The Farmers Mart Aug/Sep 2013 - Issue 29 | Page 50

Jono dixon - sunk island

Join up with Jono!
Chris Berry talks with the Club Hectare founder from Sunk Island.
Jono Dixon is not a man to let the grass grow under his feet. Actually he doesn’t have any grass at Patrington Farm, Sunk Island in Holderness, where his 568 acres are all down to winter wheat. Jono is one of a new breed of farmers who is not so much embracing technology as grabbing it by the scruff of its neck and running with it. He tweets, he precision-farms and he has come up with a new farmers’ forum and meeting place that many are finding a useful way of sharing thoughts and developing campaign strategies to deal with major issues. Club Hectare is not only a Twitter group nearing a membership of 350 farmers, it also has its own annual get-together, with members sporting their smart green and gold Club Hectare polo shirts. It has also enjoyed success in various ways, all within a matter of months. One of farming’s fastest-growing new groups of any kind its value and importance should not be underestimated. “The group was born on the back of a direct message on Twitter,” said Jono. “It came from someone who is a good friend of mine now, but whom I didn’t know at the time - Chris Hewis who farms on the south bank of the Humber. “Chris and I had followed each other on Twitter for a couple of months before he asked for my telephone number as a result of tweets I’d sent about poaching. “We effectively became a kind of Farmwatch social media network and have developed a good relationship with the local police force on both sides of the river,” Jono explained. Just a couple of months later Jono and Chris found they had quite a few farmers from East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire t alking together about far more than just the problems of poachers. “In February 2012 we held our first get-together. It was a bit like a blind date for farmers as we’d never seen each other! Fourteen of us enjoyed a very pleasant meal and it has to be said it did involve quite a bit of drinking,”Jono smiled. That first Tweet-Meet and the initial conversation about poachers has now become so popular that the next TweetMeet will see no less than 120 of them sitting down for dinner in February 2014. “Club Hectare brings together a rollercoaster of emotions, ideas and similarlyminded people,” said Jono. “From an educational point of view I’ve learned more in the past 17 months than I have in the past 30-odd years. “Reading others’ timelines on Twitter has made us all more aware of the plight of our fellow farmers, whether they are livestock or crop-based. Social media is bringing us

Ripon Farm Services are pleased to be associated with Jono Dixon

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Aug/Sep 2013 FarmersMart

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