

CLINICAL SIGNS

Signs will vary with severity of the disease, and while clinical signs may be obvious in severely affected animals, often the whole group may be affected subclinically, which may only show through reduced feed intake, growth rates and feed conversion efficiency. Signs include: • High temperature (above 39.5°C) • Increased breathing rate and effort • Coughing • Discharge from nose and/or eyes • Death.

CREATING A TREATMENT AND PREVENTION PLAN

Working with your veterinary surgeon is vital in the proper management of this disease. During an outbreak of pneumonia, your vet will likely arrange for samples to be taken, or even a post-mortem examination in order to identify primary and secondary pathogens. Once the

pathogen has been identified, your vet will be able to design an initial treatment protocol targeted to the pathogen. This will always involve an anti-inflammatory and in most cases an antibiotic to treat for secondary bacterial infections. The most important part of any pneumonia investigation is the design of a prevention strategy. The plan should consider the animal/ pathogen/environment interactions and acknowledge that managing just one of these issues in isolation will not prevent or control the disease. A comprehensive prevention/control strategy should provide detail on a number of areas: • Nutrition • Stress • Exposure to disease • Environment • Concurrent Disease • Vaccination.

AHDB CALF PNEUMONIA CAMPAIGN AND WEBINAR SERIES AHDB is holding a series of six webinars throughout November with industry experts, including Westpoint Farm Vets’ very own Tim Potter. 7 November

7.30pm A holistic approach to calf pneumonia

14 November

7pm

The role of housing in calf pneumonia prevention

15 November

12pm

How to provide the perfect ambient environment for calves

17 November

12pm

Managing calf stress and use of vaccines for pneumonia control

21 November

7pm

Calf pneumonia: antimicrobials and NSAIDs

22 November

7pm

Calf post-mortem: pneumonia lung damage

Westpoint Horsham T: 01306 628086 Westpoint Ashford T: 01306 628208 If you would like to discuss anything covered in Westpoint Sevenoaks T: 01959 564383 this article contact your local Westpoint practice Westpoint Winchester T: 01962 779593 E: info@westpointfarmvets.co.uk Westpoint Chelmsford T: 01306 628489 www.westpointfarmvets.co.uk

NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

LIVESTOCK ADVERTISER'S ANNOUNCEMENT

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Respiratory problems are most frequent in autumn and winter, when calves and sheep can develop respiratory problems shortly after housing. Damp, foggy days during the winter, and a persistent damp atmosphere in the shed, supports a much higher level of infectious agents than dry air. The autumn of 2023 has seen wide fluctuations in weather, which has given rise to a significantly larger respiratory challenge than normal, putting the risk of pneumonia and other respiratory related problems in young calves and sheep at the forefront of many farmers’ minds. The growing awareness of antimicrobial resistance within agriculture is prompting farmers to move away from antibiotics in search of alternative natural solutions.

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ALAN WEST SHEEP TOPICS ALAN WEST Sheep farmer

AUTUMN WEATHER: CERTAINLY NOT AUTUMNAL

Where, oh where, is the autumn flush of grass? Mid October and we are still waiting; while much of the wider South East has had an abundance of grass as we approach autumn, things have really not been quite so rosy for many sheep producers in Kent, particularly in the north west of the county. Much of the rain enjoyed by others has either slipped off to the north east before reaching this corner of the country or made its way up the Channel, benefitting the south and east of the county. Even though we are accustomed to a bit less rain (there is a little pocket in the Tonbridge area that, in an average year, has 50mm to 55mm less than the surrounding area) this year it has excelled itself, with rainfall for September and the first half of October at just over 30mm, significantly less than the 60mm to 65mm average. The unseasonably warm weather has compounded the situation, with an average daily evaporation rate of around 2.5mm producing a significant, negative moisture balance with obvious consequences; it really is no surprise that grass is struggling. Currently it is only fairly heavy dews that are providing sufficient moisture to just keep the grass ticking over; on the plus side, at least it is now green, somewhat different to a month ago. Fortunately, I’ve had some paddocks shut up for a month or so, which should provide a bit of fresh grass for tupping; not a great quantity, nevertheless a decent bite, but this has meant

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keeping the rest of the stock fairly tight, a very fine balance which has meant selling lambs as stores for the first time. The absence of the expected autumn flush of grass has resulted in a need to introduce a little concentrate simply to provide the ewes with a bit of a nutritional boost before the tups go in. Even though we are now technically into autumn, the weather is far from autumnal. With temperatures in the mid-thirties and little rain, things are

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inevitably somewhat out of kilter. Most of the trees are still green and even our strawberries have decided to fruit again; unfortunately nature does tend to have a knack of balancing things out over time, so goodness knows what the rest of the year’s weather will hold for us Notwithstanding the vagaries of the weather, one thing that is certain is that the annual cycle of sheep production moves steadfastly onwards and tupping is rapidly approaching; with a relatively small flock now, I really can’t justify the cost of carrying a teaser ram, but the ram lambs, now running next to the ewes, have the same effect, stimulating a bit of breeding activity. This is a practice that seems to have worked quite well for us over the past few years in tightening up lambing (15 days this year); it also appears to benefit the ram lambs. It’s not scientific, but I’m sure that testicles have grown considerably as a result of the ewes being in close proximity. It will be worth monitoring those that seem to be particularly well endowed at present to see if it carries through into next year as shearlings; testicle circumference certainly has been shown in past studies to have a close relationship with levels of fertility, and every lamb counts. With tupping groups sorted and ram MOTs completed weeks ago, the boys, now looking and smelling very rammy, are eager to get going and will soon be harnessed ready to join the ewes. We always monitor tupping closely, recording numbers covered and changing crayons after seven and 17 days, the latter now of decreasing value as we have very few ewes returning and the rams generally come out after 21 days. When we started pulling rams out after three weeks we had a few empties each year, never more than 2% or 3%, but now they are a rarity; a process has selected for the most precocious and fertile ewes; both the monitoring and a tight tupping make life so much easier at the other end of the process, particularly with lambing outside, with the rather less complicated post-lambing management of both the ewes and lambs being an additional bonus The work has been done and really it’s fingers crossed now for a smooth and quick tupping and, in particular, for some rain, simply to keep grass in front of the ewes through tupping and into those first critical weeks of gestation; a time when a bit of TLC and minimal stress is essential to ensure that no embryos are lost before implantation. I do have some additional winter grazing available, but the last thing I want to do is have to move ewes to fresh grazing until I can be sure of robust and secure pregnancies. What happens over the next five or six weeks will determine the maximum lamb 2024 crop; after that, no matter how good the management, feeding etc. numbers cannot get better. Lambs may be lost but certainly not gained. One shadow on the horizon, of no immediate risk, is the possible threat of Bluetongue. A particularly virulent strain has re-emerged and is causing significant problems in the Netherlands; compared to the BTV-8 strain that we experienced in 2007, the BTV-3 strain is producing more symptomatic animals and a higher level of mortality, with some reporting up to 30% in sheep. From the original cases in central Netherlands, the spread has been quite rapid, with 416 new cases noted in the week to 6 October. Fortunately, new cases appear to be moving to the north east, but this situation could alter quite dramatically should wind directions change significantly. With the new strain circulating for more than a month, vaccine development is progressing rapidly, but unfortunately there is as yet no proven or approved vaccine available. We simply need to be aware and vigilant.

