Contracting on the Isle of Wight brings both opportunities and challenges, as Farmers Weekly finds out from Westover Farm Contractors boss, Rob Chapman.

Westover Farm Contractors business offers a suite of arable, grassland and anaerobic digester services across the Isle of Wight.

See also: Contractor Comment: Hedge work maintains winter cashflow

How did you get into contracting?

I’ve literally never wanted to do anything else. I loved farm machinery models as a small child, and my mother says my bedroom floor back then looked much like the yard does today – shiny kit scattered everywhere, albeit on a larger scale.

My one regret is that I didn’t pay more attention at school. I’d reluctantly trudge into class in the morning but be very quick to rush home to the 200ha family arable farm in the afternoon.

I wanted to farm, so why bother with schoolwork? That was my attitude. But it was a mistake.

At 18 years old, I did a season for a New Zealand contractor, followed by several years on the UK mainland before returning to the Island in my mid-twenties.

There wasn’t enough work on the home farm, so I, along with my brother, Richard, ended up gradually buying kit off my father and then carrying out the family’s arable work on contract as well as helping other farmers and contractors.

Our first tractor was a 10-year-old John Deere 6900 with 5,000 hours on the clock. We paid £18,000 for it, added another 3,000 hours over a couple of years and then sold it for £12,000.

Our big break came in 2010 when Alan Attrill Contracting asked us to take on its 800ha foraging business.

For the first couple of seasons, the forager was on a great hire deal whereby we only paid for the area harvested, and my customers chipped in with mowing, raking and trailers.

My brother left the business in 2014 to work with his wife on her farm, at which point I was on my own.

Nonetheless, with a lot of advice and support from Justin Nichols, of Compass Tractors, I was still able to grow through a combination of finance and hiring.

The foraging peaked in 2017, when we were chopping about 3,200ha of grass, maize and wholecrop with a pair of Krone Big X 770s and running 15 trailers.

At that time roughly 70% of the foraging work was for a couple of anaerobic digester (AD) plants, the rest for livestock farmers.

For 2020, with a number of livestock farmers deciding to pack up, we opted to drop back to 1,600ha and supply just the one AD plant.

That meant we could trim the foraging operation to one harvester and four or five trailers. Massively less stress for a marginal effect on overall profit.

As an example, we were able to slash our annual hire bill, which had been as high as £60,000 for 12 trailers and six tractors.    

Main contracting enterprises today?

While the business developed very quickly on the back of the AD work for Wight Farm Energy (WFE) and Black Dog Biogas, I’ve always been keen to grow the other enterprises alongside.

Which is just as well, because, due to a temporary reduced demand from WFE, for 2025 we’re down to just 800ha of foraging.

On the livestock side, we’re baling roughly 35,000 round and square bales of silage, haylage, hay and straw, and muckspreading with a couple of Samson Flex-16s.

As for the arable work, we’ve got stubble-to-stubble contracts on 700ha, I’m renting a further 200ha and there’s additional drilling, combining and spray contracting on top of that.

Any forms of diversification?

Not really. I’ve always believed that farming is what we do, and anything else is a distraction.

The government may be pushing diversification as a solution to all farming’s current woes, but you wouldn’t ask a brickie to diversify to survive, so why a farmer?

Food production is critically important and should be treated as such.

We run a 14t Volvo digger, which we could use for more ground and amenity work. But I don’t want or need the hassle of switching between red and white diesel.

Besides, as elsewhere, groundwork is an extremely competitive sector on the Island, and I’d question if, for us, there’d be much profit in it.

My focus is on maximising the profitability of the farming operation.  

Most profitable contracting enterprise?

The AD work has the potential to make a lot, or lose a lot.

There’s a sweet spot of harvesting a 37t/ha maize crop at 32% dry matter in dry ground conditions with a short-ish haul, no breakdowns and smooth-flowing Island traffic. Then everyone’s happy and making money.

However, it’s a very different story when you’re scrabbling around in mud, struggling to bring in a light crop, and the narrow lanes to the AD plant are jammed.

Spraying can be a decent earner, but again it depends on logistics. Fields on the Island tend to be small and sometimes hilly, and there aren’t many big blocks to go at. This isn’t farming in the eastern counties.  

And the least profitable?

