Our Farming Champions Share Their Stories
JAMES MIDDLETON
Celebrating and recognising the hard-work that goes into achieving outstanding crops in often challenging conditions – We've handed out six data backed awards for harvest year 2024.
Travelling from Dorset to Aberdeenshire, we've interviewed our award-winning arable farmers about their crop production, operations and opinions. These conversations contain real-world examples of farmers who all have their own methods and story to tell.
Dive into some of the articles below to learn more if there's a specific crop you're focussing on.
Alternatively, this series is available as a podcast: Listen Here.
Winter Barley: Dan Moore – Cranborne Farms.
Dan manages 3,000 acres at Cranborne Farms, part of Gascoyne Estates on the Dorset-Hampshire border, and took top spot for Winter Barley with an impressive variable COP/t of £65.13 for their malting Maris Otter crop.
Cranborne Farms runs a well-balanced arable operation, integrating environmental schemes, a grazing partnership, cover cropping, and agroforestry. Their innovative ‘mosaic’ approach to field blocking blends productivity with biodiversity.
Dan’s strategic focus on soil health and targeted crop nutrition is paying off — reducing fertiliser use while improving soil indices. Through regular tissue and SAP analysis, he fine-tunes nutrient applications by field, ensuring plants get exactly what they need, when they need it.
“Everything must be data driven,” says Dan. “We’re constantly running responsible, measured trials to explore how we can reduce inputs while building soil health.”
Click to read how Dan is leading the way in sustainable, data-led farming.
South EAU Farm Partnership: Rob Wilkinson - Winter Wheat.
Rob Wilkinson, Director of Farming at Strutt & Parker and AICC independent agronomist, manages South EAU Farm Partnership in Lincolnshire – earning the Best in Field Award for Winter Wheat with a Group Three variety landing a sharp variable COP/t of £54.16.
Rob takes a data-first approach, balancing inputs, quality, and yield across a diverse 360-acre rotation. His 2024 wheat crop – drilled late in both November and January – was strategically managed for clean establishment and cost efficiency, achieving lower input spend year-on-year.
With delayed drilling helping tackle blackgrass and reduce herbicide use, Rob tailors nutrition with tools including tissue sampling and rotational soil testing. Every decision – from bold seed rates to trace elements like zinc and sulphur – is rooted in crop performance and cost control.
“I treat every crop as I see it,” he says. “We make decisions based on data and cashflow, aiming for good output at a sensible cost.”
Spring Barley: Simon Gent – IX Ltd.
Simon Gent has managed 1,700 acres at IX Ltd, near Salisbury Plain, for nearly 30 years — producing standout results on the region’s chalky downland.
A long-standing focus on precise inputs underpins the farm’s success. Simon integrates nitrogen during drilling to boost uptake and has cut fertiliser use by 20kg/ha without compromising performance.
Through detailed field mapping and variable rate applications, he effectively tackles soil variation — a strategy that delivered an impressive variable COP/t of £48.55 for malting-spec Laureate spring barley, far outperforming market medians.
IX Ltd has consistently grown spring barley for under median cost eight years in a row.
“Using data has helped us tackle ryegrass, manage herbicide resistance, and monitor spend,” says Simon. “Tracking costs is incredibly important.”
Click to read how data-led decisions are driving resilient, efficient farming at IX Ltd.
E.W. Spink: Lawrence & James Spink - Oilseed Rape.
Lawrence and James Spink, with agronomist Ryan Baker, run E.W. Spink & Son in Suffolk — a 140-hectare farm growing OSR, milling wheat, winter and spring barley.
Farming in a Nitrate Vulnerable Zone and battling CSFB pressure hasn’t stopped them achieving an outstanding 4.6t/ha OSR yield, winning Best in Field 2024 with a variable COP/t of £112.76.
Their success comes from close attention to costs and inputs, using variable rates and liquid nitrogen for precise, efficient nutrition.
Adaptability is key to their decision-making. Lawrence explains, “If it’s too dry, we don’t even bother taking the seeds out of the bag — before, we’d be more likely to gamble.”
Every input is carefully considered, helping the team build a resilient, data-aware system that performs in tough conditions.
Murray Forsyth: Smiddyburn Farms – Best Attention to Detail.
Murray Forsyth, Managing Partner at Smiddyburn Farms in Aberdeenshire, manages 1,000 acres alongside a 500-head beef finishing enterprise near the Grampian Hills. He is also the chair of Aberdeen Grain.
His arable rotation includes winter barley, OSR, winter wheat, and spring barley — all underpinned by meticulous record-keeping and a commitment to data-led decisions.
That attention to detail earned Murray our 2024 award for Best Attention to Detail. His approach focuses on making small, incremental improvements — each backed by data — to drive meaningful gains over time.
Awarded for flawless record keeping and accuracy of data across his YAGRO Platform, Murray reviews stock levels at the end of each season, ensuring that the farms’ applications and costs are truly accurate.
“If you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it,” Murray says. That belief guides everything he does, ensuring efficiency and continual progress across the farm.
A.G. & K.J. Bain: Fraser Bain – Best Newcomer.
Fraser Bain manages A.G. & K.J. Bain in East Lothian, a fourth-generation family farm where he works alongside his father on a diverse arable rotation.
His forward-thinking approach, especially in adopting digital tools and data-led decision making, earned him the Best in Field Award for Best Newcomer after joining the YAGRO Platform before the 2024 harvest.
Using YAGRO, Fraser keeps live budgets and tracked costs that update as the season progresses — giving him the confidence to act quickly and decisively. Fraser has also refined his decision-making from the crop level to variety level decisions, meaning he can pivot faster and make more informed decisions post-harvest.
“With YAGRO, I’ve got a running budget that updates in real-time,” he says. “So you can make more timely decisions with the information in front of you.”
This proactive mindset allows Fraser to stay agile and adapt to change.
Click to read how digital tools are empowering operations at A.G. & K.J. Bain.
Congratulations to all our farming winners for securing their Best in Field Awards for harvest year 2024. We look forward to continuing to support their operations through detailed analysis, and will be back celebrating the 2025 harvest with a new round of winners next year.
James is our Customer Sales Manager. He has 25 years customer facing experience and is deeply connected to agriculture through owning his own family farm. James takes pride in providing reliable, honest and personable communication with the farming community. With the current volatility being experienced across UK Agriculture, James believes the YAGRO platform is an enormously valuable tool for empowering farmers and supporting the industry. He is motivated to share this value by providing demos on-farm and at events throughout the year, and by writing articles like this one. Contact James on j.middleton@yagro.com.