Andrew Ward transforms his farming business following challenging years for British farmers   

Mr Ward took over the business from his father, who started farming in the late 50s. He now farms around 1,000 acres, including 600 acres of owned land and 400 acres of AHA tenanted land.   

He said: “My father gradually built the farm up. When he was in charge, we were farming a total then of about 650, and we employed five people. As time progresses, your machinery gets bigger, you need fewer members of staff, and technology, advancements in farming and machinery all come into play.   

“About 10 years ago, we were farming 1,700 acres with contract farming on top of our own, and we were also contract drilling 2,000 acres of oilseed rape.”   

Mr Ward explained that due to Countryside Stewardship and SFI coming into place, some of the contract farming land has been taken away from food production.   

Plans for farm restructuring   

The Lincolnshire farmer said that losing parts of his farmland forced him to make the difficult decision of making two of his long-standing employees redundant.

“A lot of the contract farmland has been put into the stewardship and SFI, so we are now farming just about a thousand acres. We have got too much staff for the land that we’re farming.  

“For the last two or three years we’ve looked at various farms to take on, but I won’t take on land simply to say, ‘you’re farming more acres’.   

“It has to fit with how we farm. The infrastructure of the farm – farm roads have to be good, farm buildings and grain storage must be good too. Unfortunately, the ones that we’ve looked at haven’t been, in my view, right for us.”   

In June, Mr Ward hosted the Cereals Event at the Heath Farm. The event gathered about 20,000 visitors, 420 exhibitors and hosted more than 200 live demonstrations.   

He added: “Lately, we had the Cereals Event that was in the pipeline for about 18 months. There was plenty to do, and the event was an exceptionally busy time, but then we always knew that we’d have to start looking at something different over the next few months when the event finished.”   

Mr Ward said that he had to make the “massively difficult decision” to terminate the contracts for his two workers at the end of September.    

He said: “Tom and Ruben will be leaving the farm, but I am looking after them. I am helping them find employment. They have a lot of interest, which is great.”   

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10-year business plan  

Mr Ward said that this decision, as well as a recent cancer scare, raised rumours that he is giving up farming. He denied the claims and said he has been working with experts to prepare a 10-year plan for his business.   

“I had a cancer scare early on in the year. I thought I’d got prostate cancer. I had an MRI scan done, but it wasn’t until I had a biopsy that the doctor said I hadn’t got cancer. So, as you can imagine, that was a massive relief.   

“At this point we started to look at restructuring the farm. I’m not quitting farming; I’m very far from it. I’m committed to farming, and I’m committed to food production. I’ll be doing more to promote that going forward,” he explained.   

Mr Ward added that changes to government legislation have forced him to rethink his business strategy and make necessary modifications.   

“I feel like we now have got a really good 10-year plan ahead of us. I think this plan is crucial for me now at my time of life and for where we are now.  

“We will establish all the crops and then decide over the winter the type of contracting arrangement. We will be looking into this with someone local.”   

Mr Ward said that one of the decisions he will have to make is which pieces of machinery to sell and which to keep. 

He added that farming is currently experiencing pressures “from all directions”. However, on the positive side, British farmers feel strong support from the public.    

“The industry has more public support than we’ve had for a very long time,” he added.

A YouTube video posted on Mr Ward’s channel, @WardysWaffleAndrewWard, has drawn a strong response from fellow British farmers.

“I’ve received more than 800 messages of support from farmers facing similar challenges. Many told me they’ve hit a brick wall and don’t know what to do next.

“They said my video encouraged them to make changes on their own farms, and many have asked me for advice on how I reached my decision.”

Mr Ward added that he plans to share further updates on his YouTube channel.

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