Law Farmers
Athelstaneford Mains, North Berwick, East Lothian EH39 5BH
Chairman: James Logan
Tel: 01620 880205 Fax: 01620 880554
“Umbrella” farming is a relatively new concept whereby a group of individual farmers agree to pool their management expertise, land, labour, buildings and machinery.
While each farm can operate independently, the system generates a more efficient use of joint resources, stimulating simultaneously a reduction in costs and an expansion in business.
Law Farmers is an umbrella group based in the Lothians. It was formed by six similarly aged, mainly arable, farmers who had studied at Edinburgh University. Originally set up in the 1990s to discuss agronomy matters, the group soon realised that the mutual priority in the prevailing economic climate was to reduce input costs.
A start was made on group purchasing of inputs such as fertiliser and diesel with the next logical step the joint marketing of large parcels of cereals. During this period of development, the group began to examine its resources.
Total land farmed was 3700 acres. There were 14 employees plus the group members and their families, 27 tractors, nine forklifts, eight balers, three sets of potato equipment and duplication on other machinery.
There were two options - to rationalise the group’s resources to farm the 3700 acres more efficiently and to expand by utilising the infrastructure in place.
With advice from SAOS, in 1997 Law Farmers Ltd came into being. Through contract farming, rented land and additional land purchased by members, the company now farms another 1000 acres of cereals, 325 acres of grass and 55 acres of potatoes - a total of almost 1400 acres at no extra cost.
There are measurable savings on inputs: two tractors have not been replaced and the group purchasing of fertiliser, diesel and agro-chemicals has earned discounts of 5 -10%.
Cereals marketing is flexible. Although the group is placing a large proportion of its wheat and barley through commission-based agreements with agents, individual members are at liberty to trade independently, particularly where a long-standing arrangement may exist with a local grain merchant. The long-term plan, however, is to place all the tonnage in advance and currently 50% of the wheat and 75% of the malting barley is sold on that basis.
Law Farmers is already contract farming 500 acres and is planning for an increase in this activity as farm size, legislation and falling incomes deter many landowners from continuing with practical farming.
For Law Farmers, with its offer of a mix of arable, specialist potato and livestock expertise, contract farming presents a further opportunity to utilise the resource base.
The group’s members would be the first to acknowledge that there is more to “umbrella” farming than merely strength in numbers. Dialogue, trust and confidentiality are the keys to success.