Northern Farmer Awards 2023: Arable Farmer of the Year finalists

The winners in ten categories will be announced at a spectacular awards ceremony at Pavilions of Harrogate, the Great Yorkshire Showground, on Thursday, before the overall 2023 Northern Farmer of the Year will be revealed.

Finalists for Arable Farmer of the Year, sponsored by White Rose Agriculture

White Rose Agriculture

Pip Robson farms more almost 2,000 acres, which is a mixture of owned property and various rental land parcels, as well as offering a farm contracting service. The arable cropping totals 1,100 acres.

His farm – Chathill Farm – is near Seahouses in Northumberland, but Pip manages and rents land up to 20 miles away and his farm contracting business operates within about a 50-mile radius. The rental land is managed under various arrangements, including share farming agreements and grazing licences for his sheep and cattle.

He has been an AHDB cereals and oilseeds monitor farmer since 2020.

Pip Robson

The farm also has a 250-cow suckler herd, with 150 pedigree Aberdeen Angus and about 100 Angus cross commercial females. Calving is in the spring. Pedigree heifers and bulls are sold for breeding and the commercial calves are fattened and sold as stores.

There are 250 Cheviot ewes which lamb mid-March. Depending on weather, they will lamb inside or out but coming in at night. About 1,600 store lambs are bought in each year.

The arable side of the enterprise includes 100 acres of OSR, which are sold off the field or as feed or oil, 100 acres of winter barley sold for feed, plus 100 acres pulses and 500 acres of winter wheat, which mostly goes to United soft milling wheat for biscuits. There are around 800 acres of grassland for the cattle and sheep and this is used also for making silage for winter feeds.

READ MORE: Northern Farmer Awards 2023, Family Run Farm of the Year finalists

As well as being a AHDB monitor farm, Pip has also been a Coastal Grains board member for two decades.

Northern Farmer Awards 2023

Jonathan Hodgson: The Hodgson family are fourth-generation farmers whose first farm was purchased in 1925 by Ida Mary Hodgson, Jonathan’s great grandmother. The farm was Great Newsome Farm at South Frodingham.

Jonathan Hodgson

Like many farms in the area, it was a mixed farm producing eggs, pork, beef, lamb and cereals. His grandfather then managed the farm and, in 1971, the family went on to purchase Hall Farm at Halsham. This is where Jonathan’s parents Laurence and Doreen live.

Jonathan and his brother Matthey are still involved in the family businesses. Jonathan runs the farm and helps in the brewery and Matthew manages the brewery, which they diversified into in 2007, and helps on the farm. Thomas, his other brother, is a gamekeeper on an estate some miles away.

Any decisions involving the farm or brewery are discussed as a family, including mum and dad, before decisions, changes and investments are made

On the farm, they grow winter wheat, spring barley, garden peas, oil seed rape, spring oats, flax, spring beans and herbal leys. Growing a wide variety of crops helps with soil health by introducing biodiversity within the soil, and it also helps manage the risk if one crop does not perform well.

The farm is in the Mid Tier Stewardship. They have introduced grass margins along water courses, which act as buffer strips to prevent pesticides or fertilisers reaching the water courses plus they are a haven for small mammals and insects.

The Hodgsons won Family Farming Business of the Year at the British Farming Awards in 2020.

READ MORE: Northern Farmer Awards 2023, Sheep Farmer of the Year finalists

Wood End Farm at High Etherley has been in the family since being purchased by Calder Jackson's grandfather in 1978. The farm itself was 110 acres but there was an option to buy two adjoining ‘farms’, which were coal board land that had been de-commissioned from open casting. The total land at Calder Farms is 306 acres.

Calder Jackson

Calder, 25, also has an uncle with a farm eight miles away and carries out the work there as well, which is another 88 acres.

Calder’s dad farmed alongside his grandfather then when he passed away Calder and his dad worked together. Now Calder is responsible for the majority of the work on the farm, though everything is discussed and joint decisions made. He has 65 suckler cows with young stock fattened on the farm before being sold.

Chris, Calder’s dad, sees to the daily livestock duties and works the home farmland with Calder. Uncle John works at the other farm with Calder and is also happy to help with the contracting when things are busy. They all work well together and run the three sites together.

Across the three sites, he is growing 210 acres of wheat, and 100 acres of barley, which are grown in the main for animal feed, though some of the wheat is going up to Scotland for Grants Distillery and whisky-making. One hundred acres of rape is grown for biodiesel and 21 acres of oats are grown for Morning Foods and Quaker.

The farm hosts various demonstration days and welcomes other farmers, Young Farmers clubs also visit and do stock judging and farm walks.