Firstly, I would like to congratulate Carl Driver following his appointment as our new Chairman. It was great to have applications from so many capable members for the board to consider, which showed a good level of engagement and reflects the desire members have to see the business continue to thrive and the prestige the job role is held in. Our board strategy day following Carl’s appointment crystalised there is a lot for us as a business to be proud of. At the same time, we there are lots of things we can improve on and aspire to achieve as we develop and grow, we all look forward to delivering a challenging vision for the business together.

Turning to our farm on the Norfolk, Suffolk boarders we have had a wet and very blustery week! We are fairly well up to date with our land work following the very dry spell over the past few weeks giving us the opportunity to get spring cereals into good seedbeds and our first dose of fertiliser onto the crops.

Generally I would say they look well, with lots of yield potential. Probably the highlight is the earliest sown cereals put in at the beginning of October which have tillered well and are really starting to motor in the sunshine. On the other end of the spectrum, I have some Winter Oats which are a little patchy where in places the pre-em herbicide back in the autumn seems to have hit plant populations anywhere there was an overlap with the sprayer on the ends of the field. Something to improve on for next year! I am currently researching adding on GPS auto shut off onto our sprayer which should significantly improve this in the future.

When the weather allows, we will be getting the land ready for sugar beet drilling. The crop was very disappointing this year following the summer drought and then frost damage in the autumn and very poor weather conditions at lifting making establishing the next crop very difficult. We hope for a better season this year! Farmers blind optimism! We shall see.

John Barker