John Best wrote his last Farmer Focus column in March 2004

John Best farms 440ha near Newry in Northern Ireland. The majority is arable cropping, with a rotation including Wheat, Oats, Oilseed Rape and Beans and a pedigree herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle utilises some permanent pasture.

John has been regularly featured in Harvest Highlights in recent years and much has changed on his farm since being a regular writer.

The addition of his son Simon, who retired from professional rugby, has helped bring fresh ideas and a new direction to the farm, which John is thoroughly enjoying.

“He’s always bringing new ideas to the table and has helped the farm move forward in the past three years. For example, he’s looked into the possibility of renewable energy which would be great for us, if we can make it viable.”

There could be even more innovative ideas in the future with current Rugby Union Irish international Rory Best possibly joining the farm in the future.

“On the arable side of things, I’m growing more beans, oats and oilseed rape. Beans have in fact been a real success story, they are fairly low cost and there’s a decent market developing for them.”

Over the years, John has increased the amount of min till on his farm although he admits this year, the system has come un stuck with the weather forcing him to revert back to the plough.

Diversification has become an important feature, with John implementing an on-farm composting system.

“I wanted to keep the farm moving forward and this was one way we could do that. It took a lot of planning, right from the very beginning, but I think we made the right decision.”

Green waste compost has been up and down for John so far, with it relying heavily on the quantity and quality of curbside collections.

“If the weather’s good there will be a lot of gardening and more garden waste for us, but obviously if the weather is not so good people tend to do less gardening, resulting in less compost”