Last season’s potato area was reduced to allow more attention to be given to newly acquired 465ha (1150 acres) of combinable crop land near Ongar.

Now, partly through landlord seven miles from New Hall, the aim is to revert to the 125ha (309 acres) grown in 2003.

“It will be an operational challenge,” says Mr Stevenson. “We should be able to cope with our two harvesers, but we have already bought a new trailer.”

The irrigation essential for quality crops will be more awkward on the off-lying land, he admits. “But we have a secret weapon in my son, Tom, who is joining us as a junior partner after working with Andersons, and who will be in charge of it.

“We shall have to buy a few extra pipes, but not that many as our runs at New Hall will be shorter this season, and we can make do with our five hose reels.”

Planting will clearly be slightly stretched and may require rather more than usual to be sold in August / Septemeber, but a higher proportion of inherently lower yielding King Edwards should ease the pressure.

Over half the crop is on contract to Waitrose, the farm having achieved the requisite LEAF Marque environmental standard last July.

“We have another 20% contracted to other packers.”

Increasingly the trend, as exemplified by Waitrose, is for branded price contracts offering a “decent workable margin”.

Meeting the LEAF requirements on product use, with advice from independent agronomist David Hudson, has not been too difficult, he notes.

“We are fortunate that we don’t have a nematode problem, so don’t have to use nematicides.

“And the sort of varieties we grow are easy to stop at the end of the season, so we haven’t used sulphuric acid for many years.”

Over half the crop, through not the virus-prone King Edwards, will coninue to be grown from Home-produced seed grown from VT2 grade Scottish stock well away from other potato production.

It is a pollicy that words well, says Mr Stevenson. “We used to get some blackleg problems, but now they are largely eliminated.”

His main concern for the seed crop is virus and to a lesser extent blight infection from garden crops in nearby Braintree.