Fylingdales Moor: The Yorkshire farm running on ‘survival mode' after huge moor fire

Will and all farmers have suffered at the hands of climate change, this year providing their worst grass and cereals harvest on the back of a previous harvest that suffered from poor establishment.

And, for Will and his neighbouring farmers, the fire that has blackened 4,500 acres across Fylingdales Moor has brought increased stress.

“I am running in survival mode,” says Will. “There’s no slack anywhere in my farm with 500 breeding ewes and a suckler herd of 30 cows.

"A good friend of mine always says it’s no good being a busy fool. I am now seriously looking at other income streams.

“We were encouraged to farm and expand.

"The drive, while there was subsidy, was to get bigger and bigger, but now all encouragement has gone and it’s about reassessing what we do to ensure we’re making a profit, that we’re warm and comfortable and we don’t have to worry, which we all do.

“The facts are that climate change is real. I visited the Met Office in Bracknell back in 2000 and they predicted weather patterns in extremes.

"Bigger rainfall, bigger warmth and bigger cold and were dead right. It takes certainty out of farming.

“All my career you put seeds in the soil, they grew and you got a crop. It was as simple as that. I’ve had spring crops this year which have failed through not enough rain.

"Whether you’re growing grass for forage or cereal crops for livestock or the human food chain that impacts on your bottom line.

“I farm across just short of 500 acres, half owned, half rented. I rent from private landlords. If they get an inheritance tax bill, they will probably sell land. This is what everybody is missing, particularly this new government.

"It’s the farmers who are the ones that are going to suffer, because their landlords are going to change and that knock on the door or email is on its way saying the rent is being increased.

“This is going to have a massive effect, you’ll see the landscape change by the backdoor. There will be less farmers, less food produced and more environmental areas. In this area the National Trust has taken a commercial coastal farm out of production.”

Stoupe Brow Cottage Farm has long been predominantly a sheep farm and Will has Texel, Lleyn, Suffolk and Hebridean-crosses.

“Mum had a wool business and used Hebridean natural coloured wool in the 80s. I kept them for rougher grazing. I’ve crossed them on to a Texel and they make a sensible commercial sheep.

"I also breed my own pedigree Texel tups with a flock of 20 ewes, but my main concern is selling everything fat with most stock going into Dunbia at Carnaby. We lamb from mid-April.”

Will says he started with cattle around ten years ago.

“I moved over to selling as stores in the last three years for better turnaround of cash. I had been on with finishing cattle but in order to do that right I think you need to be putting them on a TMR ration as opposed to walking up and down the yard with a bag of feed.

"You need to be switched on in achieving the grades when they go in. My Shorthorn-crossed herd will calve from the middle of May. I sell at Ruswarp Mart. I’ve a small nucleus herd of pedigree Shorthorns which I’m building up.”

Will also has 100 acres in arable rotation plus his grass crop.

“We grow combinables on our medium clay loam over boulder clay, Grade 3 land.

"This year has been disastrous with crop failures or very poor crops. We managed just one cut for forage this year. The cut I managed early never grew grass again.”

Will says what happened on Fylingdales Moor in August had a devastating effect on everyone and that the consequences will be felt for years.

“The seat of the fire was about a mile away as the crow flies. Our land adjoins it and during the fire this moor, Brow Moor, also got alight. When it became alight the first job we did was to remove all our livestock from the edges of the moor, all sheep and cattle.

“All adjoining farms to Fylingdales Moor have had very real anxiety of losing their properties, their homes. One neighbour had three weeks of having a really nasty fire right on their farm boundary, and the fire could have gone anywhere.

“I’m not being melodramatic. Probably a dozen or so farms were affected and had fire all around them on Fylingdales Moor. But it wasn’t just the fire, it was also smouldering flare ups.

"The initial massive impact of a wall of flame and smoke disappeared but the problem was still there because it kept on reigniting.

“On bank holiday Monday, where we farm on the coast, the whole of the skyline was crimson with fire when it took hold the second time. There were nights when you couldn’t see across the field for smoke.”

Will has lived at Stoupe Brow all his life. His father died when he was just 11. He farmed with his mum Belinda until she died in 2013.

He has always farmed since leaving sixth form, and he has represented the NFU as county chair and regional chair and has recently returned to the Northern Livestock Board. He still believes in farming and his fellow farmers.

“The farming demonstrations, coming together against this family farm tax have been great. Most of us are feeling very unloved at the moment, particularly by this Government.

"I know we are loved by consumers because they tell us so, for producing safe, quality food. They’re the ones who support us. I don’t believe the political power base is bothered about us.

“We’ve had a year waiting for what is going to happen next April, and we’ve probably got another two years of this government, but I know that while we feel aggrieved there are actually so many other members of society that have also had everything dropped on them.

“I am optimistic about change. I am a great believer in change. The process of change makes you question what you do and how you improve it.

“What is morally wrong is that I’ve heard of people cashing their pensions in for life insurance instead. How can that be right for people who’ve worked all their lifetime.

"I don’t believe the Inheritance Tax is simply a fiscal issue, it’s a wellbeing issue. It’s about people, and this Chancellor has got it all wrong.”