• FEB / MAR 2023
BESWICK HALL 41 politicians . We ’ ve exported all our jobs at the processing plants now because they ’ re buying in too cheap . They are bu ** ering agriculture .
As you can see , John has lost nothing of his campaigning voice , but first and foremost he is a farmer , in partnership with his two sons Edward and Roderick . Beswick Hall is tenanted from Lord Hotham of South Dalton and runs to 550 acres . John says the Dugglebys have farmed in Beswick for centuries .
“ The family has been in Beswick since the 1600s . There were four brothers farming four out of the five farms in village at the time when a wool merchant from the West Riding by the name of Dennison owned it .
“ Edward runs the farm now . I ’ ve allegedly been retired for over 10 years . My youngest son Roderick manages an estate of 10,000 acres in Warwickshire
“ The farm is predominantly arable with a Belted Galloway herd and a few sheep of Edward ’ s . We also have a poultry enterprise that we started when Edward came home in the mid-90s . We fatten ducks for what was Cherry Valley and is now Gressingham Ducks .
“ On the arable side we home in on first wheats with a break crop . We are two straw crops and a break , which is usually rape and peas on the better land . We do some second wheats .
“ Our winter wheats this year are Astronomer , Extase and Typhoon , which is a new one . Our first wheat acreage is 125 acres . We have Gleam as our second wheat over 20 acres ; winter Barley runs
to 50 acres ; oilseed rape about 30 acres . It should have been 60 acres but flea beetle got it . It ’ s a continual battle . We will be sowing spring beans and vining peas . John still drives the combine . “ We have been with Claas a long time . If you ’ re on a combine you can see the areas of land that aren ’ t as good as the other . I do all the cross recording on computer . I also do all the cultivation . Not exactly retiring just yet , is he ? “ When I left college at 19 I came home and drove the first self-propelled one we had , a Claas Matador and I ’ ve driven them ( Claas ) ever since for 62 years .
“ The biggest change on the farm in my lifetime has been the reduction of labour and greater mechanisation . I remember the first combine that came in 1951 and remember Irishmen coming when we used to have stooks .
“ We would have 15-16 men working at harvest time in the 1950s , a combination of Irishmen and locals . We now have two part-time girls .
John took on the farm after his father Derrick passed away in 1981 .
“ I was nicely married to my dear wife Angela by then . Sadly , she passed away from cancer in 2009 .
John has a final side swipe at authority as he gets back on board his campaigning train .
“ We have stewardship land dotted around the farm . Given the government ’ s paltry attempts at incentives I have no idea whether we will carry on . A lot of what they are coming up with is just a waste of time .