Norfolk landowner and politician, the Earl Ferrers, who has died aged 83, held ministerial office under five Conservative prime ministers.

When the hereditary peers were removed from the House of Lords, Robin Ferrers topped the vote from fellow Tory peers in 1999.

In Norfolk, he became High Steward of Norwich Cathedral in September 1997, serving for almost 30 years until standing down in 2007. He led the efforts with steely determination to raise a total of �10m to safeguard the cathedral into the 21st century.

He held a number of senior posts including joint deputy leader of the opposition from 1976 to 1979. He was promoted minister of state for agriculture by Margaret Thatcher and was twice leader of the Lords. He was Home Office minister between 1988 and 1994, then Trade and industry and environment.

Earl Ferrers, born Robert Washington Shirley on June 8, 1929, was educated at Winchester, where he played the trumpet in the school orchestra, and read agriculture at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He had done his National Service in the Coldstream Guards – he was 6ft 6ins tall – serving in Malaya in the war against the terrorists.

While an undergraduate in 1951, he married 21-year-old Annabel Carr, daughter of Brig and Mrs Carr, of Ditchingham Hall. When they moved to Norfolk to start farming, he had 150 acres and 23 cows and did all the weekend work because he could not afford to pay the cowman overtime. He was farming 450 acres by the mid 1960s and by 2000, the estate covered about 2,200 acres. It even had robots to milk to the 120-cow herd, which has since been dispersed.

Ditchingham Hall, which was heated by a straw boiler, was home to the Chartley herd of White Park cattle. The family's connection with the breed dated from 1248, despite a brief gap between 1905 and June 1970 until the Chartley pedigree lines came home.

In 1954, he succeeded his father, the 12th Earl Ferrers, who had died the night before the sale of the family's ancestral home, Staunton Harold in Leicestershire, which had been the family's home or more than 300 years.

He was sworn of the privy council in 1982 and was also a deputy lieutenant of Norfolk.

Lord Ferrers was also chairman of the TSB eastern England and also a main board member and a director of Norwich Union for a total of nine years until 1988.

Henry Cator, who is High Sheriff of Norfolk, paid tribute last night: 'It is a great loss and he was a very major tree in the forest. Agriculture owes a great deal to him and I think that often gets forgotten.

'He was a very practical man and will be very gravely missed. He was a really great man for Norfolk in every respect. He did an enormous amount for the cathedral as well and was a great source of encouragement to me,' said Mr Cator. 'When things looked bleak, he would say: 'You can't give up now. We need a few more politicians like him who say what they think,' he added.

He is succeeded by his son, Viscount Tamworth.

Funeral arrangements to be announced.