50 FLAWBOROUGH FARMS FEB / MAR 2021 • farmers-mart . co . uk
SUSTAINABILITY , YIELD AND PROFIT
The Ultimate Land Equation
Three generations ago , Flawbrough Farms was a humble 300-acre arable farm . Flawborough is a small hamlet situated 7 miles south of Newark , at the northern tip of the vale of Belvoir with the village of Alverton half a mile to the east . In 1954 , Tom Hawthorne ’ s grandfather , Charles Guy Hawthorne , moved to Flawborough to become the farm manager for his godfather at Flawborough Hall .
TWO years later , after the major ’ s death , Charles inherited the farm and so began the start of today ’ s impressive arable and contract farming business run by his son John and John ’ s son Tom . Although entirely arable now , they did have pigs until 1994 , when the financial decision was made to just focus on the arable business .
John returned to the farm in 1978 , after studying at Sutton Bonnington . He has always had an entrepreneurial and forward-thinking streak in him which has stood the farm in good stead , not least when they took the decision to move into contract farming in the 90 ’ s . In 2013 , John decided to retire from driving the combine so he could focus more on the office and flying his drone both for business and pleasure . He became a fully qualified drone pilot in 2016 .
Tom is now very much at the forefront of this progressive business , both day-to-day and behind the scenes . Tom has very much the entrepreneurial and forward-thinking ethos that John has . He has always been very hands-on , It was his idea to introduce Controlled
Traffic Farming ( CTF ), as well as many of the precision farming techniques to the business . Tom recognises that to succeed and develop now , and in the future , embracing new techniques and ideas is paramount . As well as a wealth of hands-on experience , Tom is fully BASIS trained , he is both an advisor and member of Green Crop Information ( formally CMI ), and a member of NIAB and BASE UK ( Biodiversity , Agriculture , Soil , and Environment ).
The development of Flawborough Farms has , to say the least , been impressive . During the early years , from 1955-1975 , the many small fields were amalgamated from a total of thirty-five to one large one at Flawborough and three at Alverton . This was due , in the main , to the post-war directive of farmland having to produce food . The hedges that remained were kept trimmed back to the smallest size possible for easier maintenance . The farmland was originally all pasture with small pockets of arable . It was subject to constant flooding , and hence the soil type is now one of extreme clay with more than 70 per cent being overlaid with sand and gypsum . Due
to the heavy nature of the soil , winter crops including oilseed rape , spring wheat and beans were the only arable crops grown for 30 years . Minimal cultivations have been used since 1969 , except for a period of three years at the beginning of the 1980 ’ s which was the beginning of the straw burning ban , during which they reverted to ploughing .
Today , thanks to developments in cultivation , land management and crop
Continued on page 52