As we’re on a small island, there’s only a finite number of potential customers, so we have to offer a bit of everything – we can’t just drive another 10 miles down the road to pick up more work.

Some of our services definitely aren’t profitable, yet we have to provide them to retain our customers’ other business.

Ploughing is a case in point. For a day’s work, at £80-£82/ha and turning over about 12ha, we’re earning just short of £1,000.

The tractor, man (including holiday pay, national insurance, etc) and fuel, at £20/hour for each, are costing about £700-750, leaving roughly £250 for the plough and wearing metal on what can be stony, hilly ground.

The job is only covering costs at best, and I’m doing 800ha of it… because I have to.

Biggest threats to your business?

The general profitability of farming. Given the escalating costs of labour and machinery, I need to charge more.

But I can’t. I’m farming myself, so I know how much farmers’ margins are being squeezed.

Add in the weather, rising input costs and depressed commodity prices, and there’s currently no money in the arable job.

What we’re owed by customers is creeping up, and that’s always a sign of tough times.

For now I’m having to be more creative. We may look to trim back tractor numbers and, where sensible, postpone scheduled replacements.

One example is an 8,000-hour, 21-plate Fendt 828, which we’d have normally changed by now. Against a new 728 at about £250,000, the cost to change is £20-£22/hour.

That’s too much, so we’ll probably run the 828 to at least 10,000 hours at a depreciation rate of £10/hour.

I’m comfortable with running it on, because it’s recently had a new engine and is in otherwise excellent condition.    

Any difficulties with staff recruitment?

I’m fortunate to have two main full-time guys, Henry Margham and Simon Basket, who are excellent.

They just get on with the job, whether I’m here or not, and look after the kit as if it was their own.

I’ve been lucky with seasonal staff, too, using a combination of local farmers’ sons and customers, as well as others from farther afield – the mainland, Ireland and Kiwis.

It’s largely been through word of mouth, so I’ve only had to advertise twice in the past 10 years.

Noticeable, though, is that recruitment has become tougher since Covid, and I’m not sure why.

What excites you about the season ahead?

With the reduction in AD work, this season will be one of consolidation and looking for other opportunities, which is exciting in itself.

There’s scope to cut tractor numbers, and I’ll be identifying other ways to increase efficiency too.

New machines in 2024-25?

We didn’t change any tractors in 2024 – we normally do two or three – so it was a relatively quiet year.

As for other kit, we bought a new 6m Horsch Sprinter 6ST drill, Krone Vendro tedder, Krone Comprima CF155 XC Plus round baler wrapper and KRM 45W fertiliser spreader.

Second-hand, we also acquired a couple of Ktwo Roadeo 1800 HP push-off trailers, a 2019-plate Amazone Pantera self-propelled sprayer, New Holland BB870 big baler and a 6m Amazone power harrow/drill combi.

I was especially pleased with the 36m Pantera, which was sourced at a farm sale.

We tend to buy tractors new, but I’ll look at both new and second-hand when it comes to the implements.

Cultivation kit, in particular, is almost always bought used, as I can’t see the point in spending a fortune on what is effectively just wearing metal. Plus, cultivators are massive depreciators.

For 2025, the current plan is for no capital expenditure, although I’m certain to be tempted into something. More pressing is to get the new workshop built.

Recent major repairs/breakdowns?

Not this week. But, tomorrow, who knows? In recent memory, we had a forager spout fall off three years ago, which was quite dramatic, and there’s been nothing much since then.

As mentioned, one of the 828s is on its third engine, but then that’s what 828s do.

Overwinter projects?

We often don’t finish drilling until late November/early December and then get busy again from mid-February.

So, there’s not a huge down-season, especially once you’ve washed off and maintained up to 100 implements, and the guys have taken their holidays.

Current contractor frustrations?

My main frustration is with the government and its apparent indifference towards UK farming’s plight.

It talks about the importance of food security and supporting UK food production but seems to be doing everything in its power to undermine it.

Family farm tax, increased national insurance, cheap food imports not produced to UK standards, removal of the Basic Payment Scheme, slow delivery of the Sustainable Farming Incentive – the list is depressingly long.

On a more local level, we will continue to adapt our business. There are always opportunities; it’s just a matter of finding them.