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

JFarm
L White
Name
& Son

Tourism adds to cattle
and crops for Oli and Jen
Chris Berry talks with Oliver White at Butt Farm, Beverley
»»IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR
again when familiar faces are
seen around the cattle lines
and sheep pens at Yorkshire’s
plethora of summer agricultural
shows. One couple who have
been involved with the scene
for many years and who have
had success are Andrew and
Pam White of Manor Farm,
Newland, Eastrington, near
Howden.
Andrew and Pam own their
350 acres at Eastrington where
their farm is predominantly
arable. The couple’s cattle
numbers include 30 suckler
cows and finishing 120 beef
cattle a year. The farm trades
under the name JL White &
Son and now includes one

of Andrew and Pam’s three
sons, Oliver as a partner. The
latest farm enterprise has seen
Oliver and his partner, Jen
Johnson moving to the 180acre Butt Farm on the edge
of Beverley. They took it on
two and a half years ago on a
20-year farm business tenancy
(FBT).
“One of the reasons behind
taking on greater acreage
that is now part of the family
partnership, in addition to Jen
and I setting up on a farm, was
that we were over-machined
at Eastrington. Dad prefers
to buy newer farm machinery
that has less chance of going
wrong and we thought we
could spread our fixed costs

46 Jun/Jul 2016 www.farmers-mart.co.uk

over a wider area as we have
an additional 100-130 arable
acreage here,” he explained.
“This year half of our
cropping at Butt Farm is vining
peas and the other half is naked
oats. We’ve been growing
winter wheat and our rotation
is intended to be winter wheat,
winter barley, vining peas and
naked oats via block cropping.
We have been supplying bird
food company Johnson & Jeff
in Gilberyke. When we started
looking at new niche markets
to go into we asked what they
would want. They said naked
oats. We’re also contracted to
Bird’s Eye for the vining peas.
“We had planted oilseed rape
but because harvest was late

last year we sowed the rape
in late September and it was
destroyed by cabbage stem
flea beetle that was widespread
in the UK. That’s when we redrilled with naked oats. Next
year we will be back in line with
rotation starting with wheat
then spring barley followed by
naked oats or peas.”
There are now two other
elements to Butt Farm designed
to make the holding work for
Oliver and Jen. Currently they
have a very small number of
cattle on the farm, which they
would like to increase, and
they have recently moved into
the tourism amenity market
with their new caravan and
camping site. It’s early days for