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WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

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An exciting new farming event promises to showcase the latest machinery, products, developments, support and advice when it debuts at the Newbury Showground on Wednesday 15 November, 8am-4pm. The Southern Counties Farming & Machinery Show promises to provide “inspiration and support” for the region’s farmers at the freeto-enter, one-day event. Creators Kelsey Media, publishers of top UK farming magazines including South East Farmer, Agricultural Trader, Profi, Farm Machinery, Crop Protection Magazine and Vineyard have

ensured the show falls outside agriculture’s high-pressured spring, summer and harvest seasons. It’s easily accessible and benefits from the showground’s excellent facilities. The show will bring together premier agricultural manufacturers, suppliers, dealers and distributors for a day packed with live demonstrations, advice and seminars, all for free! When keeping on top of new equipment, services, innovations and regulations, advice

and contacts can make the difference between loss, survival and profit, this is an unmissable event. The one-day show is set to be a valuable networking event for everyone involved in farming, agricultural transport, contracting and farming-related activities across the South of England and beyond. Showcasing agricultural companies large and small, the show is sponsored by Samagri Ltd, sole UK importers of the Virkar direct drill range. Further confirmed exhibitors so

FOR EXHIBITOR AND GENERAL ENQUIRIES: southerncountiesshow@kelsey.co.uk

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Southern Counties far include Väderstad, Kuhn, Haynes, John Day Engineering, Farol, Aitchison Agri, Lister Wilder, Chandlers, Openfield, Agrifac, OMEX and many more too numerous to list. The show will include live demos of tractor loaders and telehandlers and include examples from New Holland, John Deere, JCB, Claas, Kubota and potentially others from Massey Ferguson, Valtra and Fendt.

Several hundred lots, including tractors, will give showgoers the opportunity to pick up a bargain or a sought-after item at the show’s live auction – or earn some cash. “Buyer or seller, it’s the perfect opportunity to trade machinery at the end of the season,” said Paul Heard, of hosts Symonds & Sampson’s dedicated agricultural auctioneers. The show will also provide a welcome

opportunity for attendees to network, chat, make contacts and share information, invaluable when tighter belts and longer hours are causing many in the sector to feel isolated. Topics on the agenda at dynamic and thought-provoking seminars throughout the day will include grain marketing post-CAP, red diesel rules, crop nutrition and agricultural robotics.

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SELLING YOUR GRAPES With grapes an increasingly important crop in the South East, James O’Connell, Commercial Partner with Mayo Wynne Baxter, looks at the main sale options available to growers.

Unless you are selling your grapes for eating (which may or may not be an option, depending on the variety planted) then you will typically choose between: Outright sale: the purchaser will use your grapes to increase the amount of wine produced under its own brand. Often, but not always, the purchaser is a winery. Either way, for consistency of taste you will most likely sell locally. Outright sales can be done either on an ad hoc basis or a multi-year contract basis. The latter is increasingly common as the continued popularity of English wine gives producers confidence that there will be a demand for their wine in years to come. Another reason for the popularity of multi-year deals (apart from the benefits of certainty enjoyed by both farmer and producer) is that a level of trust and commitment is hopefully achieved which will allow closer collaboration. For example, some producers will work with contracted farmers to review their choice of grape varieties as well as their growing techniques, with a view to improving both crop quality and quantity. Hiring a winery to make wine for you under your own label: you are not selling your grapes, but are giving your grapes to the winery and hiring the winery to turn them into bottled wine to be sold under your own label. A hybrid of the above two deals: most of your grapes are turned into your own label wine, but a portion is sold to the winery to offset the cost of own label wine production. Regardless of which of the three options is embraced, you will need to reach an agreed minimum tonnage and your crop will need to

pass various quality tests. Demand for English wine is at an all-time high, and growing. This may soon cause some wineries to have to choose between prioritising their wine-making capacity for their own brand or making wine for farmers. Shelf prices being what they are, the former is likely to be much more profitable for the winery than the latter. So, unless there is a marked growth in the amount of winemaking capacity in the near future, own-label farmers may be squeezed out. If so, those with multiyear deals are likely to be the most protected. From my own experience, I would recommend that if you were looking to produce your own wine:

• Pay attention to the contract with the winery. Does it promise your expected outcome, or merely that the process will be followed faithfully? • From the planting of trellises to putting wine on the shelf for sale will usually take at least half a decade. If you think you may need to part-finance that journey by selling some of your wine, or taking out a loan using your still maturing wine as security, then it is essential that you agree this with the winery ahead of time. • Think about how you are going to store the wine once made, Wineries typically have limited storage capacity for finished product.

For more information on the numerous wine related legal services offered by Mayo Wynne Baxter visit www.mayowynnebaxter.co.uk/our-services/vineyards-wineries/

NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

LEGAL

It’s been an eventful few years for the UK’s residential property market. After the initial downturn in the number of transactions and house price growth in April 2020 (remember the restrictions on moving following the first Covid-19 lockdown?), there followed a sharp rise in the second half of that year. This saw the housing market boom, largely thanks to the stamp duty holiday which ran from July 2020 to September 2021. However, the bubble has burst over the past year. We’ve seen a huge drop in the number of transactions due to the cost-of-living crisis, while high mortgage rates are having an impact on house prices, too. So, how are things looking now? Indicators still point to a downbeat forecast, with statistics signalling the number of new buyer enquiries is down, at -39%. Meanwhile, house prices continue on a downward spiral, with the South East being one of the most impacted regions. This has been felt by the rural property market significantly. The recent pandemic saw individuals reassessing their priorities and looking to enhance their quality of life. With that, many began to seek out a rural lifestyle. This decision was reinforced by the ability to work from home, allowing workers to move further away from the office. As property specialists, we saw more and more individuals yearning for green space, fresh air and a slower pace of life. However, due to the high mortgage rates, most buyers no longer have the finances to purchase, even with the Bank of England’s recent relaxation of mortgage regulations. As a result, buyers are being cautious, which continues to put downward pressure on house prices.

RURAL RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY OUTLOOK

Thinking of buying or selling a rural property? The region’s residential property market can be hard to keep track of at the best of times. Sara Smith, Head of Residential Property at Brachers law firm, shares her latest insights.

That said, there is some light on the horizon. Experts predict that while we will see prices fall this year, we can expect them to recoup any loss (expected to be about 10%) by 2026.

