The Farmers Mart Jun/Jul 2016 - Issue 46 | Page 56

Stoupe Brow Cottage Farm

Rugged and beautiful
at Ravenscar
Chris Berry talks with Will Terry at Stoupe Brow Cottage Farm
»»THERE ARE FEW FARM
locations that can match NFU
York County chairman Will
Terry’s Stoupe Brow Cottage
Farm near Ravenscar. Stunning
views of the cliffs and the
North Sea are a daily delight
even when the days are full
of leaden skies. It is dramatic,
rugged and beautiful. It’s North
Yorkshire at its finest and no
matter where he travels it’s
home and where he wants to
be.
“I enjoy public speaking and
I’m passionately defensive of
my own business and British
agriculture, which often takes
me away from the farm,”
says Will. “But I like being
back here. I’m used to big
horizons, this view, the sea
raging. That’s all part of why it
is wonderful living where we
do. In many respects the sea
is a huge leveller. It shows you
that, regardless of what man
does, we’re never going to

change the power the sea has.
That kind of thing alters your
mindset.”
Nonetheless, Will has been
sufficiently empowered to make
what difference he can through
the NFU.
“Years ago I asked my mum,
who ran the farm, where our
subscription money was going
and what we were getting
back in return. As a result I
started going to Yorkshire
Coast branch meetings. Since
that time I’ve held roles on
the north’s Regional Livestock
Board and I’m now chairman
of the NFU York County area. I
just feel that somebody has to
stand up and fight on behalf
of all farmers and growers.
There’s a massive price fight
currently going on between
supermarkets and we are
seen as the lowest common
denominator. We need to
try to position ourselves as
price getters rather than

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

price takers whether we’re
producing meat, vegetables,
fruit or milk.”
Will farms with his wife Sylvia
in their farming operation
which runs to around 400
acres with 258 owned and
the rest tenanted. It’s a mix of
sheep, cattle, cereal crops and
horses.
“My parents, Belinda and
John bought the farm in
1966, which at the time ran
to 180 acres. Mum expanded
it in the ‘90s by taking on a
neighbouring farm and National
Trust tenancies have also been
added. I worked with mum
since leaving school. Farming
was always what I wanted to
do and Sylvia and I took it on
in our own right in 2013 when
mum passed away. We recently
took on the tenancy of our
neighbour, Tony Cother’s farm
as he was retiring. We have
all land classifications here
from normal land to SDA and

moorland. Our arable rotation
covers around 120 acres and
runs to wheat, barley or oats,
a fodder crop of either swede
or oilseed rape and then peas.
This year we have peas, wheat,
barley and oats. The wheat and
peas are our cash crops with
the others for feed. It’s good
wheat growing land here on
reasonably strong clay and we
averaged over four tonnes per
acre last year. Our winter wheat
variety this time is Scout. We
had Relay last year but I wasn’t
too impressed with its quality
overall. We grow Cassia barley.
I do my own agronomy and
have a BASIS diploma. It’s my
only real qualification.
“Because of the hills and the
sea we have our own microclimate here where the weather
can run around the top of the
hill and leave our farm with a
quite different climate to that
just hundreds of yards away,”
he explains.