Five years into the Farming For A Better Climate (FFBC) pilot project, Montrose farmer Willie Officer has seen the results of a change in approach to some on-farm practices that has improved yields and reduced input costs. Willie, who farms 900 acres of all arable crops, including potatoes and daffodil bulbs, on a mix of owned, rented and contracted land, joined the project, run by SAC Consulting, to experiment with a range of regenerative methods, from floating tyres to solar power, to see how they could improve the soil, crop quality and profit margins.
“We’ve always been proactive at Ardoch of Gallery with trials and seeing how we can progress the farm,” explains Willie. “We are a traditional Angus family farm, so we need to be constantly looking at ways to make the business more profitable. I was curious about this more regenerative approach, both for improving the business now but as much, especially as my children grow up and my son is showing aspirations to take over, for the next generation. We took livestock out of the rotation when we had to sell the cattle during the BSE years, and I wanted to see if there were other ways we could be doing a better job to boost the soil and wider environment.” With cold stores for flower bulbs in the summer and potatoes in the winter, the farm has a high energy consumption. As part of the FFBC programme, officials looked at different renewable options and decided that solar panels would be the best fit for their system. Since 2017, Willie says these have exceeded predicted figures, helped by some good summers in recent years, which has been very welcome given the recent rise in energy costs. There's still a reliance on the main grid in the winter, but in the summer demand is largely met by the panels. Wind turbines were also considered, but they were told by SSE that they did not have the capacity to add the farm's energy to the grid.
Having seen the soil compacted by digging pits at the start of the project, Willie introduced floating tyres and the combine is on tracks, which has resulted in better root structure and yields: “The sure sign is you can’t see any wheel tracks from the previous rotation. Not everything we tried worked, though. Cover crops weren’t great, but the understanding around these has moved on so much since we looked at it – the different mixes for particular soils, the circumstances they’re grown in and the Scottish climate. We’d definitely look at it again as it would work well with early harvest of bulbs.“ David Ross of SAC Consulting says the process has made farmers who remain involved in FFBC's work more aware of what can be done to make ongoing changes to sustain their businesses into the future: “Many of the measures we explored with Willie did not bring an instantaneous return, but it’s great to see, five years after the end of the project, the ways in which he continues to review processes to make marginal gains that are consistently pushing yields and the business on.”
Willie now has a straw-for-dung arrangement with a neighbour, which he wanted to introduce in the absence of livestock. This has increased the number of bugs, worms and insect life in the soil. On his own land he has planted wildflower headlands with seed subsidised by supplying potatoes to Asda/IPL and says the wildlife is "phenomenal". He min-tills some land, but strip-tilling is not viable at the moment. The family has set up a haulage business to provide a diversified income and battery storage is on the radar for the future, along with a second solar array, but Willie is waiting for the technology to develop.