REALISING YOUR FAMILY PROPERTY GOALS

Buyers affected the most by the current market are first-time buyers and buy-to-let investors. With rents at their highest in decades, parents are increasingly seeking to help their children get on the property ladder by gifting money towards the deposit. Often, this gift will come from their savings or by releasing equity in their own property. In fact, the Equity Release Council has reported that interest rates for equity release

mortgages have fallen in 2023, making this an increasingly feasible option. Once carrying a less-than-glowing reputation, equity release is now considered a mainstream financial solution, as more and more homeowners over-55 seek a means to release wealth locked up in their property. Whether you are buying, selling, looking to remortgage or wish to release equity from your rural property, it is important that you instruct the right person with the experience required to ensure the transaction goes through as quickly as possible. Brachers’ Residential Property team is on hand to offer you a wealth of knowledge; you can trust us to lead you safely through the process, whatever your property need.

SARA SMITH

Partner, Brachers LLP T: 01622 680401 E: SaraSmith@brachers.co.uk www.brachers.co.uk

“Brachers has the personal touch, listening carefully to clients’ needs in a friendly, sensitive and helpful manner.” Proud to be recognised for our agricultural expertise in leading directories, Chambers and Partners and The Legal 500 Maidstone | Canterbury www.brachers.co.uk

TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

TIGHT MARGINS ARE A

CAUSE FOR CONCERN

Domestic agriculture is the foundation on which the food value chain is built and in 2021 it contributed £11.2 billion to the national economy, employed about half a million people, supplied half the food we ate and managed 71% of UK land. Farming sits at the lower end of the value proposition within the food industry and tight margins are a cause for concern; if farmers go out of business or reduce production, the rest of the supply chain will follow suit. A reduction in domestic food supply cannot be allowed. The UK population is set to grow to roughly 72m by 2045, up from 67.5 million in 2022. Farming will need to be better incentivised just to maintain self-sufficiency levels in line with population growth, irrespective of the desire to increase food security levels as a matter of national interest, as laid out in the government food strategy, which declared: “Successful domestic production is what gives us national resilience in an uncertain world.” Repeated economic shocks in the global system have contributed to marked volatility in food prices. Furthermore, the United Nations estimates that food production will need to increase by 70% by 2050. This uplift will become increasingly difficult to achieve as more agricultural land is employed in bioenergy and green energy. In 2019, 1.6% of arable land was used to grow bioenergy crops, an increase of 1%

since 2015. Higher demand and more scarce resources will lead to higher prices, less choice and more volatility. Shortening supply chains and producing more food at home will help protect UK consumers. Agriculture represents 0.5% of GDP, although this masks its importance to levelling up more rural locations. The distribution of wealth creation and opportunities from agriculture varies across the UK. It is a significant source of economic growth and resilience in rural areas such as Yorkshire, East Anglia, the South East (Including Kent) and Lincolnshire. We need to be focused on the pursuit of financial and environmental sustainability, and the role of agriculture, together with forestry and other land uses, contributes nearly a quarter of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Half of this share comes from agricultural emissions, mainly from livestock. Emission reductions from food production have so far received less attention in GHG mitigation policies than those from energy, transport and other industrial sectors. Consequently, emissions from agriculture could become the dominant source of global emissions by the middle of this century. It is worth pointing out, however, that UK farming is already incredibly efficient. The GHG footprint of UK beef production is

MARK J LUMSDON-TAYLOR

Partner, MHA E: Mark.Lumsdon-Taylor@mha.co.uk www.mha.co.uk NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

half that of the global average, while the UK dairy industry’s GHG production rates are just 40% of the global average. Meeting the Paris Agreement’s target to limit global temperature increases to 1.5°C or well below 2°C, will therefore be impossible without agriculture and farming doing its part to tackle climate change. Our take on Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) brings this to bear and how it links into the long-term sustainable importance of this sector. Policies at the international, national and sector levels must work together to avoid simply shifting carbon emissions from one place to another. In low-income countries, all this must be accomplished without threatening food security and be collectively achieved through collaboration with government and the industry and by signing up to best practice (such as TCFD Disclosures) and the sharing of data. This can also recognise and reward positive climate action and resilience measures. Finally, there must be a call on policy makers to develop a clear and consistent long-term framework aligned with climate, agricultural, food and forestry science to create a stable and enabling operating environment. This will allow companies to optimise both business and climate performance to ensure that everyone wins.

The South East Farmland Market Experts LAND AND FARMS SPONSORED BY BATCHELLER MONKHOUSE

For further information call 01403 700222 www.churchillcountry.com

An impressive farm and equestrian set up spanning an expansive 75 acres, nestled in a beautifully quiet and peaceful setting just four miles outside of Lewes, East Sussex, is on the market with Churchill Country & Equestrian Estate Agents. • A total of 16,079 sq ft of outbuildings • 18 well-appointed internal stables with scope to create further stabling • 40m x 20m sand school with rubber surface • Grade II land • All year turn out • Open barn for hay and bedding • Four commercial units with shared WC and kitchen facilities • Currently operating as a successful livery business and arable farm • River access to River Ouse and River Bevern • Licenced hacking directly onto the old disused railway leading to network of bridleways • Beautifully maintained. Mill Farm offers a versatile set up for a wide range of equestrian disciplines. The 21 internal American barn-style stables are all neatly presented and well-appointed. The 20m x 40m arena with a rubber surface and post and rail fencing and paddocks is well fenced, with post and stock fencing, and all year turn out is possible. The outbuildings provide a large area for agricultural storage and plenty of scope to add additional stabling. The yard benefits from large areas of hardstanding for car and lorry parking as well as storage space for hay and straw. The convenience of a total of 16,079 sq ft of outbuildings provides substantial scope. The agricultural barns provide good space for storage, workshops, or converting into additional equestrian facilities (STP). The property also features four commercial units, with a shared

TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883

IDEAL INVESTMENT BARCOMBE | EAST SUSSEX

75 ACRES

kitchen and WC facilities, offering prospects for rental income or personal use. Whether you choose to expand your equestrian business or farming ventures, there is a range of outbuildings to accommodate your needs. Mill Farm boasts a blend of equestrian and arable land, making it an ideal investment for both farming and equestrian interests. With some 75 acres of Grade II quality land, Mill Farm is a testament to its potential for successful arable farming, with a track record of producing high yields of quality crops including corn and wheat. River access to the River Ouse and River Bevern add a scenic beauty to the landscape. The river Ouse does have a run of sea trout and the fishing rights have been let in the past to a local angling club. This farm's versatility makes it perfect for various equestrian and farming uses, from expanding the livery business to embracing different forms of arable agriculture. The well-maintained land ensures a seamless transition for a new owner.

WINTER GRAZING FOR EWES AND LAMBS WANTED Grass, forage or cover crops.

Any area over 20 acres considered, fencing can be supplied. Good rates paid depending on acreage and grazing period. TEL: 07976 255431 – EMAIL: frank.langrish@btinternet.com

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

LAND AND FARMS

SILVERHILL, | EAST SUSSEX

OFFERS INVITED IN EXCESS OF £2,000,000

A mixed arable and grassland farm, incorporating a sizable range of traditional and modern farm buildings, a three-bed semi-detached cottage and a large block of in-hand woodland with associated sporting rights is for sale by informal tender with Samuel & Son. Boarsney Farm extends in total to about 274.14 acres, comprising a large block of in-hand woodland and a mix of arable and grass land, modern and traditional farm buildings and a three-bedroom farm cottage, subject to a secure Agricultural Holdings Act tenancy. The semi-detached cottage with about 1,500 sq ft of accommodation is arranged over three floors, comprising three bedrooms, a bathroom, living room, kitchen/dining room and a utility/boot room. There is off-road parking to the front of the cottage and an attached garage and a useful sized garden with access to a large pond.

