Giving time to help others is a great leveller

As the weeks draw on winter will hopefully loosen its grip and we can look forward to the signs of spring making an appearance.

Since my last column, autumn almost returned at the beginning of December with a dry settled spell which allowed us to catch up on crop spraying in both the wheat and the oilseed rape and we were also fortunate enough also to drill some more winter wheat.

We ploughed and drilled a field following maize, with a contractor drafted in with a combination to follow the plough. The plough travelled the ground fine, turning over dry soil with the wheat since germinating and establishing. The remaining fields of maize we ploughed while we had the opportunity and left them to overwinter with the intention of establishing a spring crop on them.

Crop spraying went well with the last of the pre-emergence sprays applied to the wheat, and volunteer wheat and charlock that was getting quite competitive sprayed to take it out of oilseed rape. Some hard frosts would not go amiss to aid the chemical in the process.

Our full time employee Ben Deane has been busy out doing contract work with the digger. He has been sorting hardcore stone through with a riddle bucket and cleaning out and re-instating a ditch at Much Wenlock.

Having good staff around you is something I consider to be the most important part of growing a successful business. Machinery is expensive and techniques are so complex now, it requires a very skilled person to keep up with the technology and use it to its full advantage.

Where are these techniques learnt by the aspiring young farmers? Agricultural Colleges obviously offer the theory and some practical but there is no substitute for it being taught by someone involved and using it every day on farm.

The role of a mentor sadly is diminishing. The pressures of modern farming and the scarcity of help on farms has drastically reduced the number of farmers with the time or inclination to take on such roles.

I was mentored in my early years when I went to work for Phil Sankey, a local farmer, and I was taken under the wing of a dear man named Doug Davies. My father was keen that "before you try to become an employer you must learn to become employed" and what I learned in those years has held me in good stead.

Although some of the lessons learnt were negative, they too were valuable, and upon observing such a lot I also learnt how working men thought. I had such a lot of respect and admiration for Doug. When someone you like and respect is prepared to listen to your questions and answer them based on their experience; when they take an interest in what you do and encourage you to develop your skills further; when, with no thought of personal gain, they quietly advise what they would do faced with the situation in which you find yourself, there is no better training for building a business.

Few farms, mine included, can afford to offer free training to young farm workers by either the farm foreman or the farmer himself, as has happened more readily in the past, but I hope in the future I will be able to offer something back as Doug helped me those years ago. www.cookefarms.net

By Tim Cooke