The Farmers Mart Aug/Sep 2015 - Issue 41 | Page 45

Martin Hodgson “I had a great time in South Cave and it gave me a very good grounding in farm management,” he added. “When new owners took over it was more difficult for me if only because the new man had come from a different business environment. That’s where I learned even more about how other businesses outside of farming really operate and it gave me a new perspective. It made me think more about how we, as farmers, get manipulated by the people we supply and that in a lot of the business world others wouldn’t stand for it.” Methley Estate is part of the much larger Mexborough Estate that owns around 25,000 acres. Martin’s responsibility is for the 1,200 acres at Home Farm, Methley and a further 140 acres at Thorner, near Bramham. “The estate once owned a great deal of the property in Methley village and has eight tenant farmers in and around the area here. There is also tenanted land at Thorner and Scarcroft. Lord Mexborough lived in Methley Hall at one time but it was demolished in the late 1950s.” Martin has arable cropping across 700 acres with half of it down to milling wheat that goes in to Warburton’s. Last year he achieved an average of around 3.75 tonnes per acre with better land hitting the four tonnes AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERS MACHINERY SUPPLIERS TO METHLEY ESTATE Maxwell House, King Rudding Lane, Riccall, York, YO19 6QL Tel: [phone] mark. It was just too early going to press with this issue to bring this year’s figures. “When I first came back we were on with Solstice. Last year I grew 50 acres of Crusoe and was happy with it, so this year we have gone half-andhalf, 175 acres each, of Crusoe and Skyfall. Our land ranges from grade 1 in the bottom of Methley to heavy clay where it’s more like grade 3-4.” One thing Martin has also learned as a farm manager is not to try and raise expectations, and with the current market prices of some commodities, his feelings are certainly justified. “When I budget, I always do it harshly,” he admitted. “I go for the worst-case scenario as much as I can with Lord Mexborough’s agent John Richardson on the basis that I’d rather underestimate and over-achieve. I’m not one to say that we’re going to get to four tonnes per acre even though that’s still my aim.” Martin also grows 100 acres of barley, 100 acres of oilseed rape and 25 acres of short rotation coppice that goes to Drax power station and has recently had a biomass boiler installed to the farmhouse. Other cropping land is let out for potatoes and he occasionally plants spring oats instead of oilseed rape. “Glacier is our winter barley. Oilseed rape goes to Croda in Hull and I believe that the oil is Hedging + Cultivation Work Grass Drilling Foraging Grass + Maize Rear Discharge Muck Spreaders Round + Square Baling & Wrapping Dribble Bar Unbillical + Tankers + Bobcat Loading Shovels + Spreaders + Trailer Hire 'Proud to be associated with Martin Hodgson and wish him luck in the future' Copley Spring Farm, East Bierley, Bradford [email protected] Mobile: [phone] www.farmers-mart.co.uk Aug/Sep 2015 45