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Future agricultural research, succession planning, risk and resilience, together with the complexities of agricultural policy were key strands for the 2010 Oxford Farming Conference which had a high saturation of Nuffield Scholars working behind the scenes, as well as speaking out on the conference platform.
David Brownhill NSch -
Getting it right at Keralla Downs
Visiting from Australia - and taking part in Tuesday's session entitled 'Risk, Resilience and Reward' - 1998 Australian Scholar, David Brownhill, gave his paper on 'Getting it right at Keralla Downs'.
Like many Nuffield Scholars, David wears numerous hats, one of which sees him jointly managing Merrilong Pastoral Company - five properties covering 4735 hectares, which focus on dryland and irrigated grain production. His key interests are no-till farming, controlled traffic farming systems and high value crops.
David is also a founding director of a grower group of 24 farms, AMPS Commercial Pty Ltd, which is committed to information dissemination, structured farming and returning profits to research. He is also a director of Crop Optics Australia, which imports innovative farming equipment from the US, most notably the Weedseeker, which is radically changing no-till spraying practices in Australia.
"I have spent a lot of time understanding what works in our business and what does not," said David. "The ability to measure and compare has helped me focus on what is important."
Important areas of his business:
- Marketing - Numerous tools and analysis of both domestic and global grain production, plus grain storage providing choice and control of decisions
- Family succession - Introduction of a corporate structure in a family business, plus a board with external directors and an external chairman
- Staff management and training - All staff involved as part of the team and staff trained in all aspects of the business
- Financial analysis - Including benchmarking against other leading farmers and regular reporting
- Technology - Keeping abreast of new technology and looking for a business "fit"
The session was chaired by former Chairman of Nuffield UK, Campbell Tweed.
Click here to download presentation
Fiona Lamotte NSch -
Science in practice for seasonal crop production
On Wednesday, Fiona Lamotte, Managing Director of Scotherbs, provided one of two case studies under the session entitled 'Future needs of agricultural science' and spoke on 'Science in practice for seasonal crop production'.
Fiona has recently travelled around the world visiting herb businesses as part of her Nuffield Scholarship, looking especially at potential methods of increasing UK homegrown production and extending the seasonality of crops in the UK in conjunction with renewable energy technologies. She reported on the many new developments in the growing operation at Scotherbs - and the many still to come.
"On returning from my Nuffield adventure, the problem was how to prioritise the ideas resulting from my studies - a list which included aeroponic, aquaponic, hydroponic, vertical farming systems, as well as the use of wind turbines, hydro and biomass energy sources.
"The main issue I feel in the industry is how to reduce our dependence on imported produce. Consequently, Scotherbs is actively investigating and trialling potential methods of 365 day sustainability using renewable energy technologies.
"These techniques I feel are transferable within the horticultural industry and will be vital if we are to sustainably produce products to feed the anticipated population growth. The new feed tariffs to be introduced in April of this year should also play a big part in making these technologies more attractive to producers."
Fiona warned: "In industry the pressures are increasing to be a low cost, efficient producer and so called luxuries, such as R&D, are not taken into account when prices are being set with the customer. It is very important that support for the research establishments and projects is maintained until the situation settles, otherwise skills that have been built up over decades will be lost."
Click here to download transcript
Roger Mercer NSch and family -
Getting the next generation involved
A highlight of the fourth and final session - entitled 'Passing the baton - Managing succession' - was the presentation by Roger Mercer NSch, accompanied by two of his three sons, Robert and Alec.
Currently farming around 6,000 mainly Staffordshire acres (cereals, roots and grassland), Roger covered the history of the Mercer farming family starting with his grandfather, Percy Mercer. One of 14 children, Percy ran a herd of pedigree Shorthorns on 250 acres. He was followed by his son, Alec Mercer, one of four children, who started with 400 acres.
Roger is the only child of Alec Mercer and has grown the farming business, Mercer Farming, substantially - today incorporating 2,000 sows (with most of the progeny bred and fattened outdoors under the Packington Pork brand) and 2,000 free range table birds (under the Packington Poultry brand). All the meat is marketed and delivered , together with bought in lamb and beef, through 'Medium Rare'. His other enterprises include buildings rented out for storage and office space, and farming concerns in Australia.
Farming in partnership with his sons, all of whom have joined the business in their twenties, Mercer Farming is very much a family business with 'early adoption and involvement' to get the next generation involved being the key to Roger's succession strategy.
Top of Roger's guidelines to succession were 'communication', 'tackling succession early' and 'achieving consensus'.
Click here to download presentation
The session was chaired by Nuffield UK Chairman, Jack Ward.
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