IN ALL ABOUT 274.14 ACRES

MIXED ARABLE AND

GRASSLAND FARM

The land is found in two blocks; 150.6 acres to the north of the Bodiam Road and to the south side of the road, a further 69.48 acres of pasture beyond the farm buildings complex. The land is listed as Grade 3 and is in a low flood risk area and a nitrate vulnerable zone. The soil is made up of a mixture of slowly permeable, seasonally wet, slightly acid but base-rich loamy and clayey soils with impeded drainage. The farm buildings are mostly set around a concrete yard area, the site plan giving measurements and approximate locations of the buildings and their uses. These include

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NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

two cattle sheds, a Dutch barn, a farm store, a farm office/old dairy and traditional Sussex Barn, with scope for improvement and further development. The in-hand woodlands extend to approximately 54.06 acres of ancient and semi-natural woodland, subject to a woodland grant scheme managed by English Woodlands. Situated in the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the farm is set in a wonderful rural location on a ridge which runs to the north of the village of Robertsbridge and just to the west of the East Sussex and Kent border

For more information call Samuel & Son on 01435 810077 or email info@samuelandson.co.uk www.samuelandson.co.uk

Scott Smith MRICS AssocRTPI 01892 509280

s.smith@batchellermonkhouse.com

The documented shortage of housing in England is a widely recognised issue. Local Authorities continue to need sustainably located sites to meet their housing demands and targets.

Unlocking Potential batchellermonkhouse.com

If you own land in proximity to an established community, town, or village, now is a good time to explore development potential - whether that be an immediate development opportunity or long-term promotion as an allocated housing site. The Batcheller Monkhouse Planning and Development Team covers the whole development cycle from initial site assessment, through to successful sale of consented development land. Please contact our experts for further advice.

This delightful family house, with 52 acres, sits in a stunning rural location close to Hartfield and Ashdown Forest and within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Subject to an agricultural occupancy restriction.

Guide price £2,500,000

Knight Frank Tunbridge Wells simon.biddulph@knightfrank.com 01892 346585

knightfrank.co.uk Winners of the Best Customer Focus Award in 2023

TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883

Your partners in property

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

C H U R C H I L L COUNTRY & EQUESTRIAN

An impressive Farm and Equestrian set up spanning an 75 An An impressive Farm and Equestrian set up spanning an expansive Animpressive impressiveFarm Farmand andEquestrian Equestrianset setup upspanning spanningan anexpansive expansive75 75 expansive 75in acres, nestledquiet in a and beautifully quiet and peaceful acres, acres, nestled nestled in aaabeautifully beautifully quiet and peaceful setting setting Just Just 444miles miles acres, nestled in beautifully quiet andpeaceful peaceful setting Just miles setting Justoutside 4 milesof outside of Lewes, East Sussex countryside Lewes, Sussex. countryside outside of Lewes,East East Sussex. countryside outside of Lewes, East Sussex. countryside Lewes £1,850,000| |Lewes Lewes||||£1,850,000| £1,850,000| |||Lewes £1,850,000|

Boarsney Farm, Silverhill, Robertsbridge, East Sussex

For Sale by Informal Tender A mixed arable and grassland farm, incorporating a sizable range of both traditional and modern farm buildings and a 3-bed semi-detached cottage, subject to an AHA Tenancy. Large block of in-hand ancient/semi natural woodland incorporating an in-hand shoot. Extending in total to some 274 acres. Offers invited in excess of £2,000,000 by 12 noon on Friday 1st December 2023

