Nothing is ever quite that simple in farming and for Callum Stark of Fridlington Farms at Sutton on the Forest it has been a year of pluses and minuses. Callum said it has been a sad year in the respect of coming out of pigs, so long one of the farm’s mainstays; and that although his arable team has achieved a record year in having completed its potato harvest earlier than ever and has already drilled up winter crops for 2023 the reason is that this year’s potato crop is nearly 25 per cent down on yield than last year, but Callum also said it has not all been bad news.

“This will be the first year we will be selling our winter wheat on the market, as it used to go to the pigs through our own mill. It’s not going too badly. We’ve made milling wheat standard and we’ve achieved a respectable yield of around 3.5 tonnes per acre across 800 acres on what is sandy land with the varieties Skyfall, Parkin and Extase.”

Callum said that their winter barley across 500 acres has achieved 3.2 tonnes with the varieties Orwell, Hawkins and Kingsbarn; their spring barley has achieved 2.5 tonnes using Laureate; and that the oilseed rape did 1.5 tonnes, a crop that he very nearly gave up on three years ago.

“We’ve put in 500 acres of oilseed rape for next year. A few years ago we were considering not growing it but it has come on well and what has worked for us last year and this, in respect of no trouble from flea beetle, has been our ability to get it sown before August 20. If we haven’t put it in by then we don’t drill it. We found that the flight path of the flea beetle doesn’t happen until late August or early September, so if your rape is up and away by then it doesn’t seem to get affected.

“Our cereals and the rape had the rain when we needed it this year, but the same can’t be said for our potatoes, which is our biggest single crop with between 800-900 acres.”

Callum said the potato harvest that is made up of potatoes for the crisp and chip markets was completed by October 12. “That’s a record for us, but then you have to take into consideration we were down on yield by 4,600 tonnes on last year when we finished at the end of October, which was still staggering compared to some.

“Our potatoes are crispers and chippers with the lion’s share, around 80 per cent going for the crisp market which go into the likes of Walker’s, McCoy’s, Seabrook’s and Mackie’s in Scotland.

"Our crisping varieties are Arsenal, Shelford, VR808, Brook and Taurus; and our chippers are Fontane and Royal. We averaged around 22 tonnes per acre in 2021, but this year it was only 17.7 tonnes because the rain just didn’t come. We managed to irrigate using rainguns and we got some fields with good yields but the cost of keeping the crops alive through irrigation has meant we have lost in two ways – the yield is down overall and what we have yielded has cost us more overall.”

Callum is full of praise for his arable team: “The farm would be nothing without the men we have and we are very lucky to have such a good team. We wouldn’t be able to grow potatoes how we do without having people such as Simon Clark, our operations manager and farm foreman. Simon is an absolute workaholic and he runs it all very well with Merv, Daniel, Andy and Dave plus other lads at busy times who come with their own tractors. It’s a slick operation. Simon ensured that we had the drill parked next to the potato harvester so that immediately we were lifting the last row of taties we were also finishing drilling next year’s crop.

“We went into potatoes because it is what suits our sandy land and although yields are down this year, and increased input costs mean our wheats will have done better than our spuds, it is still a mainstay of the farm.” Callum said the farm, that runs to 3,000 acres of owned land and 1,000 rented, is farmed very traditionally.

“Our crop rotation is very important to us. We do five year grass leys and mix it all around the farm. We move the grass fields around to try and get some more organic matter into the soil so we can get a good crop in afterwards. We farm responsibly and we know that such as carbon capture is very big at the moment but sandy land is sand at the end of the day and it doesn’t hold organic matter like a medium bodied soil. It has always been a mixed farm and the main thing my dad, Stuart, did when he took it on was to expand the pigs quite considerably and the storage side of the farm. We’ve gone from not storing any potatoes to storing about 10,000 tonnes.

“Sadly, we’ve had to come out of pigs after two years of losses. I’m extremely sorry for the lads we have had to make redundant – Michael, Ian and Rob – but we just couldn’t compete.”

Callum said the main livestock enterprise, now that the pigs have gone, is sheep. They have a flock of 2,500 breeding ewes on 700 acres of grassland.

“Dad was one of first to bring the Easycare system in from New Zealand having been impressed with their operations. Our breeding flock is made up of Highlanders and Aberfields on the maternal side crossed with a Texel and a Suffolk to get the conformation.

"It is run by the father and daughter team of Ian and Rachel Murdock who live on the farm. Our finished lambs go to Dunbia.”

Callum said the story of how Fridlington Farms came about dates back to the post-Second World War days.

“My great granddad Jack Fridlington had 147 acres near Dunnington. He was a potato merchant. After the war he invested in what was RAF East Moor here at Sutton on the Forest and went from owning 147 to 3000 acres in five or six years. He set up the next four generations with his acquisitions.

“We pride ourselves on constantly improving our farming systems and our environmental responsibilities. We are working on carbon capture, planting trees and are concerned with soil structure. We have added solar power to run our farm buildings and potato storage.

"We dabble a little with 10 per cent of our potato harvest on the free market, but as one of my farming friends says, ‘Why would you even choose to gamble on horses, because a farmer’s whole life is a gamble.’ It’s been an interesting year and none of us really know where we are with the cost of such as fertiliser and fuel despite trying to do our best.”

Yorkshire Farm of the Week: Mixed blessings in a year of change for Fridlington Farms at Sutton