Soil Farmers of the Year 2018

Annual competition run by the Farm Carbon Cutting Toolkit (FCCT) and Innovation for Agriculture, now in its third year. Aims to find farmers passionate about managing soils to support productivity, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and build soil health. Sponsors: Cotswold Seeds and NRM.

Winner: Simon Cowell — Essex
Location Essex — heavy clay, large acreage below sea level
Farm size 400 acres
No-till since 12 years (from ~2006)
Soil work 20 years of soil improvement focus

Compost-Making Technique

Simon’s refined compost is the centrepiece of his system:

  • Ingredients: horse manure, woodchip, garden waste + gypsum (calcium and sulphur to counteract high Mg levels — see The Albrecht Method — Base Cation Saturation Ratios)
  • Method: materials layered in rows; turned using compost turner (daily initially, then less frequently); temperature monitored with probe — kept below 70°C to protect beneficial microbes
  • Once compost stops heating, fungi colonise the woody material and build associations
  • Applied at 2–4 tonnes/acre on the surface
  • “Compost is the best thing ever. If the biology make their home in the compost, when the compost is applied to the soil, they won’t die off.”

No-Till Trials

  • Testing wheat varieties for no-till performance: drills a 4-variety mix (Conqueror, Gator, Diego, Panorama)
  • Testing wheat without artificial nitrogen — “In a normal situation, the wheat would just go all yellow and be hopeless without Nitrogen, but it’s looked quite decent all year”
  • No P or K applied for 20 years
  • Hybrid variety yielded highest in first year of trials; repeated in year two

Philosophy

“Soil health is so important, and is the overriding factor in all decisions made, much more than financial implications. I am farming for the long term rather than one year at a time.”

“Biological systems are not predictable.”

[Source: dd-issue-03, 2026-04-11]

Runner-Up: Angus Gowthorpe — York
Location York
Farm size 400 acres
Enterprises Arable + pedigree cattle on grassland
No-till since 5 years
Drill John Deere 750A

Key Practices

  • Variety of soil types: “blow away sand to heavy clay”
  • Soil structure improving especially on heavy land since no-till conversion
  • Cover crop evolution over 3 years: started with basic oats/phacelia/buckwheat mix → now diverse mixes including sunflowers, peas, millet, vetches
  • Cover crops grazed by sheep — beneficial biology added through manure deposits
  • Planning move to mob grazing to further improve soil health

[Source: dd-issue-03, 2026-04-11]

Third Place: Will Steel — Little Pix Hall Farm, Kent
Location High Weald, Kent
System Min-till → no-till + cover crops
SOM journey 5% (derelict, 1987) → 2% (plough system, 1990s) → 5% (2018, min-till/no-till + covers)

Key Practices

  • 8-way cover crop mix planted immediately after combine
  • Terminates cover by rolling on frost at -5°C — no glyphosate for cover termination
  • Earthworm counts rising: 12 million/ha (2016) → 15.3 million/ha (2018)
  • Increase attributed to improved OM levels, residue management, and reduced tillage
  • Soil erosion stopped: “when we were ploughing, there was a fair bit of soil erosion. The cover crops protect it over winter and you can walk out on the fields after three inches of rain without wellies”

[Source: dd-issue-03, 2026-04-11]

Other Finalists

Simon Drury, Martin Howard, David Lord.

Related Pages