Robin & Christopher Milton, Michael Sturla - How SFI works with our beef and sheep farming business on the Exmoor uplands

In episode 14 of the Defra Farming podcast, Michael Sturla talks to Robin and Christopher Milton, a father and son team farming beef and sheep on the Exmoor uplands, who have recently signed up to SFI.

Robin and Christopher share how they found the SFI application process and the SFI actions they have signed up to that suit their farming system, including clover and herbal leys, hedgerows, nutrient management, integrated pest management and vet visits.

Find out more about how to apply for SFI https://farming.campaign.gov.uk

Read more on the latest SFI announcement from Defra https://defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/2024/01/04/environmental-land-management-in-2024-details-of-actions-and-payments

Transcript

00:00
Michael Sturla, Senior Engagement Manager, Defra Farming & Countryside Programme:
Hello and welcome to the Defra Farming Podcast. My name is Michael Sturla and I work in Defra’s Farming and Countryside Programme, within the engagement team. I focus on regional events, going out to speak to farmers on the Sustainable Farming Incentive and gathering their insights and what their thoughts are. So today I'm delighted to be joined by 2 guests from the South West, 2 generations of farmers working together on the Exmoor uplands. 

So Robin and Christopher, would you like to say a few words and introduce yourself? 

Robin Milton, Farmer, Weatherslade Farm, Exmoor:
Yeah, we're beef and sheep farmers on Exmoor. It's predominantly upland, not hill, it's an upland farm, although we do have some common land grazing. We run our herd of Exmoor ponies on that. So that's a separate part to the farm. 

I’d regard ourselves as a traditional average sized family beef and sheep farm. We're based on the southern edge of Exmoor. It is a mixed farming enterprise because in line with an awful lot of these type of farms, we grow a few cereals, we grow a few root crops. It's got an ongoing rotation. 

It's been in the family, most of it, for quite a long time. A few years ago, my son joined me. He came back and rather than him working for me, I decided the best thing to do, that I could work for him, and then I could moan about what he was doing rather than the other way round. 

We keep sheep outdoors all the time, including lambing them, which I'm not entirely convinced about yet, because I get wet and cold and the sheep are getting faster as far as I can see. [laughter]

A few Aberdeen Angus suckler cows, not that many now. And then some store cattle that we buy young and grow on. On top of that, yes, there is a herd of Exmoor ponies we keep on the moors, but they're a completely unprofitable part of the business, but everybody thinks they're nice to look at. [laughter] So scale wise, 300 acres.

02:00
Christopher Milton, Farmer, Weatherslade Farm, Exmoor:
We lamb about 320 ewes. 18 Angus cows left now and then about 150 young stock. 

Robin:
It was a few years ago, Christopher said to me, my then rather substantial herd of Aberdeen Angus suckler cows were definitely not paying anything and were time to go. So I've been allowed to keep a few. 

Michael:
That's very generous. [laughter] 

Robin:
He came and joined me 8 years ago. He came back home, having worked away and travelled a bit, rather than working for me on the farm, he actually joined me as my boss, as my senior partner. I gave him a majority share of the farming business when he came back. And I thought that would give the opportunity to develop the farming business in the route that he was comfortable with rather than always feeling that it was what dad wanted to do. 

So, yeah, normally known as Buster, I'll let him explain why. 

Christopher:
I don't really know, to be honest. There's a lot of a different stories but apparently I used to break a lot of things when I was younger. [laughter] 

Michael:
Ah, that's great. 

Robin:
So yes, he joined me as majority partner 7 years ago, and that was predominantly the reason we got engaged with the SFI pilot to start with, because my approach was, "Oh, I don't know whether there's a lot in this for us," until he had a look through and said Get your laptop out Dad, we can do this, this and this. 

We've done 2 years of the SFI pilot and we asked to leave at the end of the second year because there was, we thought, significant opportunities in SFI 23 that it would be quite nice to get engaged with early on and be part of it. So I'll hand over to my boss. [laughs] 

03:58
Christopher:
We joined the SFI pilot. It was a new scheme coming out and some of it was quite workable with our farm at the time and we didn't want to go into CS [Countryside Stewardship] because it ties up the farm too much whereas it looked a bit more workable. So we decided to go down that route. 