 75 acres ▪ ▪▪▪Some ^ŽŵĞ ϳϱ ĂĐƌĞƐ ^ŽŵĞ ϳϱ ĂĐƌĞƐ ^ŽŵĞ ϳϱ ĂĐƌĞƐ ^ŽŵĞ ϳϱ ĂĐƌĞƐ of 16,079 sq. Ft of outbuildings  total ▪ ▪▪▪A ƚŽƚĂů ŽĨ ϭϲ͕Ϭϳϵ ƐƋ͘ &ƚ ŽĨ ŽƵƚďƵŝůĚŝŶŐƐ ƚŽƚĂů ŽĨ ϭϲ͕Ϭϳϵ ƐƋ͘ &ƚ ŽĨ ŽƵƚďƵŝůĚŝŶŐƐ ƚŽƚĂů ŽĨ ϭϲ͕Ϭϳϵ ƐƋ͘ &ƚ ŽĨ ŽƵƚďƵŝůĚŝŶŐƐ ƚŽƚĂů ŽĨ ϭϲ͕Ϭϳϵ ƐƋ͘ &ƚ ŽĨ ŽƵƚďƵŝůĚŝŶŐƐ  well-appointed internal stables with scope to create further stabling ▪ ▪▪▪18 ϭϴ ǁĞůůͲĂƉƉŽŝŶƚĞĚ ŝŶƚĞƌŶĂů ƐƚĂďůĞƐ ǁŝƚŚ ƐĐŽƉĞ ƚŽ ĐƌĞĂƚĞ ĨƵƌƚŚĞƌ ƐƚĂďůŝŶŐ ϭϴ ǁĞůůͲĂƉƉŽŝŶƚĞĚ ŝŶƚĞƌŶĂů ƐƚĂďůĞƐ ǁŝƚŚ ƐĐŽƉĞ ƚŽ ĐƌĞĂƚĞ ĨƵƌƚŚĞƌ ƐƚĂďůŝŶŐ ϭϴ ǁĞůůͲĂƉƉŽŝŶƚĞĚ ŝŶƚĞƌŶĂů ƐƚĂďůĞƐ ǁŝƚŚ ƐĐŽƉĞ ƚŽ ĐƌĞĂƚĞ ĨƵƌƚŚĞƌ ƐƚĂďůŝŶŐ ϭϴ ǁĞůůͲĂƉƉŽŝŶƚĞĚ ŝŶƚĞƌŶĂů ƐƚĂďůĞƐ ǁŝƚŚ ƐĐŽƉĞ ƚŽ ĐƌĞĂƚĞ ĨƵƌƚŚĞƌ ƐƚĂďůŝŶŐ  ▪ ▪ 40m x 20m sand school with rubber surface ϰϬŵ ǆ ϮϬŵ ƐĂŶĚ ƐĐŚŽŽů ǁŝƚŚ ƌƵďďĞƌ ƐƵƌĨĂĐĞ ϰϬŵ ǆ ϮϬŵ ƐĂŶĚ ƐĐŚŽŽů ǁŝƚŚ ƌƵďďĞƌ ƐƵƌĨĂĐĞ ▪▪ ϰϬŵ ǆ ϮϬŵ ƐĂŶĚ ƐĐŚŽŽů ǁŝƚŚ ƌƵďďĞƌ ƐƵƌĨĂĐĞ ϰϬŵ ǆ ϮϬŵ ƐĂŶĚ ƐĐŚŽŽů ǁŝƚŚ ƌƵďďĞƌ ƐƵƌĨĂĐĞ  ▪ ▪ Grade II land 'ƌĂĚĞ // ůĂŶĚ 'ƌĂĚĞ // ůĂŶĚ 'ƌĂĚĞ // ůĂŶĚ ▪▪ 'ƌĂĚĞ // ůĂŶĚ  ▪ ▪ All ůů ǇĞĂƌ ƚƵƌŶ ŽƵƚ year turn out ůů ǇĞĂƌ ƚƵƌŶ ŽƵƚ ▪▪ ůů ǇĞĂƌ ƚƵƌŶ ŽƵƚ ůů ǇĞĂƌ ƚƵƌŶ ŽƵƚ  ▪ ▪▪Open KƉĞŶ ďĂƌŶ ĨŽƌ ŚĂǇ ĂŶĚ ďĞĚĚŝŶŐ barn for hay and bedding KƉĞŶ ďĂƌŶ ĨŽƌ ŚĂǇ ĂŶĚ ďĞĚĚŝŶŐ ▪ KƉĞŶ ďĂƌŶ ĨŽƌ ŚĂǇ ĂŶĚ ďĞĚĚŝŶŐ KƉĞŶ ďĂƌŶ ĨŽƌ ŚĂǇ ĂŶĚ ďĞĚĚŝŶŐ  ▪▪ ŵƉůĞ ŚĂƌĚ ƐƚĂŶĚŝŶŐ͕ ĐĂƌ ĂŶĚ ůŽƌƌǇ ƉĂƌŬŝŶŐ ŵƉůĞ ŚĂƌĚ ƐƚĂŶĚŝŶŐ͕ ĐĂƌ ĂŶĚ ůŽƌƌǇ ƉĂƌŬŝŶŐ hard standing, car and lorry parking ŵƉůĞ ŚĂƌĚ ƐƚĂŶĚŝŶŐ͕ ĐĂƌ ĂŶĚ ůŽƌƌǇ ƉĂƌŬŝŶŐ ▪▪Ample ŵƉůĞ ŚĂƌĚ ƐƚĂŶĚŝŶŐ͕ ĐĂƌ ĂŶĚ ůŽƌƌǇ ƉĂƌŬŝŶŐ ▪▪Four &ŽƵƌ ĐŽŵŵĞƌĐŝĂů ƵŶŝƚƐ ǁŝƚŚ ƐŚĂƌĞĚ t ĂŶĚ ŬŝƚĐŚĞŶ ĨĂĐŝůŝƚŝĞƐ &ŽƵƌ ĐŽŵŵĞƌĐŝĂů ƵŶŝƚƐ ǁŝƚŚ ƐŚĂƌĞĚ t ĂŶĚ ŬŝƚĐŚĞŶ ĨĂĐŝůŝƚŝĞƐ  ▪▪ &ŽƵƌ ĐŽŵŵĞƌĐŝĂů ƵŶŝƚƐ ǁŝƚŚ ƐŚĂƌĞĚ t ĂŶĚ ŬŝƚĐŚĞŶ ĨĂĐŝůŝƚŝĞƐ commercial units with shared WC and kitchen facilities &ŽƵƌ ĐŽŵŵĞƌĐŝĂů ƵŶŝƚƐ ǁŝƚŚ ƐŚĂƌĞĚ t ĂŶĚ ŬŝƚĐŚĞŶ ĨĂĐŝůŝƚŝĞƐ ƵƌƌĞŶƚůǇ ŽƉĞƌĂƚŝŶŐ ĂƐ Ă ƐƵĐĐĞƐƐĨƵů ůŝǀĞƌǇ ďƵƐŝŶĞƐƐ ĂŶĚ ĂƌĂďůĞ ĨĂƌŵ ƵƌƌĞŶƚůǇ ŽƉĞƌĂƚŝŶŐ ĂƐ Ă ƐƵĐĐĞƐƐĨƵů ůŝǀĞƌǇ ďƵƐŝŶĞƐƐ ĂŶĚ ĂƌĂďůĞ ĨĂƌŵ  ▪▪ ƵƌƌĞŶƚůǇ ŽƉĞƌĂƚŝŶŐ ĂƐ Ă ƐƵĐĐĞƐƐĨƵů ůŝǀĞƌǇ ďƵƐŝŶĞƐƐ ĂŶĚ ĂƌĂďůĞ ĨĂƌŵ ▪▪Currently ƵƌƌĞŶƚůǇ ŽƉĞƌĂƚŝŶŐ ĂƐ Ă ƐƵĐĐĞƐƐĨƵů ůŝǀĞƌǇ ďƵƐŝŶĞƐƐ ĂŶĚ ĂƌĂďůĞ ĨĂƌŵ operating as a successful livery business and arable farm ▪▪River ZŝǀĞƌ ĂĐĐĞƐƐ ƚŽ ZŝǀĞƌ KƵƐĞ ĂŶĚ ZŝǀĞƌ ĞǀĞƌŶ ZŝǀĞƌ ĂĐĐĞƐƐ ƚŽ ZŝǀĞƌ KƵƐĞ ĂŶĚ ZŝǀĞƌ ĞǀĞƌŶ  ▪▪ ZŝǀĞƌ ĂĐĐĞƐƐ ƚŽ ZŝǀĞƌ KƵƐĞ ĂŶĚ ZŝǀĞƌ ĞǀĞƌŶ ZŝǀĞƌ ĂĐĐĞƐƐ ƚŽ ZŝǀĞƌ KƵƐĞ ĂŶĚ ZŝǀĞƌ ĞǀĞƌŶ access to River Ouse and River Bevern >ŝĐĞŶĐĞĚ ŚĂĐŬŝŶŐ ĚŝƌĞĐƚůǇ ŽŶƚŽ ƚŚĞ ŽůĚ ĚŝƐƵƐĞĚ ƌĂŝůǁĂǇ ůĞĂĚŝŶŐ ƚŽ ŶĞƚǁŽƌŬ ŽĨ >ŝĐĞŶĐĞĚ ŚĂĐŬŝŶŐ ĚŝƌĞĐƚůǇ ŽŶƚŽ ƚŚĞ ŽůĚ ĚŝƐƵƐĞĚ ƌĂŝůǁĂǇ ůĞĂĚŝŶŐ ƚŽ ŶĞƚǁŽƌŬ ŽĨ >ŝĐĞŶĐĞĚ ŚĂĐŬŝŶŐ ĚŝƌĞĐƚůǇ ŽŶƚŽ ƚŚĞ ŽůĚ ĚŝƐƵƐĞĚ ƌĂŝůǁĂǇ ůĞĂĚŝŶŐ ƚŽ ŶĞƚǁŽƌŬ ŽĨ  ▪▪ ▪▪Licenced >ŝĐĞŶĐĞĚ ŚĂĐŬŝŶŐ ĚŝƌĞĐƚůǇ ŽŶƚŽ ƚŚĞ ŽůĚ ĚŝƐƵƐĞĚ ƌĂŝůǁĂǇ ůĞĂĚŝŶŐ ƚŽ ŶĞƚǁŽƌŬ ŽĨ hacking directly onto the old disused railway leading to ďƌŝĚůĞǁĂǇƐ ďƌŝĚůĞǁĂǇƐ ďƌŝĚůĞǁĂǇƐ ďƌŝĚůĞǁĂǇƐ network of bridleways ▪ ▪ ĞĂƵƚŝĨƵůůǇ ŵĂŝŶƚĂŝŶĞĚ ĞĂƵƚŝĨƵůůǇ ŵĂŝŶƚĂŝŶĞĚ ĞĂƵƚŝĨƵůůǇ ŵĂŝŶƚĂŝŶĞĚ ĞĂƵƚŝĨƵůůǇ ŵĂŝŶƚĂŝŶĞĚ  ▪▪Beautifully maintained

