I will start my first article of 2025 by reviewing our previous year. Last year started with wet weather impeding field work.

Poor cashflow caused me stress, and we had an unhappy workforce. One rotten apple had certainly spoiled the barrel.

The cumulative effect of this really got to me, and when reviewing my financial projections, I wondered how we were going to get through the year and why we were putting ourselves through so much strain.

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About the author

Robert Scott

Robert Scott farms 1,450ha of arable in mid-west Norfolk for seven different landowners. He grows combinable crops and sugar beet together with cover crops, grass leys and extensive countryside stewardship schemes. He also finishes 2,000 lambs a year. robert@thscottandson.co.uk Instagram: @thscottandson

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2023 was my annus horribilis, and to be honest, I thought 2024 wasn’t going to be much better.

Thankfully, I was wrong and we managed to get our spring crops drilled in good order. May presented the opportunity to reshuffle staff and the rot was removed.

Most of our contract farming agreements have all since been reviewed and renewed, providing us business security and some financial peace of mind.

We stepped into harvest with a renewed mature workforce and a much more efficient combine.

Yields were predominantly on the better side of average, owed to most land being on lighter soil types in a wet year.

Remarkably, we achieved new yield records with our spring barley and beans.

We finished harvest in good time, and stepped straight into autumn drilling.

Thanks to a dry November everything planned was planted, and the warm autumn has given us lots of forage for store lambs.

The cumulative impact has been our finances have stabilised and I’m less stressed. Farming is fun again.

So, what next for 2025? We have two experienced members of staff joining us.

This will allow me to get off the sprayer and back into the office, which is where I’m best placed to improve the business.

I intend to focus on making our administration more time efficient. We are still dependent on paper records for time recording, before inputting these into Gatekeeper and Xero.

Financial stability continues to be the priority in a world post-Basic Payment Scheme.

This generally dictates my stress levels, as I’m sure it does for most farmers.

As a consequence of land being sold, increased stewardship uptake and the effectiveness of direct drilling, we now have capacity for more whole-farm contracting if opportunities arise.

I’m looking forward to 2025, as I hope you are too.