How Richard's Nuffield experience has challenged his perspective

I then went on to complete my education by studying part-time for my Higher National Certificate in Arable Management. I have since gained my BASIS and FACTS professional qualifications and carry out the agronomy on our own farm.

Our farm is located on the Humberhead levels on the edge of both East & South Yorkshire and we concentrate on combinable crops. Our soils range from lovely Blacktoft series silts through to some very challenging Foggathorpe series Magnesium clay.

After working on the farm for 14 years, I was looking for a new challenge, so in 2015 I applied for a Nuffield Farming Scholarship.

It was the perfect opportunity to travel with a purpose and learn from the best agricultural practitioners from around the world; for my topic I chose the title of ‘Herbicide resistant weeds: investigating a sustainable future for arable farming’.

I was proud to be awarded my scholarship sponsored by the Yorkshire Agricultural Society at the Nuffield Conference in November of that year.

My Nuffield experience has allowed me the opportunity to meet with 60 Nuffield Scholars from around the world and given me the chance to visit the United States, Australia and Argentina. During my travels I was able to visit some of the world’s best agricultural universities and researchers, farmers and agronomists as well as getting chance to get a closer look at some of the world’s biggest agricultural companies such as Monsanto and Dow.

I saw first-hand how GM technology had increased yields of corn and soybeans in North & South America, but at the same time, lack of chemical and cultural diversity had led to problems with herbicide resistant weeds. More importantly I got to see really great cultural practices including inter-row hoeing, cover-cropping working alongside no-till and roguing.

But for me the most impressive thing (from a weed control perspective) that I saw during my Nuffield travels was the Weedsmart Initiative based at the Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative (AHRI) in Perth. The research was great, but most interestingly AHRI spent 30 per cent of its total budget on effective communication, because as Professor Powles told me: “If farmers and agronomists aren’t implementing the research then why bother in the first place?”

AHRI & Weedsmart were also seen as the authoritative voice on all things herbicide resistance in Australia and as such was backed by the entire industry.

My Nuffleld journey recently concluded with the 2017 Nuffield Farming Conference in Bristol where I reported my findings to around 400 people.

Personally, I think taking time to do a Nuffield Farming Scholarship was probably one of the best professional decisions that I have made during my career. It has given me a completely different outlook to how I view our industry.

You can read my Nuffield report here: http://nuffieldinternational.org/live/Report/UK/2016/richard-hinchliffe