CHURCHILL COUNTRY & EQUESTRIAN

www.churchillcountry.com www.churchillcountry.com www.churchillcountry.com Tel:01403 01403700222 700222 Tel: 01403 700222 www.churchillcountry.com|||| Tel: Tel: 01403 700222

ATTENTION all land agents. Are you missing out? land and You can advertise Farmer farms in South East 85. from as little as £2 te A great way to crea s buyers. interest from seriou

T 01435 810077 E info@samuelandson.co.uk

www.samuelandson.co.uk

NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

FOR SALE

Call Ja

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LAND AND FARMS REIGATE, | SURREY

A small farm situated in beautiful Surrey countryside with enormous potential for residential use within the buildings (subject to appropriate prior consents) has come to the market with Batcheller Monkhouse. The farm is situated in beautiful Surrey countryside, south of Reigate. It benefits from a long road frontage and is approached by metal gates opening to a yard with the farm buildings beyond. The buildings extend in all to about 407sq m and comprise the following, with approximate measurements: • Steel-framed four-bay hay barn, 18m x 12m. • Traditional cattle hovel, 14m x 4m. • Lock-up agricultural store, 13m x 9m. The land lies mainly on three sides of the yard and comprises pasture fields with an attractive

HASSOCKS | WEST SUSSEX

APPROXIMATELY 19.67 ACRES

OFFERS IN EXCESS OF £900,000

ENORMOUS POTENTIAL i

For an appointment to view please contact the Pulborough office on 01798 872081 or email sales@batchellermonkhouse.com

amenity pond and frontage to Salfords Stream, which is a tributary of the River Mole. In all approximately 19.67 acres (7.96 ha). The farm buildings offer enormous scope for

GUIDE PRICE £200,000

change of use to residential or other uses, with the potential of permitted development rights existing. All development would be subject to obtaining the appropriate prior consents.

IN TOTAL APPROXIMATELY 21.3 ACRES.

BLOCK OF MIXED WOODLAND i

Batcheller Monkhouse is offering a unique opportunity to purchase a block of mixed woodland located on the slopes of the South Downs with parking area and good access, close to Clayton. The woodland is situated in a unique rural position on the northern slopes of the South Downs within the heart of the national park. The hamlet of Clayton is close by, with good onward road links via the M23 north and south to London and Brighton respectively. Located at the end of a shared private driveway, there is a private gravel parking area in front of the gated entrance to the woodland. Once inside the woodland, several paths lead through the variety of trees. There are several areas of clearing and views through the trees of the adjoining downland countryside.

In a planning pickle...

...or just looking at development options? Don’t panic.

For an appointment to view please contact the Haywards Heath office on 01444 453181

The professional, creative thinkers at The RPP can help.

CRANBROOK 01580 201888 CIRENCESTER 01285 323200

Chartered Town Planners

Image courtesy Olson Design Group

office@therpp.co.uk TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883

www.therpp.co.uk

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

CLASSIFIEDS

CONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION

Industrial & Commercial | Structural Steelwork | Agricultural & Equestrian

G. J. ELGAR

CONSTRUCTION Ltd

Shufflebottom Agricultural Buildings Steel-frame buildings for your farm

+ Supply only or supply & erect + Construction all over the UK + Award winning company

• Steel frame buildings • Sheeting and cladding • Guttering and repairs • Groundworks and drainage • Demolition and asbestos removal • Refurbishment and change of use • Concrete frame and steel frame repairs • Insurance and general repairs • Concrete floor and block paving

Strength, Security, Style Contact us for a free quotation 01269 831831 enquiry@shufflebottom.co.uk www.shufflebottom.co.uk Shufflebottom Ltd Cross Hands Business Park, Cross Hands, Llanelli, Carmarthenshire SA14 6RE

www.gjelgarconstruction.co.uk For more information contact us: t: 01233 623739 m: 07860 414227 e: office@gjelgarconstruction.co.uk

G.E.WHITE Based in Lewes, & SONS Ltd

East Sussex

AGRICULTURAL, EQUESTRIAN & INDUSTRIAL STEEL FRAMED BUILDINGS We supply CONCRETE PANELS – Any size to suit your needs

formabuild.co.uk

 Office 01825 371500 � info@formabuild.co.uk  www.formabuild.co.uk We specialise in the supply and construction of steel framed buildings together with the repair and refurbishment of existing farm buildings. Based in the heart of Sussex, covering the South East. Sussex builders since at least 1605. Forma offer all aspects of steel framed construction and cladding together with groundworks and electrical fit out if required.

All our buildings are

marked

“You tried the others, now try the brothers”

All our panels are marked

All aspects of steel work, cladding & groundwork. Family run business with 45 years experience.

100% British designed & built

Over 35 Years experience

Site visits Call to arrange a site survey

NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

All refurbishments & repairs undertaken. Call for a free quote today.

Gary White 07812 599679 Jason White 07941 274751

CLASSIFIEDS

CONSTRUCTION A DI LA FA S VA SCO RG R M O IL A U E ER UTH BL NT M ER E T S EM N O BE RS

CONSTRUCTION

Supplying profiled roofing products to contractors, builders and farmers for over 40 years Our main products off the shelf include: • Profiled steel sheeting • Insulated panels • Fibre cement • Rooflights • Onduline • Fixings and accessories

Steel frame buildings for all your farming and agricultural needs.

visit www.southernsheeting.co.uk for our full range or call 01342 590 357 to speak to our friendly sales team

NATIONWIDE DELIVERY • EXTENSIVE RANGES IN STOCK

ENWARD

Visit our website or ﬁnd us on social media to learn more...

