What is Contract Farming?

Contract farming is a joint venture agreement between a land owner and a contractor (Conisholme Farms).

The landowner keeps their own identity supplying the land and variable costs, whilst the contractor supplies all the necessary machinery, labour and management expertise, to establish, manage and harvest the crops. There are quarterly minuted meetings (more if required) to discuss cropping, gross margin etc.


Environment

We pride ourselves on making sure that farming agreements are put together in such a way as to ensure that environmental benefits are delivered, while at the same time minimising the impact on efficiency of operations.  When possible, we use rotation and cropping diversity to deal with pest and weed problems reducing reliance on bought in inputs.

We often include spring cropping within our rotation and use such opportunities to grow mixed species cover crops which increase soil organic matter and make productive use of water and sunlight for as many days of the year as possible.


How we farm

We believe that the soil is the most important asset that any landowner has and its health should be always put first.

Good establishment is key to the productive year so we like to ensure we have plenty of capacity to get the job done even in the worst of weather years,


We believe that not only...

should a farming system be sustainable but so should the relationships between management, staff, contractor and farmer in a contract farming arrangement, we don’t believe in cutting corners to make ourselves the cheapest option but we do sincerely believe in our ability to do the best job producing the best margin and a sustainable farming arrangement for everyone involved.

We have a long-term view and hope to be farming blocks of land for decades if not generations, building a strong relationship between ourselves and the landowners. Data and record keeping are at the heart of everything we do. We have always used Gatekeeper for crop recording, operations, variable costs, stocks and budgeting.

Controlled Traffic Farming (CTF)
Conisholme Farms Ltd is in the early stages of implementing CTF across its farmed area. This means that we reduce the lines of traffic across the land and in doing so reduce the compaction. Where cultivation and application traffic is random, between 60% and 85% of the field is driven over.

When managed properly, controlled traffic systems can result in less than 15% of a field being affected by compaction from wheel tracks. This in turn increases yields by up to 18% in the areas of no traffic and therefore increases field gross margins. We believe that CTF will also help us towards less intensive cultivation and where possible, No – till farming practices.

01507 358508

office@conisholmefarms.co.uk

Cherry Tree Farm, Fen Lane, Conisholme, Louth, LN11 7LU