The Farmers Mart Jun/Jul 2016 - Issue 46 | Page 43

Intake Farm

of the county once a month,
and out of the country once a
year because farming can get
lonely, insular and sometimes
depressing especially during
a bad winter like we had last
year.”
Carl, in common with most
other cereal growers, had
achieved highly respectable
yields with wheat coming in
at over 5 tonnes per acre last
summer, but in December and
January nearly half his farm
was under water. It provided
him with quite a challenge
both as a farmer and one who
was protecting the rest of his
community. He was invited to
Downing Street to be thanked
by David Cameron for work in
helping the village during the
floods.

‘We’re here in
God’s Own County
that I love to bits’
“We’re only 26ft above sea
level here and when it’s wet
it’s really wet. We had a lot of
grasses severely damaged. It
can have its advantages in that
it makes for good soil but when
it’s just too wet we do suffer.”
Today the farm runs to 710
acres of which 500 are owned
with the River Wharfe to the

north side and the railway to
the east. It’s an arable and beef
enterprise.
“I’m the third generation to
farm here. My grandparents
Colin and Mary Cattle came
here in 1936 when the farm
ran to just 36 acres. My