FARM BUILDING REPAIRS REFURBS, BIG 6 ROOF SHEETS, ROOF LIGHTS, RIDGES, VERGES, VALLEY GUTTERS, BOX GUTTERS, BOUNDARY GUTTERS, ASBESTOS, SHEETING Single Sheet To Whole Roof Roller Shutters Accidental or Storm Damage Works Demolition Refurbishments Waste Clearances

Kenward Construction based in Horsham, West Sussex offer a full design and build service for your next steel framed building including composite cladding, concrete panels, roller shutter doors and bespoke designs to meet individual planning conditions. Kenward Construction also offer a wide range of services offering a truly one stop shop for your next farm building project. Demolition, plant hire, access roads, drainage, sewage treatment plants, rainwater harvesting, biobed wash downs, paving, concrete foundations / slabs, walling and site landscaping.

Arrange a site visit with one of our contracts managers to discuss your project in more detail by emailing enquiries@kenwardgroundworks.co.uk or call 01403 210218

www.kenwardgroundworks.co.uk

ALL WORKS KENT & SUSSEX Professional Services to the Agricultural, Industrial & Equestrian Sectors

CALL TO DISCUSS YOUR PROJECT!

FREEPHONE: 01233 659129

from BT land-line

charlie.woodger@btinternet.com

To advertise in South East Farmer telephone 01303 233883

CONSTRUCTION

Agriculture ~ Cold Storage ~ Equestrian ~ Industrial ~ Waste Recycling • Agricultural Buildings • Cold Store Buildings • Equestrian Buildings • Industrial Buildings • Waste Recycling Buildings TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883

01323 890403 www.danddconstruction.co.uk info@danddconstruction.co.uk

• Structural Steel • Drawing Services • Design Services • Mezzanine Floors • Custom Steelwork

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

CLASSIFIEDS

CONSTRUCTION

JPR ROOFING &

CONSTRUCTION LTD

Professional Services to the Agricultural, Equestrian & Industrial Sectors.

MOBILE: 07813 142 145

Covering: Canterbury, Dover, Kent, East & West Sussex & London Rooﬁng & Cladding - Strip & Re-sheet - Repairs Metal Proﬁle - Fibre Cement - Insulated - Timber Boarding Asbestos Sheet replacements - New Roof lights New Roofs Projects & Insulated Over-Sheeting Valley Gutter repairs & Re-lining Asbestos Stripping & Environmental Waste Disposal Refurbishments & Extensions to existing buildings Change of Use & Rental Unit Conversions Insurance Claim Works for Fire, Flood & Storm Damage Same Day - Next Day, Site Visit, Inspection Service Making Building/Premises Safe - Secure Emergency Clear-Up Operations Asbestos Stripping & Environmental Waste Disposal Demolition & Site Clearance Works Ground Works, Roads, Drives & Drainage Works Re-Instatement Works ALL WORKS GUARANTEED

Quality of work Reliability and honesty Unbeatable on price

Specialists in the Agricultural, Industrial and Equestrian sectors Steel frame buildings. Sheeting, cladding and oversheeting. Gutter replacement, repairs and lining. Steel frame, concrete frame alterations and repairs. Asbestos removal. Roof light and sheet changes. Refurbishments and usage changes. Demolition, groundworks and site clearance. 24 hour call out in the event of ﬁre or break in. Roller shutters, sliding and personnel doors. Condition reports and dilapidation work before solar panel installation Mezzanine ﬂoors Insurance and repair work On site welding and steel fabrication Solar panel installation ALL WORKS GUARANTEED

01227 918723

07784 619603

jez@JRJconstruction.co.uk

www.JRJconstruction.co.uk

NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

07864 823 476 07889 481618 Nextgen Cladding Ltd www.nextgencladding.co.uk

Penfold’s commercial, agricultural and residential building specialists with over 40 years experience METAL ROOFING

– Standing seam – Snaplock systems – Aluminium – Zinc – Copper

CLADDING

– Composite cladding – Metal cladding – Fibre cement cladding – Timber cladding

ASBESTOS REMOVAL

– Removal – Disposal – Surveys

Industrial Commercial Agricultural We are a Hampshire-based family run company specialising in the refurbishment, renovation, alteration and upgrade to the external envelope of buildings within the industrial, commercial and agricultural sectors.

Our services

Structural Steel Cladding Systems Roof Repairs Doors Gutter Maintenance Asbestos Removal Tel: 02380 617383 Email: info@symesindustrial.co.uk Web: www.symesindustrial.co.uk Units 6 & 7, Upper Norton Farm, Sutton Scotney, Hampshire SO21 3QF

LAND DRAINAGE

   

LAND DRAINAGE FIELD MAPPING CLASSIFIEDS CONSTRUCTION DRAINAGE SURVEYING  FIELD MAPPING  DRAINAGE SURVEYING CONTRACTORS  DESIGN SWA  DRAINAGE S W ATTWOOD & PARTNERS FROM £220 PER ACRE LAND DRAINAGE

DESIGN DRAINAGE

ALL RISKS LTD FROM £220 PER ACRE

ASBESTOS ROOF REMOVALS

Asbestos roof sheeting removals Asbestos encapsulation Asbestos fire damage, clearance & re-instatement works Asbestos clearance & de-contamination Asbestos disposals by licenced registered company New metal roofs installed over old asbestos roofs Roof light & sheet repairs Gutter repairs Gutter replacements & re-lining Strip & refurbishment works Change of use projects Demolition & Groundworks

SW ATTWOOD & PARTNERS

S W ATTWOOD & PARTNERS LAND DRAINAGE

   

FIELD MAPPING DRAINAGE SURVEYING DESIGN DRAINAGE

FROM £220 PER ACRE

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION Professional Services to the Agricultural, Industrial & Equestrian Sectors PLEASE CONTACT US OR VISIT OUR WEBSITE: CALL TO DISCUSS YOUR PROJECT!

FREEPHONE: 01233 PHONE: 659129 01795 880441

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION • FIELD MAPPING • DRAINAGE SURVEYING PLEASE CONTACT US OR VISIT OUR • DESIGN • DRAINAGE EMAIL: james@swattwood.com WEBSITE: FOR FURTHER INFORMATION from BT land-line

charlie.woodger@btinternet.com

www.attwoodfarms.com PHONE: 01795 880441

SHORTLAND STRUCTURES LTD

PLEASE CONTACT JAMES OR VISIT OUR WEBSITE TOM: 01795 880441 or 07943 192383

EMAIL: james@swattwood.com EMAIL: james@swattwood.com GRAIN STORAGE & TESTING

  LANDwww.swjfattwood.com DRAINAGE 65 FOR FURTHER INFORMATION • PLANT HIRE OUR • STEEL FRAMED BUILDINGS • CLADDING • ERECTING PLEASE CONTACT US OR VISIT • EXTENSIONS • ALTERATIONS • CONCRETE PANELS INERT TIPPING WEBSITE:  GRAIN STORAGE & • ROLLER/SLIDING/PERSONNEL DOORS • G & S BROWN  CLAY SALES Mobile: 07976 287836 Email: sales@shortlandstructures.com PHONE: 01795 880441

www.attwoodfarms.

