North Yorkshire arable farmer and agricultural engineer Simon Witty, 30, has just won the reversible title in the 2007 World Ploughing Championships. He is the first ploughmen ever to have won the world title four times in a row.

This was only Simon’s fourth appearance in the England team at the World Ploughing Contest, which this year took place at Kaunas in Lithuania on 14 and 15 September.

When he’s not match ploughing, he helps run the family’s 650-acre arable farm at East Lutton near Malton and is also a freelance agricultural mechanic

He beat Andrew Mitchell Jnr from Scotland  by a 13-point margin. The third place went to Christian Fischereder from Austria and fourth was England’s Adrian Brewer.

In all, 58 ploughmen representing 29 countries battled with soils that varied from one plot to another and which were apparently not as level as the ploughmen might have liked. 

“To compete in the World Ploughing Contest four times and to take the title each time is incredible,” said Ken Chappell from the Society of Ploughmen. “Three times in a row was the previous record, made by Northern Ireland’s Hugh Barr in the 1950s.”