Farm of the Week: Farmers reap the reward for pooling of resources

For centuries the job has relied on solitary working and labour, a way of operating that remains to this day.

However, via sharing resources and land, two Yorkshire farmers have been able to boost their productivity and incomes after deciding to throw in their lot together.

Nick Baker and Richard Beachell decided to combine their two neighbouring farms at Bainton, near Driffield in East Yorkshire, in 2002 and have not looked back since.

Under the umbrella name of Bainton Arable Farm Ltd, the pair run 380 hectares between them. Over their combined holdings the farmers grow wheat, malting barley, oil seed rape and vining peas.

They joined forces in 2002 as a means of boosting profits and reducing overheads as it allowed them to slash the amount of machinery the pair were running.

The partnership was solidified via a series of conversations and agreements made between Mr Baker and Mr Beachell. As Mr Beachell was going to own 55 per cent of the land involved in the new venture and so therefore it was agreed he would receive 55 per cent of the profits. With the remaining 45 per cent owned by Mr Baker, he would receive 45 per cent of the profits.

Mr Baker said: "It also made sense in terms of the economies of scale. We could only expand by buying more land at a massive price or by contract farming the land at ridiculously low levels of return. This way it saved us both money.

"We work very well together – it is a simple way of doing things.

"At the time it just was not viable to have two sets of equipment so we decided to half the sets of machinery."

Mr Beachell said: "At one point we had 13 tractors, now we have just two and we bring in a hire tractor for six weeks of the year.

"The labour is still the same, we have no full-time staff – just casual labour at harvest time.

"At that time we had a situation where a lot of machinery needed replacing. It just made sense."

A typical farm for the area, the land is based on good medium to heavy wold land all over chalk. Both farmers described it as "fairly easy working" and as having high yield potential.

The majority of the crops go into feed stocks while the peas go to the Green Pea Company.

Mr Baker and Mr Beachell's penchant for working together to achieve the best results has not stopped at just farming together.

The pair joined up with the Woldmarsh organisation which allows farmers to join together to achieve the best deals on their input costs. By giving farmers collective bargaining power they can secure better deals when purchasing fertilisers and other products, deals they would not be able to secure alone.

This has proved highly beneficial to both farmers, particularly in light of the fact that it allows them to make advance orders of key agrochemical products accompanied by delayed payments, allowing them to plan their costs in advance.

Both were members of the Woldmarsh group prior to joining forces – something they claim has allowed them to make a lot of savings.

Mr Baker said: "We are not quite big enough farmers to have the buying power to compete for prices. This way we can join with other farmers to get a good deal."

Mr Beachell is a BASIS qualified agronomist and does the agronomy for the two farms, something which has enabled them to further reduce their costs.

The group also does the time-consuming ringing around to get them the best deal. They then receive an all-in-one bill for the inputs on the farm which goes out as one direct debit payment – meaning that the long evenings of cumbersome and dull paper work are a thing of the past.

As ever at this time of year harvest time provides for a mixed bag of fortunes. For Mr Baker and Mr Beachell, the weather has been kind to them this year.

"Harvesting has been fairly good this year," said Mr Baker. "To tell the truth we have done most of our combining after 5pm and I can only think of a couple of days when we were out before lunch." Mr Beachell said: "We have been pretty lucky in that it has been very dry here until the last week or so."

Collective working is still far from the norm in UK agriculture for a variety of reasons.

However it has proven very popular on the continent.

And as farmers find themselves increasingly at the mercy of market forces and other circumstances beyond their control it seems to be making increasing sense to adopt a policy of safety in numbers.

Mr Baker said: "We did it because the farm needed us to. Farmers are, by nature, very independent people.

"In Europe it happens all the time. They work together when it comes to buying and selling everything. We worked out a simple way of doing things and ironed out any issues before going in together.

"That has been the key to it."

CW 11/9/10