 LAND DRAINAGE Drainage Contractors Working with farmers since 1947 EMAIL: james@swattwood.com  PLANT HIRE

www.shortlandstructures.com

To advertise in South East Farmer telephone 01303 233883

 INERT TIPPING www.attwoodfarms.com ®

● LAND DRAINAGE ● DITCHING ● POND WORK ● WATER SUPPLIES ● SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANTS ● GROUNDWORKS ● PLANT HIRE 360° EXCAVATORS



PRESSURE WASHERS

CLAY SALES

 GRAIN STORAGE & TESTING  LAND DRAINAGE FOR ESTIMATES & ENQUIRIES (01622) 890884  PLANT HIRE Email: info@brownsdrainage.co.uk  www.brownsdrainage.co.uk INERT TIPPING  CLAY SALES

SALES LAND DRAINAGE, EARTHWORKS, GROUNDWORKS & CONSTRUCTION

SERVICE

FULL LAND DRAINAGE SERVICE Sportsfields, amenity and irrigation systems using Mastenbroek trenchers

HIRE 01825 705777

Unit 4, 72 Bell Lane Uckfield, East Sussex TN22 1QL enquiries@pressureclean.co.uk

PONDS, LAKES & RESERVOIRS Construction and maintenance

We are a leading supplier and an approved repair centre With 50 years trading in the cleaning industry. With our strong ties and long term relationship with the leading manufacturers

To advertise in South East Farmer telephone 01303 233883 TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883

GROUNDWORKS & CONSTRUCTION

Primary excavations, aggregate sub-base, agricultural construction and concreting ENVIRONMENTAL HABITATS Water course maintenance and improvement works

For all enquiries call 01233 860404 or 07770 867625 (Harvey)

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

CLASSIFIEDS

FENCING CONTRACTORS

J D RICHMOND & SON LTD

All aspects of agricultural and industrial construction - Steel framed buildings - Demolition - Plant hire - Groundworks - Asbestos removal - Concrete works - Retaining walls - Design - Planning

Fencing Services

Specialists in Stock, Deer and Equestrian Fencing Covering the South East Tel: (01403) 700509 Mobile: 07836 219344

www.philipjuniper.co.uk

Specialists in agricultural, deer and equestrian fencing and gates

T: 01622 831 781 | M: 07710 179 600 enquiries@woodchurchfencing.co.uk | www.woodchurchfencing.co.uk

Redhill Farm Services: Fencing Division

T 01403 266124 M 07880 746474 / 07921 123920 E richmond.46@btinternet.com www.jdrichmondandson.co.uk

CROP DRYING

PHILIP JUNIPER

ALL TYPES OF FENCING & GATES

Supplied and erected & Repairs Tel: 01737 821220 Mob: 07768 931891 Email: redhillfarmservices@gmail.com

CWP fenci f n ng

Standing StandingSweet SweetChestnut Chestnut Wanted Wanted Standing Sweet Chestnut Wanted

Cleft post and Cleft post and railrail Cleft post and rail Cleft field gates Cleft ﬁeld gates Cleft ﬁeld gates Fencing stakes Fencing stakes Fencing stakes Straining posts Straining posts Straining posts Chestnut fencing Chestnut fencing Chestnut fencing

Tel: 07985 298221 colin@cwpfencing.co.uk 07985298221 colin@cwpfencing.co.uk Tel:Tel: 07985298221 colin@cwpfencing.co.uk

Manufacturers of centrifugal, low volume and portable fans, air tunnels, drive over floors, grain stirrers and gas burners

PELLCROFT www.pellcroft.com | sales@pellcroft.com | 01526 342466

IRRIGATION

To advertise in South East Farmer telephone 01303 233883

STORAGE TANKS

S Sm miitthhss ooff tthhee FFoorreesstt ooff D Deeaann The The Tank Tank and and Drum Drum Experts Experts

Installation of: Irrigation and water pipes • Utility cables and ducting • Repairs to water pipes • Impact moling •

Buy from stock. Visit us to collect or same day dispatch Buy from stock. Visit us to collect or same day dispatch with nationwide delivery. New and recycled IBC tanks. with nationwide delivery. New and recycled IBC tanks. Plastic and steel drums. Water tanks & plenty of fittings. Plastic and steel drums. Water tanks & plenty of fittings.

Visit Visit www.smdd.co.uk www.smdd.co.uk or or call call 01594 01594 833308 833308 Enquiries FieldWaterInstallations@gmail.com Est 1993

01580 891728 or 07768 626131 www.fwi-trenching.co.uk

NOVEMBER 2023 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET

To advertise in South East Farmer telephone 01303 233883

CROSSWORD ®

VINEYARDS

COMPLETE OUR CROSSWORD TO WIN One bottle of Pinot Reserve and one bottle of Ortega

ACROSS

1 5 8 9 11 12 13 16 18 21

9 10

1 2 3 4 6 7 10 13 14 15 17 18 19 20 22 23 24

Great (5) Rope with a running knot (5) Used to make clothes flat (4) Cricket term (7) Defeated person (5) Rug to keep horse warm (7) Gemstone (4) Blocked nose (9) Bulge downwards under pressure (3) A whole individual unit (4) Part of a curve (3) Extending underneath (5) Something that doesn't work (3) Sculpture, figurine (6) Scent (5) Relating to the countryside (5) The same size (5)

DOWN

19 20

24 25 27 28

Responsible, practical (8) Theatre associated with Shakespeare (5) Drawn out (9) Smack (4) A ridge below the sea surface (4) Indoor shoe (7) When plant's genetic material combines (14) Busy (6) Food made of flour (5) Lewis -------, author of Alice in Wonderland (7) Correct a piece of writing (4) The day after today (8) Lovable (8) Snare (4)

Crossword by Rebecca Farmer, Broadstairs, Kent

PRIZE ANAGRAM: Chlorophyll degradation 10)

To enter, simply unscramble the anagram (10) using the green squares. Email your replies with your name, address and phone number to sef.ed@kelsey.co.uk Correct entries will be entered into a draw which will take place on 20 November. The winner will be announced in the December edition. TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883

LAST MONTH’S ANSWERS: 1

VINEYARDS

As we edge closer to winter, we are offering readers the chance to win one bottle of Pinot Reserve and one bottle of Ortega. For more information about the vineyards, please visit www.biddendenvineyards.com or call 01580 291726. *Subject to availability

G 8

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H M O

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Correct answer: Ashmeads Kernel LAST MONTH’S WINNER: Mrs J Ford from Fordingbridge, Hampshire

WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET | NOVEMBER 2023

Growing beyond the field We understand the opportunities and challenges of diversifiying and can provide expert insight and quality insurance advice for farmers. Scan the QR code or search ‘NFU Mutual Farming Diversification’ for the latest trends and real-life case studies.

The National Farmers Union Mutual Insurance Society Limited (No. 111982). Registered in England. Registered Office: Tiddington Road, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire CV37 7BJ. Authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. A member of the Association of British Insurers.