42 FOXBERRY FARM AUG / SEP 2022 • farmers-mart . co . uk
Focusing on farm management brings arable farmer nomination
Chris Berry talks with Philip Metcalfe of Foxberry Farm , Caldwell
LOOKING after his soil quality , caring about wildlife and benchmarking his farm ’ s performance have been three major factors in Philip Metcalfe ’ s nomination as Arable Farmer of the Year in a national award .
Philip farms at the 500-acre Foxberry Farm in Caldwell , with his wife Sara , just inside the Yorkshire border above the A66 but south of the Tees , and says he is carrying on a farming dynasty that was started here over a century ago .
“ I ’ m the fourth generation to farm here since my great grandfather Christopher Metcalfe came here in 1902 . My parents Colin and Dorothy handed the farm over to me in 2000 .
“ My father had gone wholly arable after having taken the golden handshake to come out of dairy farming .
“ Soil is our biggest asset , so we ’ ve got to look after it . A number of years ago I read somewhere that arable soils only had probably 50 years left in them if we carried on abusing them and since then , for around the past 20 years , I ’ ve been adding organic matter all of the time , trying to improve the soil quality and extend its life .
“ We are on min-till but we are looking at going no-till and I have a new Italian manufactured Ma / Ag drill coming this season to undertake some trial work with it from Ryetech Machinery near Malton .
“ Over the last 7 years we ’ ve fluctuated on wheat yield from 9.36 tonnes per hectare to 11.5
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