East Anglian farmers reflect on a 'solid' 2024 harvest

Across the region, arable growers have reported respectable yields after ideal, dry harvest conditions enabled a speedy return for the combines.

While it won’t be a record season - the signs are it will be below average yield across the UK - most farmers are thankful that the crop has held up better than expected after a nightmare start to their growing year, when six months of rain delayed plantings and forced many to switch to spring crops rather than winter ones.

James Beamish, director of the Holkham Farming Company (Image: Newsquest)

James Beamish is director of the Holkham Farming Company in north Norfolk, which completed harvesting its 1,400 hectares of combinable crops on Tuesday evening.

"I would say it has been a solid average harvest - there has not been any records broken, but there has not been any disasters," he said.

"Winter barleys were probably half a tonne down, but exceptional quality, and spring barleys were half a tonne up, with exceptional quality. And wheat for us was just a fraction under budget, but not far.

"If I you had offered me these results in May or June, I would probably have bitten your hand off if you had said we were going to have this solid average.

"It started raining in mid October last year and it didn't stop for months. It left sugar beet in very trying conditions, but being able to turn those harvested sugar beet fields into good quality spring malting barley was a real positive.

"It is absolutely beautiful looking barley and our nitrogen specs are almost bang on where they want to be, but at the lower end of that range."

The 2024 harvest on the Holkham Estate in north Norfolk (Image: Louis Beamish)

Further south, Matthew Hawthorne heads up farming operations on the fast-draining soils of the Euston Estate near Thetford.

He said it has been a slightly late harvest - but a very successful one overall.

“It went very well," he said. "We finished on August 19 and yields are really good. Quality is inconsistent but generally there for milling wheat - but there were a few surprises along the way."

He said the inconsistencies were around protein - which lurched from high to low for no obvious reason from one field to another. “Everybody seems to be suffering from it - I think in general we have got more consistent proteins than a lot have,” he said.

These are vital for his milling wheats - and where he has the right quality then good prices follow.

"Some of it is sold next year so we don’t know the price of that. We are achieving early £200 per tonne on milling wheats so we are happy with that,” he said.

The wet conditions earlier in the season have led to higher incidence of ergot, a type of toxic fungi which poses a risk to livestock. Where it is present in cereals it has to be removed, adding to farmers’ costs.

Luckily, much of the Euston Estate is on light, sandy Breckland soil, and out of 3,000 tonnes of wheat harvested this year, just 87 tonnes had to be treated for ergots, said Mr Hawthorne.

“Very rarely do we suffer from it - I would say it’s less than normal,” he said.

Aylsham-based grain trader Andrew Dewing, of Dewing Grain (Image: Dewing Grain)

Andrew Dewing of Aylsham-based grain trader Dewing Grain, said spring-sown malting barley was the big success story within a mixed harvest.

"It has been a very difficult year leading up to harvest, we have been hoping for great things, but fearing disaster in the autumn when it was really wet and the wheat crop was diminishing in acres daily, and there was a big spring barley crop.

"The net result is the winter barley largely was a disappointing yield.

"But spring barley, on the other hand - you've got to say that every farmer in every county of the south of England has produced perfect malting barley, and it has yielded very, very well. It is low nitrogen, really bold, it is perfect.

"You can't have done a better job as a farmer. But the consequence of that is there is too much of it at the moment, and the price has been absolutely pummelled. 

"It is tough to accept, some of the values that are being put out there, so there is a bit of a grim mood at the moment.

The 2024 harvest on the Holkham Estate in north Norfolk (Image: Louis Beamish)

"With wheat it has been an average yield, and the quality is largely OK.

"The actual harvesting period was kind, we had a good dry harvest, which is a godsend and saves enormous amounts of money on drying charges. So logistically it was a joy, but people are unhappy price-wise."

Mr Dewing said while there has been some ergot to deal with, Norfolk had fared better than many other areas.

"To a very large degree here in Norfolk we are blessed with very good rotation and exceptional land and we have not got a big prevalence of ergot. There is the odd piece and we are working hard to identify that, but relative to some heavy land in other regions where there is a lot of ergot about, our crop is predominantly clean of it."