And the other thing was if we were in the pilot, we had a bit of say on what happens next. So we could hopefully give feedback and help point it in the right direction and when SFI 23 came out, it is going the right way, I think, it is more workable for farmers, especially if we're mixed farms, we've got beef, sheep and arable, some of it, it was hard to rotate, they've made that a lot easier and workable, which has made a massive difference for us to be able to commit to some of it. 

Michael:
My understanding is, Christopher, you were looking ahead at the SFI 23 and interested by it. But Robin, you were a bit more reluctant. 

Robin:
My thought was that I was going to let the SFI pilot run and get to the end of that and then think, well, what are the options there? And I thought, I'll let it develop. And to be fair, it was only in the second half of 23 that we really started to get a bit of clarity on those options that were available. 

And actually, to be honest it sometimes needs a fresh generation approach to look at what they see as opportunities I might have seen as a threat. Sometimes it's opening your mind a little bit to that direction, because I looked at it, one or 2 bits and thought, “Oh, we're going to have to change that. I'm not sure about this.” 

Actually Buster's approach was, “Well, I can do that. That works quite well.” To be honest, some of the stuff, because we're predominantly grass, he was thinking ahead because 2 years ago, he bought a new direct drill, so we were actually set up in some ways, without knowing, 2 years in advance for some of the options. 

06:05
Christopher:
Yeah, definitely. So it opened up stitching in clovers for the clover option. The herbal ley side of it, you don't have to destroy grassland. We can eat it down tight, hopefully, check it back and stitch in and hopefully get it that way, which is going to reduce the cost of actually establishing some of those types of leys without losing all our grazing for the season, which again makes it more workable. And that was just more luck than judgement, I think. 

Michael:
So you had already taken those steps ahead of what the SFI was going to ask you to do, ahead of the curve. 

Christopher:
If we wanted to put any field corners into margins or whatever, we can stitch it in with the direct drill hopefully, is our thinking, and we haven't got all the extra costs of contractors. We are a very wet farm. We can't necessarily say we're going to put that field into this. We've got one at the moment, it's been over winter stubble, not for the choice because it's like the pond at the moment. 

Michael:
So which actions of the SFI 23 did you select and why you selected those ones? 

Christopher:
We went for the clover leys option. So clover inclusion, a lot of our cutting ground would be clover leys anyway. So it was quite an easy one to get into for us and to stitch in a bit of extra here and there isn't a big problem, and we tend to have quite a young rotation of grass anyway behind the corn. So it worked quite well, it's not a big problem to put clover in. 

We're going to go down the herbal ley route a bit more. We have already put in some herbal ley anyway, even though we're not getting paid for it, just to give it a go. For a lot of our grazing the herbal leys, going on what I've heard from people that have got them, it will suit our grazing grounds. So if we can work with that then it's a win-win really. 

We've gone into the hedgerow management options. We've managed to pretty much do all of them, haven't we? 

08:08
Robin:
Yeah. We've taken the decision on one end of the farm, the higher end of the farm has pure beech hedges on top of 8 foot banks. Our hedges over the last 40 years, I've been through and renovated, rebuilt fences, at some point, all of them. I'm proud of our hedges. We don't have hedges with big gaps in them. 

Our beech hedges at Withypool, 5 years ago, we took the decision to let them grow naturally and then put them into a programme of hedge laying. The ones back at this end of the farm, which are mixed hedges, we're letting some grow, some managing differently. But they're all thick, solid hedges. So that was quite a good one for us. 

Michael:
That's good to hear. 

Christopher: 
Nutrient management, integrated pest management. Yeah. And there was the other one as well, wasn’t there? 

Michael:
The Animal health and welfare. 

Christopher:
It's well worth reading through it because some of it you might be doing anyway, have that bit of help. And if you are getting a bit of help with it, you might get the vet say, "Oh, actually, could you do a bit extra or maybe look into doing this while you're there and maybe improving it a little bit as well." 

Michael:
Yeah. 

Christopher:
So it's well worth looking at those sorts of options, I think, because they're there anyway, and if you're doing the majority of it, it might just get you to improve it as well if you're not thinking the vet's costing me this much. 

Robin:
I was looking through as well on some of our arable land, very short term arables on a rotation. Normally it'll spend 2 years out of grass in about every 6 years, something like that. So it's predominantly grass. 

