The Farmers Mart Apr-May 2020 - Issue 68 | Page 42

42 D & J STEAD
APR/MAY 2020 • farmers-mart.co.uk
How the farming
dream turned
into agricultural
contracting success
Chris Berry talks with
Duncan & Jane Stead of
Stockton on the Forest
WHEN husband and wife Duncan and
Jane Stead moved to Claremont House
near Stockton on the Forest in 1983
little could they have known where it
would take them in business. Before
then Duncan had been a self-employed
mechanic and Jane was a nurse. Duncan’s
grandparents on his mother’s side had
farmed at nearby Sand Hutton and both
he and Jane had always harboured an
interest in farming.
Today their farming operation runs to
320 acres of rented land growing arable
crops – wheat, barley and beans; and
grass, with 150 acres harvested for hay
and haylage supplying some of the area’s
top horse racing and livery yards. But the
farming side tells only part of their story.
D & J Stead (Duncan and Jane) has
carved out a reputation for agricultural
contracting of all kinds from stub-
ble-to-stubble contracts to round and
square baling, muck spreading, particu-
larly with their two latest Ktwo spreaders;
and latterly a specialisation in drainage
work that has seen them busier than ever
more recently.
‘We started farming as soon as we
came here. Our idea was always to farm,
PROUD TO BE
SUPPORTING
D & J STEAD
BCS Agriculture Driffield, Yorks
01377 240118
WWW.PROCAM.CO.UK
but probably not to the scale we have got
to,’ says Duncan. ‘We have four and a half
acres we own, and we initially took on
a few calves rearing them up to suckler
cows.’
‘They were called Trouble and Strife,’
says Jane. ‘And we had a house cow and
hens producing eggs too.’
‘At one time we were up to 50 sucklers
and followers but our son Nick, who is
now a big part of the business, wasn’t
so keen on the cattle so we have fewer
today,’ says Duncan.
Agronomy
that
delivers
‘Our first big break in contracting came
when bale wrappers came in. We’d been
on with conventional square baling
and had made some haylage which we
wrapped. At that time we wrapped it
with a normal wrapper and we were so
impressed we thought that bale wrapping
would take off, so we bought one of the
first Volac wrappers in 1990.’