The future of farming

Killing two birds with one stone

One of the big problems young farmers have today is the ability to set up a business. Even with a foot in the farm through his family, this is what William Roobottom experienced in Staffordshire.

At 23, the young farmer has just handed his dissertation on trace elements for his degree in Agriculture and business management at Harper Adams University.

“When I was at college, it just opened up my eyes to all the different forms of farming,” says William.

“At home we are just a grass-run farm and we produce hay and haylage for the equine world. Once in college I learnt all about livestock and arable. Then I brought some sheep onto the farm.”

Although his father and grandfather who own the 500-acres Hamstall Ridware family farm weren’t so keen at first, William saw the potential of investing in sheep whose flock could grow on the unused hill behind the family house.

“I kept asking if we could get sheep and in the end, I just went and bought five ewes, which expanded quite rapidly and we went from about 30 to 150 in two years,” he says.

With 200 lambs and 130 ewes today, the goal for William is to grow the flock without affecting the farming production, and use the mowed hay land for his sheep to graze.

“Down the line, my grandad and my dad have both been very supporting and they see it definitely helps the enterprise because it is utilising a waste product which is not being used, so it's adding to the current business.”

“As it’s part of the family farm, financially it’s not as much of a struggle, but I do understand that for other people, like some of my friends who are young farmers and starters, it’s hard because it's quite a large overhead to start and banks aren't so keen to loan to people without any background,” concedes William.

He also recognises that the industry can seem volatile and unpredictable, with very good times and very bad times. One of his wishes is that people buy more British products.

“Eating British should be a cheaper alternative to imports. It’s hard because there is so little out there about British agriculture and the general person doesn’t actually know a lot about it.

“That is why I have just started a new Youtube channel on science for people to learn about little things about sheep farms and just to increase what people know about British farming.

“If everyone does a little bit, it helps just to broaden people’s knowledge out there.”

Far from Durham, on the Isle of Wight, Jack Hodgson is wrapping grass in bales for animals to be fed next winter. The 27-year-old comes from a farming family too, and after sport studies and a few years teaching climbing in the Dolomites in Italy, he came back to his original background and studied Agriculture Management at the Royal Agricultural Society.

“That sort of opened my eyes to the potential that can be made in farming,” he says.

Since he left university at 22 year old, he has been working on the family-owned Cheverton Farm, producing sheep and beef meat for restaurants and shops, as well as cultivating arables on a 730-acre plot. Although not regretting his decision about a career in agriculture, Jack concedes the difficulties in farming today.

“I would say the majority of farming has to be on a big enough scale to justify the manpower and the costs,” he adds.

“I think that is why farms like that have diversified massively into tourism or into a small farm shop. You've got the potential to make more money at work because you've got less risk overheads.”

Like many other farms in the UK, Cheverton Farm receives subsidies from the European Union through the CAP.

“It subsidises the cost of production, the fuel costs, the transport, the drugs.

“Everything in this country is at a higher rate because we are under higher welfare standards and that is pushed on us from the European Union.

“And for a good reason, you can't produce a product without high welfare, however it comes at a cost.”

Estimated at £4 billion each year, subsidies from the CAP scheme will be phased out, in a move which has been criticised by the Scrutiny committee, who revealed in 2018 that no further information had originally been provided by the Government about what might happen to direct payments after 2022.

Since then, a timeline was drafted, describing the way the government plans to phase out the payments, while reducing their amount. Farms in the higher payment band (£150,000 or more) will see their subsidies reduced by 25%, while smaller farms, who receive up to £30,000 will lose up to 5%.

“My opinion on the changes that are happening is that if we can survive through them financially and mentally then I think the future is brighter for UK agriculture,” says Jack.

With a positive outlook, Jack explains that the pandemic this spring has really been the issue on its mind lately. Farmers around the UK have had to face production issues, faced with a lack of seasonal workers to pick up fruits and vegetables. 

At Cheverton Farm, beef meat usually sold to restaurants has been piling up.

“Beef prices are horrendous on the general market,” he adds.

“We have prime steaks stacked up not being able to sell because there's no restaurants open at the moment.”

“COVID-19 is hard, you are working flat out because it's that time of year but you can't do anything else. So mentally, I think for us, it's slightly harder.

“It’s stressful but farming is a very long game.

“You have to set your sights a long way in the future. I mean, potentially you're putting a crop in the ground, and you can't predict how much you're going to get for that, that’s a huge risk, but that’s farming.”

The badger cull has been a controversial topic in the UK, with associations protecting animals voicing their concerns against the killing of this species. Research conducted at the Zoological Society of London in 2013 even shows that bovine TB is not passed on by direct contact between badgers and cattle.

Yet, the number of contaminations has spread in the past few years, leading to tragedies such as seen in a recent report of Farmers Guardian, where four farmers committed suicide following the Government’s decision to stop badger cull in Derbyshire.