Six ways to beef up an arable unit
The first of the new HGCA Monitor Farms opened its doors in June and showed how focusing on six key areas has sharpened up a father and daughter farming partnership.
Jo and Philip Franklin formed the partnership in 2012 involving farming over 800ha of largely arable cropping, and has diversfied into commercial grain storage, while Jo is an agronomist for distributor Agrovista, where she looks after 5,000ha of crops.
The deal which formed Lower Heath Farming, near Baldock, Hertfordshire, took in owned, rented and contracted land across two counties.
She highlights six main areas where she has focused her attention and been able to make improvements since the new business structure was formed.
1 Commodity trading – She is benchmarking their average selling price to know how they are doing compared with others. Input buying, especially where fertiliser is concerned, has been completely overhauled.
2 Cost of production – “My agronomist background has been very helpful. Yield is key to bringing these costs down and we’ve resisted the temptation to move to bigger machinery,” she says.
3 Technology – This has been used, both in the office and the field. Software helps her to keep track of cash flow and budgets, while precision farming kit has allowed her to target inputs and trim nitrogen applications without losing yield.
4 Learning – Jo is a Nuffield scholar and sees staff training as an investment, not a cost. “We should take every opportunity to learn. A good example is the variety trials we’ve had on the farm, which proved invaluable,” she says.
5 Attention to detail – “We had to get to grips with everything, in order to move the business forward. Just keeping the pigeons off our oilseed rape, for example, gave an extra 0.5-1.0t/ha in yield,” she adds.
6 Diversification – The farm has invested in 10,000t of grain storage for itself and its customers. The partnership hopes to grow this activity and it is putting up another store at the moment.
