Farm of the Week: Mixed enterprise on estate land near Helmsley that's passing down the generations

Mike said that he worked for other farmers and agricultural contractors before starting the agricultural contracting side of the family business.

“Just as I was getting involved in the farm there had been the BSE outbreaks and then the devastation that came with foot & mouth disease in 2001. That ruined the job for a lot of farmers and farming families.

“I was 15 when mum and dad had moved here from the village in 1995, taking over the farm from my grandparents Ray and Sylvia who had come here in 1955.

“At that point it was a traditional average mixed family farm across 200 acres. We were fattening mainly black and white cattle, had 300 breeding ewes and about 100 acres of combinable crops.

“Agriculture was properly in the doldrums and I knew that I couldn’t rely on the farm for a wage, so I took jobs as ‘tractor and man’ carting straw, handling silage work, anything to earn a living while mum and dad did their best to keep the wheels on the farm back at home.

“I’d also worked for other contractors on a self-employed basis, but the move to getting some work of our own for others came when we had got to the point where a lot of our farm machinery was in need of replacement.

“That’s when we invested in a bigger and better tractor and I looked to get more work here and there to pay for it.

Mike said the farm and the contracting all runs together as one enterprise, which was shown at their Leckenby Farmers & Contractors tradestand at this year’s Ryedale Show.

“We are in a partnership – me, mum and dad. I look after the contracting side and have a third input into the farm. Dad is at home more, but will do the majority of raking and grass cutting, as well as wrapping and tedding for the contracting business.

“We are tenant farmers and due to shuffles around on the Nawton Towers Estate we have been fortunate to take on more land neighbouring us and the farm now runs to 415 acres.

“The farm today is a mix of sheep and 200 acres of combinable crops including winter wheat, winter barley, spring barley, oats. With this year’s weather we’ve had a brilliant yield, averaging 3.8 tonnes on wheat. The barley is all grown for feed and oats for human consumption.

Mike said the livestock side of the farm is a source of real pride for his parents.

“The sheep are very much mum and dad’s enterprise. Traditionally they always had Suffolk X and Continental X sheep breeding massive, heavy lambs, but when the market changed about 15 years ago and butchers were wanting smaller carcase but still very fit lambs they had an opportunity to buy a flock of pedigree Lleyns and they have stuck with them ever since. We now have 270 breeding ewes and they sell pedigree replacements as shearlings.

“Mum and dad sell the majority privately as they have developed a bit of a name and have the same people coming back every year. Fat lambs all marketed majority through Malton market. Lambing starts the second week in April. We also have pigs on bed and breakfast for Ian Mosey.

It was a move towards growing fodder beet for feed for the sheep at Oxclose that Mike said inadvertently brought about a niche market for the contracting business that has enabled greater growth.

“My main things areas of contracting now are square baling, drilling and driving the beet harvester. We run two square balers and had to hire another this year as the weather was that good, the corn was that dry, and the combines were getting massive outputs.

“On farm we always grew swedes and used to buy a bit of fodder beet for overwintering sheep and lambing time.

“Dad said that we would maybe grow 6-7 acres of fodder beet ourselves for our sheep and I’d said I didn’t really want to have to pay a contractor so I bought an old beet harvester for a few hundred quid.

“I did it myself. We lifted our own and ended up lifting some for a few neighbours that same year with this old two row machine. The following year we thought we maybe better getting a little bit better one, so I got a 3 row trailed one, with a 5 tonne tank on it. In three years we were lifting for various other people on the estate.

Two further moves accelerated Mike’s expanding fodder beet harvesting business to where it is today.

“A good friend of mine, Alec Lunn was lifting beet and decided he was going to concentrate on other things. He had an old self-propelled 6-row Matrot harvester and offered me it. I bought it and started getting a little bit more work but it didn’t have a tank on and I had to have a trailer running at its side. Prospective new customers said if I got one with a tank on they would get me to lift theirs. That’s what I did and how I bought my first 17 tonne tank machine.

“I got more and more work and had to 300 acres of lifting when my big breakthrough came three years ago. Local contractor Brian Clifford of Slingsby ran a beet harvester the same as ours, but was doing an awful lot more. Brian rang and said he was scaling down a bit and would I be interested in buying his machine and beet harvesting round.

“Opportunities like that don’t come around very often and so I said yes. I then bought another machine to cope with all the work, a Vervaet, but found it would be better to run just one better machine. Now I have just the one machine, a really good Vervaet, which will be doing its second season this year.

It is just coming towards Mike’s busy time for beet, with harvest due to start in mid-October through to mid-December. He now has customers as far afield as just past Scotch Corner on the A66 and down the A1 south of Ripon.

The contracting business has enabled Chris, Sheila and Mike to carry on as a family farming business and will hopefully lead to a fourth generation if Mike and his partner Charlie’s young family of Ella (8), Phoebe (5) and Joey (18 months) decide they would like to be involved in future.

“I’m not one of those parents who will push them to do it,” said Mike. “I would like to be at home more and farm more acres and as time goes on I will be, but there’s no great rush. We are all happy and work well together.