I was looking at what options were available there and there may well be 1 or 2 where we might take out a headland or 2 for wildflower mixes, and because most of that is now rotational, it's made it possible for us. 

10:04
Michael:
That's really interesting to hear. 

Christopher: 
Yeah obviously being the fact that we only keep it in corn maybe 2 years, if it's got to be in there for 3 years, it ruins our rotation, whereas if we can move it round, it makes that a feasible option. 

Michael:
Do you find that the flexibility that the SFI offers, the non-prescriptive nature, does that work well with the style of farming that you're doing up on Exmoor? Because you're upland, I'm guessing you're a bit of low as well, so do you find that flexibility works well for you? 

Christopher:
Yeah, it's one of the big reasons for being able to sign up to it. Otherwise it becomes if you can't guarantee you can get that crop in and if you don't get it in you're then defaulting on your scheme. For us that is a 50-50 chance half the time if you're going to get in a root crop or something like that because we get a huge amount of rainfall down here, [laughter] you're lucky if you can get a quad bike round through the winter and a lot of the autumn and spring, so it does make it quite difficult to guarantee we'll be able to put in a certain acreage every year even if we want to. 

Robin:
We actually started a CS [Countryside Stewardship] application last year. I never actually completed the CS application because a s the SFI 23 developed, actually that suited us an awful lot better. 

There's 1 or 2 bits that you should just be doing anyway, the nutrient management, the integrated pest management. That contributes directly to the business. Why wouldn't you want to know exactly what your soil profiles are and what your soil tests are? 

Michael:
Do you already do your own nutrient management plan? 

Christopher:
[We do] Soil sampling a certain amount on the farm every year. We like to keep up on top of the line on pH because one side of the farm is quite wet. So we've got to keep on top of that. If we let that slip, it costs us money. So it was worth doing. You're better off to look after your ground in the long term. 

12:00
Robin:
We're also quite fortunate as well. We've got a very good local guy, agronomist, and he's quite willing to sit down and go through nutrient management plans. Because we're also in an NVZ  [Nitrate Vulnerable  Zone], it's kind of a lot of the stuff that we need to do. So the 2 things work alongside each other and he's quite happy to go through and do that, without a hugely expensive cost. 

Michael:
Have you been speaking to neighbours, farms beside you, groups up on Dartmoor and Exmoor, do you find yourself having these conversations about where you're going to go, consider the SFI? 

Christopher:
It definitely comes up in conversation. In this area we have got quite a few young farmers my age coming on and taking a lot more management roles over in their farms. And a lot of the younger generation, I think, are looking into it and thinking we can work with this. We can get something out of this and make farming a bit more profitable again. 

There's a lot of them that have changed their farming practices and gone into the SFI to help with that change in farming direction. They seem quite happy with it at the moment. Time will tell, you’ve got to give it 5 years or so in farming so it'll be interesting to see how it pans out over the next few years. 

Robin:
Having gone through the SFI 23, whilst still being able to farm a low input system without involving too much costs and just looking carefully at what we've got, we feel we're heading towards covering what was our BPS. Now there is some cost attached to that but it's coming up to substantially more money and more support for that sort of actions than expected initially. 

Michael:
That's really interesting. And those are farming practices you're doing already and putting into the SFI 23 without changing the way you're farming and your practices. 

Christopher:  
It's not a drastic change by any means. It is workable. If it wasn't, we wouldn't want to be doing it. 

14:00
Robin:
That's what's probably focused my thinking on when to go into this in that you're better to ensure you go in at a level that you know you can work because you can always increase it at the end of next year. It was a lesson from other previous schemes, being realistic enough to look at what it actually will cost you, that's both in direct cost that it will take to actually do any of these actions and in the opportunity cost of what you could do otherwise. You've got to look and realistically think if I'm going to go into something like this, it's got to show a positive gross margin, because if it doesn't, it won't contribute to my business. 

Michael:
How did you find using the SFI 23 handbook? Did you find that you already had actions in mind and consulted the handbook to make sure that's what you could do? Or look through the handbook and go, I'd like that. 

Christopher: 
We'd heard of some of the actions and then we did look through the rest of the actions and see what was workable, what wasn't. 

