What a Resilient and Ready future looks like for our business: Ben Lowe
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When we heard what Corteva and LEAF were aiming to do with their Resilient and Ready programme, we knew we had to apply.
We’re in a great position of being able to start at the beginning.
I’m an agronomist with Agrovista and my partner Harriet is a farming consultant with Strutt & Parker, but in July 2019 we took the plunge and signed a three-year short limited duration tenancy on 153 hectares near Aberdeen.
We’ve always dreamt of farming in our own right, and it was a personal goal of mine to become a farmer before I was 30. We signed the tenancy the day before my 30th birthday!
Since then we’ve been learning about the farm’s land and buildings while developing new income streams.
We’ve still got lots to learn, and the Resilient and Ready Programme will provide mentorship to help our business long into the future.
We want to be ahead of the curve and promote a sustainable farming system. That’s why we were delighted to be selected for the programme.
The farm has seen very little work over the past four years, so we’re really excited to start from scratch and make our own mark.
We see a big opportunity for different enterprises to work alongside each other to increase both profitability and sustainability.
We currently have nursery pigs and cattle alongside the arable enterprise. The idea is that we can keep the muck for the arable land to reduce the inputs we have to buy in.
There’s more so much more we’d like to look into.
It’s going to be an action-packed three years where we’ll be learning about ourselves and our farm as well as meeting like-minded farmers to share our experiences.
We’ve already met Craig and Claire Grant – the other Aberdeenshire couple involved in the programme. They’re a lot further on in their farming journey and it will be great to learn from each other as we go along.
We’re really looking forward to being part of the programme. This could help us build a solid foundation for a resilient and ready future.
ABOUT
· Farming in Aberdeenshire
· 153ha at Newseat of Dumbreck Farm on a three-year short duration limited tenancy from the Aberdeen Endowment Trust
· Nursery pigs and cattle on a bed and breakfast basis
· 115ha of arable land farmed in tandem with Harriet’s father’s
Read more about our Resilient and Ready sustainability programme here
See Ben and Harriet's Resilient and Ready journey, including other blogs they have written, on their profile page.