Aldborough & Boroughbridge Show: The Yorkshire agricultural show which has found a home at last
Knowing where you’re going in life, for an event, your future, produces confidence and for one North Yorkshire farming family’s local show, Aldborough & Boroughbridge Show, which takes place this weekend, (July 27) it now has that, after a wandering past; but the family’s farming future is not as confident as it once was, given recent government decisions.
“Our show now has a great site at Newby Hall thanks to the Compton family,” says Stephen Knowles whose family also tenants Broom Close Farm from the Comptons at Langthorpe.
Stephen is vice chairman of Aldborough & Boroughbridge Show where his father John is a past chairman and past president.
“We’ve always been involved in the show,” says Stephen. “Years ago it was in Aldborough, then at Stump Cross, then Milby, we had a year on our land when the show had to switch at last minute, then a few years at Billy Turner’s place just down the road, then RAF Dishforth before coming here to what is a perfect site.
"Last year we had record numbers on a really sunny day.”
Stephen says the same sunny outlook cannot be said about farming due to those responsible throwing agriculture under the bus, with Inheritance tax proposals and pulling up the drawbridge on SFI schemes.
“The hardest thing for us and for many others right now is to move forward, because the incentive to grow the business isn’t there anymore. It feels like they don’t want farmers now.
Stephen and his parents haven’t lost their positivity, even though it is being severely tested by factors beyond their control.
They’ve built up their pig herd to 305 sows, taking all progeny to bacon, but their next step has just become even more difficult.
“I’m the fifth generation to have farmed here since the family moved here in 1886,” says Stephen. “The farm is part of Newby Hall Estate plus we have land of our own that sees us with 425 acres in total.
“We’ve been that size for about a decade, but because we’ve grown the sow herd we’ve been on the hunt for more arable land to grow feed and not found anything suitable.
"We are there or thereabouts the herd size we want but need to grow enough crops to make it more self-sufficient.
“Mum and dad started with 49 sows in 1989 when I was about 10-11 years old after having had a few bacon pigs bought from a local farm at Kirby Hill.
"Mum had come from a farming family, the Altons near Wetherby, where her father/my grandfather had chickens, sheep and 400 sows and it was he who suggested mum and dad specialise in something, that was pigs. Dad had had 300 breeding ewes and stock cattle before then.
“At the time we started with pigs we had a very good stockman who was an accomplished pig man, and we built up the herd each year when we could afford to.
“Our stock goes largely to Morrisons at Colne. We support our local markets and butchers too. We also sell sows through Thirsk market once every three weeks.
"We currently use Duroc semen put to a Large White-cross-Landrace gilt from JSR.”
Stephen says he’s happy with pig production at Broom Close where they now have a team of three working on the farm in addition to himself and his father, who works part-time.
“There have been tough times, like when feed costs hit an all-time high and many left the sector. I was determined to make it viable for the long term.
"We’ve now very good production, a great team and keep putting muck on our own land, which saves on fertiliser costs.
“We are very grateful the Compton family let us start with pigs and have allowed us to build the pig unit to the level we have.”
The Knowles’ farming enterprise is made up of pigs and arable cropping. Stephen says they have 165 acres of winter wheat, 80 winter barley, 42 spring barley, 22 spring beans and 55 oilseed rape.
“The majority of our land is grade 2, with some Grade 3, from riverside land to heavy clay and silt, and lighter and medium land. We still plough one in three years.
“Last year’s crops were challenging because of the wet weather but it has been very dry this time and is the earliest we have ever started combining our barley (June 30).
“We have a new variety of winter wheat, Beowulf, which looks well; also Bamford, a group 3 biscuit wheat; Extase, a group 2 milling wheat. Our feed barley varieties are Tardis and Kingsbarn, 6-row variety.
“We do everything ourselves pretty much, with the only time we use contractors being for big square baling. I do all the spraying and drilling.”
Stephen says they now need the extra arable land so that they can grow more crops to take their pigs through a little heavier.
“Losing the BPS was a big blow to the arable side. We have now gone into SFI schemes including 12 acres of wild bird mix, and because of such as this it is and other reasons proving difficult to get the land we could do with.”
Stephen hasn’t given up hope of finding more, but he’s currently concentrating on this year’s harvest and Aldborough & Boroughbridge Show next Sunday and pays tribute to the team behind the show’s success.
“We have some wonderful people like Emma Chester, who has her Fettle Mead flock of Jacobs; Linda Alderson and Kelsey Ann Williamson who have done such a good job building up and now looking after our sheep numbers; and John Elgie and his family with the cattle.
“Our show chair, Catherine Park Peyton, does a wonderful job; and I have my co-vice chairman Dave Wass and also Joe Noakes who help me on show set-up with a team of others, but we need even more volunteers for the size the show has become.
The show does not employ an expensive main ring attraction, as some other one day shows do, but they have another great, daily attraction right next door.
“Your show ticket also gets you into Newby Hall Gardens the same day,” says Stephen. “It’s another great thing that the Comptons do for the show, as well as letting us use the grounds. It adds value to your show ticket.
Stephen says the show is looking in good shape, but that with present conditions put upon farmers by government, farming isn’t.
“Given all that is happening around the world what would happen if WWIII kicked off? We are already only 50 per cent self-sufficient in pork. Where is the food to feed the nation going to come from?
“Inheritance Tax will impact on many of us. We have planned ahead a little, with land ownership, but it’s not just land value that goes towards the Inheritance Tax calculation, it is also business assets.
“This is why it is now harder for us to move forward, with no incentive to grow. Thankfully our wonderful show is growing, come along on Sunday and enjoy it and Newby Hall Gardens.”