Robin:
I actually just printed out the sections of the handbook that I felt were suitable. So I've got the sections of the guidance then that I needed to consult. So as I go through each one, I can have the page open and make sure it works, what we're looking at, and so on. And actually, most of it is relatively straightforward. 

Michael:
That's good to hear. We've been trying to work closely with farmers to shape that guidance, to make it manageable and hopefully you don't need a land agent to point you in the right direction. 

Robin: 
Well, for a good many years I've helped an awful lot of local farmers with their BPS applications and the vast majority of farmers that I know around the area are absolutely excellent at what they do. They're excellent stockmen, far more far better than I would ever likely to be. But they hate reading endless pages of this sort of thing. [laughter]

15:54
Michael:
Yeah. How have you found translating what’s in the handbook to starting an application?

Robin: 
The process of applying, I haven't got a problem with. That will be a huge step forward. 

Michael:
That's good to hear. With the application process comes a new payment system, going from annual to quarterly, every three months, does that impact you in any big way? 

Christopher:
As a beef and a sheep farmer, that would be a lot better. It can be very, very stop-start with beef and sheep. 

Robin:
An awful lot of SFI 23 are ongoing actions, some of which have ongoing costs, the likes of seed and so on for your clover leys, herbal leys and ongoing costs throughout different parts of the year for your soil testing and so on. I think for an awful lot of people that that spread of payments will make it an awful lot easier. 

Michael:
Really good to hear. So with the application process for the SFI 23, any tips or suggestions for anyone who might be wanting to apply and go through the application process themselves? 

Robin:
Well, first thing is, get the younger generation to prompt you into getting on and doing it. [laughter] The other thing is just read through, look at what suits your farm, read it through 2 or 3 times and determine what you can do easily. I would suggest, only apply to do what you know you can do to start with. You can always up the ante at the end of year 1 and look at revisiting and increase the level of activity you've got. 

Don't go in too hard to start with if you're a little unsure. Some of it looks complicated when you're moving field parcels in and out and this sort of thing. In reality, the field options are quite easy to do. The hedgerow options take more time and they're a little more complex. 

Michael:
Any tips you found made your life easier through the application? 

17:43
Robin:
One part of it would be don't panic at the moment because it's like with ourselves when you open up at the moment and I look at the land area you think, woah, my farm's grown a heck of a lot because RPA have added in all the common land. Every commoner's got the same area, like I've got an extra 800 hectares on mine because of our common rights from Withypool. 

But every commoner on Withypool will have that extra 800 hectares with a field number beside it at the moment. So you've got to look at it and think, is my land area correct? Tick the box, 'Yes'. And then when you go to the next stage, make sure that you only move across the rest of the field parcels and not the common. [laughs] 

Most of it is about that need to actually sit down and measure every field. So you've got to measure every field on half hedges to start with. And when you go on to the last action of the trees, you've then got to determine where there's field boundaries as well or where there's road hedges, the responsibility either side. 

I've got to go through the whole process against every field number twice marking them down, and with 57 fields, it took me a minute or 2. Once you've done it once, it's set up, but it's quite a time consuming option, that one. 

Other than that, just bear in mind that sitting down for a few hours to do this could give you a quarterly income for the next 3 years. That might concentrate the mind a little better. [laughter]

Michael:
So what would you say for anyone who might be a bit reluctant to enter into the SFI 23 and might be holding off for SFI 24? 

Christopher:
The beauty of it is, it's add-on-able. You can also take away as well. From what I've got from the pilot and the beginnings of this one is, you are improving it. It's come a long way and I genuinely do think you are trying to help make it a better process for us. 

Michael:
We are trying. It 's good to hear. 

Robin:
There will be undoubtedly a few bits in SFI 24. Once we get to the anniversary, which after all, it's never as far away as you think, you can revise it. There's also a feeling that historically, new schemes never appear as fast as you think they should do. Best take advantage of what's there. 

20:03
Christopher:
And definitely read through it. I mean, I'm not an academic type of person. I'd much rather be outside, but it isn't that daunting to read. Speak to other farmers that you know have gone into it because they might suggest options to you and you think, “Ah, I might look that up,” you can go and find that option, read it and you think, actually, we can work with this and then on from that read a few of the others. 

