From Cancelled Plans to Combined Honours: James’ Journey in Agriculture and Business

In 2020, after finishing A levels in Geography (A), Psychology (B) and Economics (C) at Sedbergh, James’ planned gap year trip to New Zealand had to be cancelled due to Covid – so instead he went directly to Newcastle University. Not being completely convinced that he wouldn’t change his mind about working in agriculture, he undertook geography and business as a combined honours course – which he ultimately feels gave him a more rounded background. Throughout his time at uni James worked, “We farmed a few sheep at home – just on a small scale – I also did a couple of harvest seasons and carried on doing lambing seasons. In my final year I ended up working part-time as a trainee farm consultant at GSC Grays”.

Who are GSC Grays?

I’m a farm consultant and I work for GSC Grays. We cover a broad range of rural services; our biggest team is the farm consultancy team but we’ve also got land agents and specialists – whether it be planning and development, environmental consultants, that side of things. We cover a large majority of the rural services and we’ve got over 120 employees.

What’s going on currently in British agriculture?

You’ve probably seen that farming is in the headlines a lot lately. A part of that is that our farmers have lost what was called the basic payment scheme (BPS), which was essentially an annual payment effectively given to farmers in support of farming the land. It was part-funded by the European Union and when Brexit happened, the UK government announced that they wouldn’t be continuing with the BPS payment. Between now and 2027, there’s going to be a phasing out of the payments.

So farmers are currently receiving about half of what their BPS payment was and whilst you might think, oh well it’s all right because they’ll be making a profit elsewhere, it is surprising how many farmers relied on that payment to make sure they earnt a profit each year; there’s a lot of people seeing the effect of that. Other factors, like the import of meat from abroad, whilst it’s not helping and has always been there, there’s an increase in the awareness of its impact.

The situation is forcing a lot of farmers to really fine tune their businesses and bringing it down to the individual enterprises. So, say you’ve got an operation that’s got a beef and sheep farm that’s got three different breeds of sheep, two different breeds of cattle doing all sorts of different things. When you fine tune it down to that individual enterprise, so whether it be a store cattle finishing enterprise or whether it be a Texel flock enterprise for example, when you see how they’re performing, it’s forcing a lot of farmers to analyse that and say, effectively th

is enterprise is losing me money. This one’s making me money. Let’s move that effort into the enterprises that are actually going to make the farm profitable.

There is opportunity out there – whether its diversification, which is quite hot in the press at the moment – especially along the lines of setting up farm shops or campsites and really utilising the farm and the environment to benefit the business. That is having a big effect on a lot of businesses.

What are the careers in agriculture?

People need farmers to farm the land to feed the nation. It’s as simple as that. But there are other opportunities that come along as a result of farming. These include:

• Farm Business Consultancy
• Land Management
• Estate Agency
• Sales & Acquisitions – Estates, Farms and Country Houses
• Energy & Telecoms
• Valuations & Surveys
• Planning & Development
• Environment & Sustainability

What issues are impacting the agriculture at the moment?

You’re seeing in all the headlines at the moment is obviously the uncertainty at the forefront with what we saw at France when they were pretty much as funny as sounds spreading story on their parliament buildings to what we’ve seen in Wales with a big rally, there is uncertainty. Where does that come from? We’ve lost what was called the basic payment scheme, which was basically an annual payment given to farmers for effectively farming the land. It was part funded by the European Union, so when Brexit happened, it was announced by the UK government that they wouldn’t be continuing with the BPS payment.

So between now in 2027, there’s going to be what they call dealing payments down. So farmers are now receiving about half of their original BPS payment and whilst you might think, oh well it’s all right because they’ll be making a profit elsewhere, a lot of farmers relied on that payment to make sure they were in a surplus each year. It is forcing a lot of farmers to really fine tune their businesses and bringing it down to the individual enterprises. So, say you’ve got a beef and sheep farm that’s got three different breeds of sheep, two different breeds of cattle, they’re doing all sorts of different things. When you fine tune it down to the individual enterprises and you see how they’re performing, it’s forcing a lot of farmers to analyse and say, effectively this enterprise is losing me money; this one’s making me money. Let’s ship our effort into the enterprises that are actually going to make the farm profitable. But there is opportunity out there, for instance, diversification is quite hot in the press at the moment – especially setting up farm shops, campsites and really utilising the farm and the environment to benefit the business.

Farm consultancy: What do I actually do?

A lot of my job revolves around going to farms, sitting down, having a cup of tea, talking about sheep and cows – which to me actually sounds pretty ideal. When we get into the nitty gritty of their farming businesses, the variety of work that we do is enormous. Whether it’s looking at the farm management side and actually seeing an agricultural business which either the owner can’t or doesn’t want to farm themselves. They may be going down a joint venture route; whether that be contract farming or share farming. Either way they need somebody to manage what’s going on and monitor it and really understand what business decisions are being made and why they’re being made. That’s something that I personally really enjoy.

Every farm is different, every farm business is different and nobody understands the land like the farmers themselves. So, it’s really important to build up that relationship with your clients and make sure that it works both ways. While you might have all the information in terms of what’s available and what might be possible – but its got to work both ways so you’ve got to listen to the farmer and you’ve got to build that relationship.

With farm consultancy, no matter what firm you go into, you always get the opportunity to decide where you’d like to specialise. You might choose to specialise based on what your family have done historically with farming. It might be a particular interest that you’ve got yourself. I myself am on sheep and beef side of things, although I still have to do a bit of dairy and a little bit of arable where there is in the area. So you develop the ability to understand all the enterprises, but you do get the opportunity to specialise in what interests you.