Profitable Rotations - Monitor Farm meeting: Saltash

At the first Saltash Monitor Farm meeting of the season we'll be looking at how to replace poor-performing cereals that have high costs of production, with stewardship and break crops.

What combination of cropping provides the best rotation gross margin? Will stewardship schemes be a more substantial part of future rotations for less productive land? What is the impact of different rotations on fixed cost structures and hence net profit? Attendees will take away a protocol to assess their own businesses as a planning tool for future strategies to make their businesses more profitable and resilient.

Agenda

• Registration and bacon roll lunch
• Philip Dolbear – AHDB Knowledge Exchange Manager: AHDB news and developments
• David Pett, AHDB: Saltash Benchmarking Group plans
• Howard Emmett – Truro Monitor farmer: Harvest 2019  - what happened in the end?
• Ashley Jones – Saltash  Monitor farmer: Harvest 19 and  farm tryout results, plans for 2020 including YEN. General farm update 
• Sebastian Graff-Baker – Andersons Midlands: Profitable rotations
• Philip Dolbear: Conclusions and 2019/20 Winter meeting topics

About the farm

Ashley Jones runs the mixed 190ha Smeaton Farm, which is part of the Duchy of Cornwall estate. In partnership with his family, he farms 100ha cereals with maize and potatoes in the rotation, and has 200 head of beef and 200 ewes. Diversification activities on the farm include a bed and breakfast, maize maze, Christmas trees and agricultural contracting. During the three years of the Monitor Farm programme, Ashley wants to try new ideas, experiment and learn from others in the industry.