Even though he has been manager of Over Rankeilour Farms for 30 years John Wilson still has a spring in his step when he walks across the farmyard.
“It’s not just me,” he says. “I have run the business for two generations of the Crombie family and they are always thinking about the future. They have a real focus on sustainability – always keen to be planting hedges and trees and encouraging biodiversity – but at the same time keeping the farm commercial.”
John adds that the enthusiasm doesn’t just stem from him and the Crombie’s, saying efforts made in areas such as staff retention are paying dividends with a “really great balanced team.”
Trying new enterprises – such as flax and honeyberries – has also had a knock-on impact on the feelgood factor at West Hall, near Cupar in Fife, which won the SoilEssentials-sponsored Arable Farm of the Year category at The Scottish Agriculture Awards 2024.
The farm extends to 550ha with another 150ha contract farmed for a neighbour and 50ha rented in annually for growing broccoli. 170ha of wheat is grown, 140ha of spring barley, 70ha of winter oats, 45ha of potatoes, 130ha of broccoli, 40ha flax, and 4ha of honeyberries.
John can hardly contain his excitement when he talks about the flax and being involved in helping to re-introduce the crop – for its textile properties – to the East of Scotland for the first time in around 100 years. Farmers used to grow fibre flax for the country’s textile and linen mills, but in the 1900s cheaper imported textiles led to the collapse of the entire industry.
John and his team have gone from growing 8ha in 2023 to 40ha this year. Currently it has to be hauled to Belgium where the bales are processed; extracting the fibres which are
mostly sold into the Chinese market for making clothes.
“There is such a rising demand for green rather than oil-based clothing and our linen is perfectly green; we’re literally growing our own clothes in the fields,” he explains.
Together with other farmers within East of Scotland Growers (ESG) and bodies including James Hutton Institute, Edinburgh College of Art at the University of Edinburgh, Heriot Watt University and Elsoms Seeds the Crombie family are backing bringing flax processing to the country.
“Flax has everything going for it,” enthuses John. “It’s a home-grown biodegradable textile; a low input crop that’s great for pollinators. It ties in so well with people’s interest in regenerative rather than throw-away fashion. It’s a really exciting addition to our rotations.”
The other crop curveball on the farm is a new superfruit called honeyberries, which look like a cross between a blueberry and a grape and thrive in cold climates, growing wild in Siberia and having been successfully introduced into countries such as Canada.
“We’re still quite small, with only four hectares,” says John, who is chairman of the Scottish Honeyberry Growers, a grower co-operative which offers online sales. “But there’s no reason why they can’t be successful here in Scotland as they are a berry that needs to shut down in winter and to be able to do this, they require a cold climate.
“The plan is to develop the market and then scale up. At the moment we’re supplying local delis and farm shops, with one part-time member of staff working hard to find markets. They’ve a sharp, zingy taste and have more vitamin c than an orange and more potassium than a banana.”
All his enthusiasm for new ventures aside, John is a realist that it is the cereals, broccoli and potatoes – the “cash crops” – that have made such diversifications possible.
He is supported by a team of three full-time tractor men Dariusz Ciolek, Gregor Bousie and Jody Darling , a part-time farm secretary Gina Lang and seasonal workers for broccoli planting and cutting.
Pre-Brexit most seasonal staff were Polish, but now through the HOPS permit scheme there are new faces from as far afield as Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
“We offer very good accommodation, having converted an old farm steading, and try hard to make their time with us as comfortable and enjoyable as possible. We’ve found that if they have enjoyed working for us, they bring back their friends and relatives and can really hit the ground running, rather than having that settling in time with a new team every year.
“One of our tractor men, Darius, first came to us 15 years ago from Poland as a broccoli cutter. He was fast tracked as a supervisor and went on to accept a full-time role, living here on the farm. He’s a very valued member of the team and a matter of pride for the farm that he decided to settle here with his wife.”
While Neil and Louise Crombie are involved in the day-to-day decisions on the farm, Neil’s parents Ian and Evelyn make it five with John when they sit down for monthly farm meetings.
“This crossover of the different generations living on the farm works really well and helps with the family feel and continuity of the farm,” says John.
Ian and Evelyn Crombie were ahead of their time in respect of renewable energy, putting up one of the first on-farm single wind turbines (225 KW) in 2012. The family have continued in this vein through the generations, with two biomass boilers which run off the woodchip from the farm’s 100ha of forestry, an air-source heat-pump and two roof mounted solar arrays on farm buildings being added to the mix since. With cold store units and dryers to run on the farm in addition to heating and electricity to the main farmhouse and additional accommodation the farm’s electricity bills were eye-watering.
Due to the limited grid connection, it hasn’t been possible to sell much excess electricity back. However, it doesn’t go to waste and is used to power a wood chip drying system. The farm can’t export more than 150kW of electricity, so the excess is diverted into two 10kW fans and 65 one kW heating elements. This helps ensure that the moisture content of the woodchip is around 22% which improves boiler efficiency and allows the turbine to operate at full capacity.
There is a strong environmental conscience woven into the thinking. Straw is either chopped or swapped for dung to improve biomass in the soil, and the plough has been removed from winter crop cultivations. Field sizes have been kept relatively small (average of 8ha) with mainly hawthorne hedges between. These are cut every other year in the spring for maximum berry production and gaps constantly filled with new hedge plants to encourage biodiversity. There is a good population of bird life including grey partridge (a key indicator species) which gamekeeper Ian Sutherland is very keen to increase in size. This year the farm is due to widen some of the margins and sow with wildflowers to help this cause. A Carbon Audit has been completed and soil sampling has been undertaken for a number of years to monitor potential improvements.
“We are commercially driven but I’m proud of the way we manage this with an environmental focus,” concludes John, who says it is impossible to put a value on both the knowledge transfer but “bit of social” that he has enjoyed through farm discussion groups and organisations such as Scottish Agronomy.
“Every day is a school day when you’re farming. We all work long hours and to get together to compare and learn from each other is vital. I must also say that our new crops make the job very interesting and exciting.
“I’m delighted for the farm, the Crombie family and the whole team. What we do is very much a team effort.”
