Norfolk farmer Louis Baugh reveals secrets to award success

Louis Baugh is the winner of the 2023 Timothy Colman Prize, awarded annually by the Royal Norfolk Agricultural Association for an outstanding contribution to the county's food and farming.

The 67-year-old said he was "humbled and honoured" by the award, which he credits to his partnership with his wife Fran, who shares the same agricultural training and plays a central role in the business.

Neatishead farmer Louis Baugh, pictured with his wife Fran, is the winner of the 2023 Timothy Colman Prize (Image: Sonya Duncan)

"It is a true partnership in every sense of the word," he said. "We run the business together, we work together."

The couple farm almost 700 acres of land at Neatishead, near Wroxham, balancing livestock and arable production with extensive environmental stewardship.

Mr Baugh is known as a tireless campaigner, championing Norfolk farming within the protected landscapes of the Broads.

But he is also a dedicated supporter of young people, as a former president of the county's Young Farmers' Clubs and as head education steward at the Royal Norfolk Show.

The couple have hosted countless educational visits on the farm, ranging from local infants' school pupils to international masters students from Cambridge University.

But Mr Baugh said in order to inspire the next generation, the industry needed to change its language - focusing on opportunities rather than challenges.

"When I look back to when we qualified, we used to have a student magazine once a year and the principal used to write a foreword," he said.

"In 1979 he said 'your training and education has prepared you for the challenges that agriculture faces'. It was ever thus.

"But if you’re a young 26 or 27 years old, you don’t see the challenges, because you’ve known nothing different. All you see is the opportunities.

"So it is about the language. It is about focusing on the opportunities, not the challenges.

"People who have seen everything tend to see challenges. I can understand why people at the moment are so focused on what they see as the challenge, because we’ve gone through Brexit and the intensity of this massive agrarian reform.

"It has got inherent risks, but it will have opportunities too.

"Conversely, going the other way, talking to the young people coming into farming, it is important to say get involved, get engaged, because you learn first-hand and actually when you become engaged you get seen.

"You don’t know it at the time, but someone will notice you and then, out of the blue, sometime later, you will get a phone call and it will be an opportunity.

"That is what happened to me. It can be daunting but you have to make your mark."

Mr Baugh, the son of a coal miner, grew up in Cudworth in Yorkshire, where he developed his love of agriculture.

He first came to Norfolk in 1977 and moved here permanently in 1981 after meeting his future wife during their education. He was asked to manage her family's farm and they married the following year.

He said Fran's particular livestock expertise gave her the leading management role in the farm's dairy herd before it was sold in 2012 - but since then they work together on every facet of the farm.

She said: "It is a supporting role, and being a sounding board, trying to give an unbiased opinion and a listening ear sometimes when needed.

"Our main conversations about the business probably take place first thing in the morning before we go our separate ways, a lot of decisions are made at 6am."

Mr Baugh said his partnership with his wife was doubly important because, as he does not come from an agricultural background, he did not have farming parents to ask for guidance.

"For me, farm management can be a bit of a lonely position, between your employer and your staff, and if it is your own farm, it is between the bank manager and your staff.

"There are always those 'sandwiching' external pressures. So our relationship and how we did things filled that void. You don’t have a mentor as such, we had to learn as we went along."

The farm continues to evolve - and even that has created a new opportunity for the next generation.

Award-winning Norfolk farmer Louis Baugh, pictured with his Aberdeen Angus cattle at Neatishead (Image: Sonya Duncan)

The farm's 100-strong Aberdeen Angus beef herd is due to be sold in September, part of a plan to "get away from the tie of the calving season".

Instead, livestock will stay on the farm managed by a young farming couple, Daniel and Becci Cook, from Hemblington, giving them an opportunity to grow their business while keeping cattle needed to graze the farm's environmentally-sensitive marshes. 

The Baughs have no children, but "an army of godsons and daughters" have formed an important part of their livestock handling team at shows.

"For retirement there are two options," said Mr Baugh. "There is the 'big bang' approach where we sell everything and go and live somewhere and I get bored and play golf, heaven forbid.

"Or we can make the business work for us a bit more, whereby we can be involved as little or as much as we like. One of my godsons may want to assist us with that."

Cattle accident warning: 'It could happen to anyone'

Mr Baugh was injured in a frightening and painful encounter with one of his cows earlier this year - which he hopes will serve as a warning to other livestock farmers.

"I made a mistake and I became a health and safety statistic," he said. 

"A freshly-calved cow was being too vigorous with the calf, and if she had been in the middle of the yard I would have had a plan.

"But she was near the door, so I stepped through the door just to push her out of the way and then I stumbled, or she got me on the ground, and then she head-rolled and stamped on me, broke my ribs and my sternum and split my head open, giving me a bad concussion."

Aberdeen Angus beef cattle at Louis Baugh's farm in Neatishead (Image: Sonya Duncan)

Fortunately there were no serious internal injuries, and he was discharged from the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital the following day.

"I still haven’t got full feeling on the back of my head," said Mr Baugh. "I lose the odd word in a sentence, but some people thought I had too much to say anyway, so maybe losing the odd word is quite positive.

"But we are just about back to normal."

He said the incident, in March, proved that injuries from livestock are always a potential danger - particularly for older farmers.

"A lot of people have said, knowing how long we have been involved in livestock: 'It is amazing, you seem so able, and we’re shocked that you could get injured'. But it is age. You are experienced, but you are just not fast enough," said Mr Baugh, 67.

"The other thing it did quantify for us, although we’d always known it, is the value of friendship in farming. The support for Fran was unbelievable."

Mr Baugh's wife Fran "rescued him" from the scene, took him to hospital, and then had to complete the rest of the calving season without him, with help from farming friends.

"Several friends and people we know in farming have said it has given them a bit of a wake-up call, because if it could happen to us it could happen to anyone," she said.