Farm of the Week: Growing barley for malting factory down the road on the Yorkshire coast

“This is the third year since winter wheat has no longer been our major crop,” says Sharon. “We decided to put in continuous spring barley in a large area at Bempton, because we were looking at costs and wheat is expensive for us to grow.

“This year we are growing 245 acres of spring barley variety Laureate across both farms that are about four miles apart. It all goes into our local maltsters Muntons at Flamborough where we have a good working relationship. We can see the malting factory from the fields at Bempton.

“One of our other reasons for growing continuous spring barley was that because the fields, particularly at Bempton are usually harvested quite late in the season and later than most, it always seemed a rush to get the next crop in on our six-year rotation.

“Moving on to continuous spring barley has alleviated some of that stress as we are now not rushing around to get in winter barley or oilseed rape. We don’t push the yield too hard either and we’ve come out with respectable yields in the past two years.

The rest of this year’s cropping includes 79 acres of winter wheat growing feed variety Skyfall; 79 acres of Craft winter barley; 39 acres of oilseed rape and 81 acres of potatoes rented by a local farmer. Sharon is undecided as yet on min-till.

“I’m on the fence about min-till or no-till because we need to buy a new drill and you can’t really go min-till if you’ve potatoes in the rotation, or at least not true min-till, and I don’t believe going halfway house is the best way forward.

Sharon and James also have 10 acres of grass and around 27 acres of field corners, nectar mixes and other environmental options. Ironically, it is those non-cropped areas that have accentuated the cropped fields and that Sharon says lead to questioning from the public, and that in turn allows Sharon to educate a little more.

“People are amazed at the difference between the cropped fields and the headlands where we’ve had conservation headland. We’ve had people ask why that bit isn’t growing anything. We’ve then told them that it’s because we didn’t put fertiliser on that bit.

“So, as a teaching tool it’s fantastic. We lovingly refer to the areas we don’t cultivate in a somewhat coarse way, but they do bring about the conversations about how we farm. The questions usually asked are, how much is the combine? What about subsidies? This all means we can educate people a little bit.

“People generally have no idea where their food comes from and by chatting you find out how far some are removed from it. I’ll always answer people’s questions. I had a good chat with a vegan last year.

Sharon had always wanted to farm, but it was initially her brother James who farmed with their father John.

“I got a degree in horticulture and crop management technology,” says Sharon. “I then worked for an agricultural research company before coming back to the family farm in the late 90s after James had left. James subsequently came back in 2005 when my husband Robin and I had our first child, Tom, who is currently studying at Bishop Burton College.

Sharon tells of how the farm has adopted countryside environmental schemes since her return.

“My father finds it really hard that we get paid for not growing things, which is understandable because his generation had to grow and grow, but since I’ve been back environmental schemes have been available and we have had land in countryside access schemes and we planted a 4-acre woodland about 20 years ago under the Farm Woodland Premium Scheme.

“We undertook a 10-year Countryside Stewardship scheme and we’re just in the final year of 10-year Environmental Stewardship agreement at the Higher Level. There is always a keenness to have environmental options around Bempton because of the RSPB sanctuary and that gives us a bit more flexibility to have ELS and HLS options.

Sharon and James have run the farm together since their father, John, had a major stroke in 2008, and they lost their mother Jean in November last year.

They invested in a New Holland combine, that will have its second season this year, but Sharon says a trickier decision has yet to be made on a new grain dryer.

“We’ve not had the dryer running for 4 years and only one year in that time have we had to pay to dry it, and so, if we’d spent a lot of money fixing it I would have been really cross. Is it cheaper to get someone to dry the grain one year in four rather than fix the dryer? Will the weather work that way? We just don’t know.

Sharon and her husband Robin took over the running of the 5-van CL Caravan Club site in 2019. Jean had started it in the late 70s for extra income.

“It’s really quite a nice little holiday business where we get a lot of regulars,” says Sharon. “Funnily enough we only realised after taking over the site and speaking with our visitors a little more that many didn’t realise they were on a farm, maybe because we are pretty much all crops apart from Tom’s six Suffolk and Oxford Down sheep. He showed one at Driffield Show last year.

Sharon and Robin have two sons, Tom and Simon, who are both involved with Bridlington YFC that Sharon says is doing brilliantly.

“Bridlington Young Farmers have just won Club of the Year for the third year running. We are all very proud. Tom is also involved with Army Cadets in Driffield, and Simon is with the Middleton East Pony Club.

At East Leys Farm you can also be a highflyer or told, in all good humour, to take a running jump! It is home to Skydive GB, Yorkshire’s Parachute Club and Skydive Centre.

“Skydiving has been at Grindale since 1991. It is very popular with people doing jumps for charity to being a sport and pastime. Before it came here there was an airfield on a neighbour’s land.

It’s all part of the colourful life at Grindale and Bempton for Sharon and James’ farming enterprise.

“In the late 80s dad just had East Leys. He bought the additional 200 acres at Bempton in about 1991. The land at Bempton has challenges with foggy cold mornings and saltburn meaning that we rarely have the combine out before midday, but both Bempton and Grindale are special places.