Farmer focus contributor appearing in 3 issues from Issue 20 (January 2023) onwards.
Appearances
Issues 20, 23, 28
[Sources: dd-issue-20, dd-issue-23, dd-issue-28]
Issue 20 — A Career Pause and What Next (January 2023)
Ben’s debut Farmer Focus — written during a deliberate career break after seven years managing a 1,300 ha veg and cereal operation in West Suffolk. The piece functions as a partial CV, a manifesto for environmentally sensitive farm management, and an open request for conversations with potential employers.
Background
Ben lives in West Suffolk with wife Emma and their young daughter Maeve. Not from a farming family — his father and grandfather worked for the local farmer in whose tied farm cottage he grew up. Teenage summers spent working for a neighbouring farming family (memorable “best harvest teas ever”). Agricultural degree from Writtle College. Late-20s work on remote mid-Wales sheep farms, Yorkshire silage seasons and big East Anglian arable. Ran a small firewood business and rare-breed pigs on the side, and secured a 6-year FBT on 32 ha of his own arable land — “an experience not many farm managers can say they have had”.
The 1,300 ha veg and cereal transition
Seven years as assistant manager, then manager, on a complex operation with high-value crops, irrigation, several full-time staff, drought-prone light sandy soils and multiple landowners. Working with a supportive senior team (and bringing Ian Robertson and Ben Taylor-Davies onto the farm), Ben drove significant soil-improvement work alongside the vegetable rotation:
- From 10 ha of overwinter cover crops in year one to ~400 ha by his last season
- Cover crops grazed by overwintering sheep for the first time
- Companion crops alongside OSR, catch crops between early-lifted veg and cereals
- 4 ha regenerative potato trial with a supportive processor
- A one-pass drilling system with a new low-disturbance subsoiler toolbar + existing Horsch Pronto — eliminated two cultivation passes and saved significant establishment cost
- “Getting the whole team around a soil pit on the farm, with Ian stood in the bottom of it, was one of the best spent days we all had as a collective”
The open-door stance
Ben is explicit that he wants to stay in farm management and work with a landowner of similar mindset — and namechecks Adam Driver and John Pawsey as friends he’s worked for, “who epitomise how large farms can work closer with the environment”. Short-term aim: meet and chat with as many people around the UK as possible — farmers, recruiters, companies. Email published at the end of the column: [email protected].
“A change is as good as a rest!”
[Source: dd-issue-20, 2026-04-13]