Case Study
Overbury Enterprises
Farm facts
Location: Overbury Enterprises, Worcestershire
Farm size: 1,600ha farmed in hand; 207ha contract farmed
Enterprise mix:
950ha of arable, including winter wheat, winter and spring barley, winter oilseed rape and winter and spring beans with cover and companion crops; 950-ewe flock of North of England Mules, Texel crosses and Romney-cross Aberfields grazing permanent pasture, leys, Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier stewardship areas and fly-grazing arable. LEAF Demonstration Farm. Wider business on the estate includes livery, stud, nursery school. Founder member of Green Farm Collective.
Soils:
Mainly Cotswold brash, some heavy alluvial clay soils, rising to 300m above sea level on Bredon Hill Nature Reserve.
Farm manager Jake Freestone has been awarded Soil Farmer of the Year 2020, Farmers Weekly Environmental Champion 2021, BBC Farming Today Farming for the Future Award 2022
VUCA challenges and opportunities
The biggest change for the business has been the switch into regenerative agriculture, starting in 2013, going almost fully no-till in 2015.
But currently the volatility of everything in farming makes the future uncertain, and with volatility comes heightened risk. The opportunity for the business is to do more bespoke marketing of regenerative agriculture, selling the crop at a premium and building relationships with consumers – to offer certainty in an uncertain world. Jake Freestone, Green Farm Collective
There is also the opportunity of land becoming available as other farmers choose to give up farming in their own right, and there’s the opportunity offered by new technologies and new ideas coming into agriculture.
Trying these on farm may help raise productivity and improve efficiencies, and although we’ve made progress, we’ve still some way to go here, as well as ambitions to further improve the farm’s biodiversity.
Adaptive capacity
1. Business bravery – There’s always room to improve, but Overbury is well on the journey to where we want it to be. The arable business is achieving good yields with lower inputs, while the lambs have considerably lower bought-in feeds and reduced vet and med costs.
2. Smart trust – Overbury benefits from very good relationships with trusted advisors, from our agronomist, to soils specialists, to other professionals. We also benefit from a strong network, particularly Nuffield Farming Scholarship Alumni, and it’s the conversations and ideas you glean from these that invigorate discussions and ensure value from advisors.
3. Learning – Being able to let go is often hard to do, and you often have periods of self-doubt. But we have built a culture at Overbury of being willing to experiment with the aim of upskilling ourselves. Crucially, that goes for all of the team who are all very much part of any new trials we’ll undertake, and you draw strength from their support.
4. Adaptive prowess – The arable side of the business took a couple of years to recover from the wet autumn of 2020, which shows us we have work to do on improving resilience. But the diverse nature of Overbury Enterprises’ interests ensures we can weather and recover well from most shocks we’re likely to face.
5. Effective networking – This is a very significant element of Overbury’s activities, and the multitude of awards we’ve picked up in recent years are proof that the network’s working. While there’s always room to improve, we have built up extremely strong relationships across the spectrum of farming and environmental groups as well as with other farmers. This brings huge benefits in terms of opportunities, as well as sharing knowledge with those who at the top of their game.
Lessons learned and outlook
Data for the arable side of the business is gathered by Gatekeeper and we bring quite a lot into spreadsheets. We have always found the LEAF Sustainable Farming Review useful, which is a bit different and more subjective, rather than data-driven.
It keeps us updated on legislation and requirements and builds into a useful historical record. It opens your mind and makes you think about aspects of your business that perhaps you’ve neglected and prompts you to do things.
For a decade we’ve played around with the odd first generation carbon calculator. But Sandy as a next generation offering has really focused the mind quite significantly on the value of carbon to the business. It’s shown us what we’re doing with regenerative agriculture offers more than just cost savings and environmental improvement. It’s put impetus behind our agroforestry venture and of course it’s all coming together with the Green Farm Collective.
That works both ways, because GFC provides a means to improve our social credit locally and enhance the profile of the estate, whether that’s selling apple juice to local residents or connecting people to the wildlife work we do.
Looking back, the lightbulb moment for me was the Nuffield Farming Scholarship that took me to Oklahoma and to two fields, separated by a road. One had been farmed regeneratively for 20 years and withstood a heavy rainstorm. The other was in conventional arable and couldn’t even take a crop after the storm.
That’s what motivated me to start the journey. But what’s made the difference is that I’m fortunate to be surrounded by positive people, and that encourages you to do positive things and make the journey a successful one.