Autumn 2012 saw the beginning of our time farming at South Dundonald farm, Cardenden.
Myself and my now wife Laura gained the 10-year tenancy of the 130-acre arable unit to begin our farming dream.
It also happened to coincide with the wettest autumn in recent memory, 1,048mm for the year, with 400mm falling from when we took over on September 1 until the New Year. Did I mention the majority of the farm was reinstated from open-cast coal mining? If we were looking for a challenge, we had certainly found it.
We had some pretty gruelling days to begin with as very little could be achieved given the ground conditions. Ploughing was testing at best. If you did manage to get a field ploughed, further rain soon dashed any hope of getting it sown.
The earlier winter wheat that we did sow ended up being ravaged by slugs as getting slug pellets on the ground to control them was impossible.
I would love to tell you that these setbacks did not put us off and we were steadfast in our course, but that would be a lie.
On application for our farm tenancy, we spent hours preparing business plans, altering the cash flows using different crop rotations, yields and prices. We used an agri-business consultant to provide even further financial
scenarios in case there was something we had overlooked. Our bank even complimented us on how conservative and pessimistic my proposed yields and sale prices were.
Come spring 2013, the only use I found for those cash flows was for
lighting the fire.
The fact is that agriculture is an industry that has to work with many influences out with our control. Whether it is the weather, exchange rates, political uncertainty or commodity prices (probably my four biggest influences at the moment), we always have to deal with a certain amount of the unknown.
I am pleased to say that five years on we are now in a very different situation and, although we are still at the mercy of those external forces, we are much more prepared and aware of what to expect.
Thankfully, there has been no repeat of 2012 and 2016 saw a much more average 827mm of rain. Cropping has been adapted to better suit the land and our locality to available markets, we are now entitled to an annual payment through the basic payment scheme, and we have expanded and diversified the contracting side of the business including recently starting our own crop protection company.
So where do we go from here? At the time of our tenancy application it was made clear that there would be no continuation of the lease post 2022, so in a little over five years’ time we will leave South Dundonald bound for our next adventure.
In the meantime, we will continue to expand our contracting operations and build our business capital while we search for the next rung on the ladder.
What to do and where to do it? Only time will tell.
