FRIENDLY , understanding tractor dealers proved the catalyst that set farming brothers Nigel and Adrian Durdy on their way in the agricultural contracting world forty-plus years ago .

Today , such has been their success that they now farm across 500-owned acres and overall , including share farming agreements 1800 acres . They farm around the villages of Haxey , Epworth , Westwoodside and have a block of land 16 miles away at Conisbrough that they have had for many years .

‘ I left school when I was 16 and all I ever wanted to do was to drive a tractor ,’ says Nigel . ‘ My first tractor was a Massey . Adrian and I were both tractor mad . I started baling some straw and when Adrian left school two years later and he wanted to farm we became N & A Durdy , took on more work and bought a bit of land to get us started .’

‘ We got on well with our local tractor dealers who just happened to be Massey Ferguson dealers but it was Frank Harris of Epworth who helped us a lot in our early days when I hadn ’ t the money to buy a tractor .’

‘ Frank said ‘ just take that tractor , earn some money and pay me when you can ’ and that ’ s how we get our leg-up into contracting . It wasn ’ t just Frank either . Ian Husler was the same at Burrill ’ s . Ian would say ‘ just take it , pay me when you can ’.

‘ It proved the right thing to do because it encouraged us and we kept on buying better equipment and increasing what we offered , as well as buying land . Frank and Ian were brilliant for us .’

Nigel says that the baling of straw still plays its part in what he and Adrian do today .

‘ We ’ ve always baled straw . It ’ s how we started , along with swathing rape and crop spraying . When you want to get started in farming you ’ ve got to get in somehow and straw , for us , was the easiest route we found . Adrian and I have grown up with David Johnson of Northern Straw . We were one of the first in there . One of our big jobs today is putting straw on Guy Poskitt ’ s carrots .

‘ Our first bit of land we rented was a 9-acre field when I was 18 and we put it into potatoes . We grew them , graded them

and made a bit of money . We kept buying an odd field here and there – and then we bought Shawfield Farm at Haxey in 1998 , where Adi lives .’

‘ We bought the house , buildings and 46 acres there . We didn ’ t buy Nineveh Farm until 2005 . We bought it between us . We ’ ve now got 500 acres with 228 acres at Nineveh and the rest at Shawfield in two main blocks . It ’ s just three miles between the two farms .’

The rest of the acreage that Nigel and Adrian farm is largely under share farming agreements . Nigel says they work well . ‘ Share farming generally means the farmer puts the land in and you put the work in , but you share the cost of the inputs and you share the profit or loss made on the outgoings . The farmer puts

in the fertiliser , seed and spray and you do the work associated with those , that ’ s how it primarily works .

‘ The reason why we like it and farmers like it is that if it is half your crop , you put that much more effort in to ensure everything is right . You ’ re not just a contractor at that point , you are actively invested in the business .

‘ The farmer can then cash-in their farm machinery that is no longer needed – and you can afford better machinery because you are expanding your acreage and can see the benefit . It ’ s a huge trust thing . You need the farmer to trust you and you need to be able to trust the farmer . And hopefully with what you do , you can then both squeeze a profit .’

‘ We treat everything we do as our own crops .’

It ’ s a big cereal year this year across Nigel and Adrian ’ s 1800 acres .

‘ This year we have 1000 acres of winter wheat with half of it being Skyfall milling

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