You don't have to read the whole lot. You don't have to go into the whole lot. So it is well worth reading through and just seeing whether you can or can't work round it. If you're going to get an agent, sit down and go through it with them rather than just think, what can you get out of it, work round it, because the chances are you won't have to change your farming practices all that much. 

Michael: 
Really good to hear. Going forward, looking into the future a bit, how do you see the farm changing, your practices changing in the next year or 2 or even longer into the future? Where do you see yourself going? 

Christopher:
We've already changed quite a bit in the last year and a bit, we were rearing quite a few calves. We're now easing into SFI a little bit, we now do our corn, nearly self-sufficient is what we're aiming for. We try not to buy in any concentrates unless it's for really young calves. We're buying a little bit of straw now, but ideally not too much. 

We've upped our sheep a little bit, an outdoor system so that's kept costs down for us. Although Dad doesn't like running around in the field when it's wet. [laughter] Because I've got the drill, I do do a bit outside seeding and that sort of thing. I do a bit of contract spraying. 

Robin:
Son and brother and his son in law and my son in law work together all the time in the winter doing hedge-laying that sort of thing. It's taken a bit of pressure off our farming system. He changed my sheep entirely and they now live outdoors. They don't have concentrates. They lamb outdoors. And ours is a grass, entirely grass based system. It's being able to adapt to what will work here. 

I think you've got to be realistic and start looking and thinking what suits me in the SFI. You mustn't start by looking at the money because if you start by looking at the money, there's a high chance you'll choose the wrong options for the wrong reasons. I think you've got to look at what's applicable on my farm and that I am willing to do in my business. 

22:32
Michael:
That's really interesting to hear. I think that's good advice as well. 

Robin:
And probably what's most sustainable. What I don't want to be in a position of, is endlessly changing direction. 

Michael:
No, that's the last thing we want to be doing. So for the SFI 24 coming up soon, what would you like to see in that, what sort of direction do you want to see Defra and the SFI going? What would you like to see us improve? 

Christopher:
Having opened up more of the capital grants to the SFI applicants will be a big help. 

Robin:
Realistically, if you want a hedge to be good, you need to have a fence both sides of it to keep it in good order and maintain it. And also from a wildlife point of view, it provides that secure corridor that you're not going to have a cow in the middle of it or anything else or the sheep grazing up the middle of it. We've got 57 parcels, and I think our average field size, if I remember rightly, is around about 3 hectares. 

Michael:
A lot of hedges!

Robin:
A huge amount and the capital cost of that. So ensuring the capital grant side works with it as well, herbal leys and clover leys, we need enough in the capital grants to ensure that we can utilise those options properly. 

My own comment would be to any other farmers, just look at this. Just look at it seriously, you can go in the first year at quite a low level, and dip your toe in the water and see what it looks like. This is what we've got in front of us. It's only by engaging with it and attempting to help develop it, that it's going to work for us as farmers as well as for the environmental expectations that are put on us. 

24:20
Christopher:
I've got to admit, since we started the pilot, I was very dubious at the beginning, but you have wanted to work with us rather than just saying, well, that's what you're getting, that's the options, you have tried to improve them, in all fairness. So it's nice to know that we're not just trying to work round you, we can actually work with you. 

Robin:
It's quite nice to just encourage people to feel a little bit good about what they're doing sometimes.

Christopher:
It's nice to actually have a scheme that's working with us as well as trying to improve the environment. It's going both ways. I mean, most farmers, on the environment, we want to look after it just as much as anyone else.

Michael:
Thanks, Robin and Christopher for giving up your time today. It's been really interesting to hear your thoughts on the SFI and how your farm is transitioning to that approach.

Robin: 
Thank you. If it can help stimulate interest and probably encourage farmers to engage with it. If we get involved, we can give more feedback as to what we feel works. The opportunities are in it for us, I think, and thank you for giving us the opportunity to give our view on it. 

Michael:
Thank you very much. I also want to say thank you very much to our listeners, and if you'd like to subscribe to this podcast, you can get it where normally get your podcasts from and if you want to follow the Defra Farming and Countryside Programme in more detail, you can follow us on our blog at defrafarming.blog.gov.uk 

Thank you very much for listening and thank you once again Christopher and Robin for your time today.

Robin and Christopher:
You 're welcome.