Finding balance in farming

What’s the point?

Understanding what you’d like your week to look like and making sure you’re spending time doing the things you want to do as well as those you don’t is an important part of finding balance, said Nikki Yoxall.

And finding your purpose. What's the point of doing what you're doing? For Nikki and her husband, it’s “creating abundance and diversity to nourish people.” Having clarity on what they’re trying to achieve helps them make decisions aligned to this goal.

Andrew Brewer takes a similar approach, using the three Ws he learnt on a wealth creation course some years ago. ‘Where are we now’, ‘where do we want to be’ and ‘what do we have to do to get there’ gives him the clear vision he needs and a basis for his business decisions:

“Any investments we're doing, any longer-term investments, we have a plan. We have a return on capital that we look to get, and then we will use those three Ws to make sure it fits that plan. We don't stray from that at all.”

Being inclusive brings balance

Having the “right people around the table having conversations” is critical for making business decisions, however big or small, advised Nikki. This includes “the people with hands in the mud, boots on the ground.” She admits it’s not always easy but helps achieve the right balance in how your run your business.

For Andrew, this has meant learning to trust people can help him follow his belief “there is always a better way.”   

“We've got a great team now and they come with slightly different ideas, but I've learned that I go with it and let them get on with it. As long as they know what the plan is, you have to get over yourself and just focus on the results. If they're delivering the results, we go with it.”

Creating space

As well as trusting his team to do some of what he might have done before, Andrew found space for quality thinking time when he moved to once-a-day milking, using the afternoons “to make proper strategic decisions.”

That time away from the cows has also become a central part of his discussion group’s annual KPIs. Among farm profit and other financial metrics, two of the most important – and variable – are ‘cow-free days’ and ‘hours per cow’.

Nikki and her husband prioritise spending time off farm. At least once a month, they take each other out to lunch: “We are forcing ourselves to take a few hours away in the middle of the day, it's not evening, so we're not exhausted. We've got brain capacity to have some interesting conversations, whether that's strategic thinking or just about other stuff entirely.”

She also emphasised the value of not feeling judged for taking time out: “We have this very weird kind of culture of hard work equalling good farming. But just getting off farm during the day for a couple of hours, I think it’s a really good way to try and create that space.”

Trust your gut

Returning to the subject of KPIs and determining the limiting factor on your farm, Nikki believes in trusting your gut. Your farm’s constraint might be land, it might be labour or it could be time. But it needs sense checking, she said:

“There is something about not getting caught up in your own assumptions and sense checking it but using that gut instinct first. There's plenty of great examples where people thought that they needed more land, but actually what they did do is just reduce cow numbers and then ended up being more profitable as a result.”

Be better before you grow bigger

To move his business forward, Andrew said he “wouldn't be living and breathing” if he wasn't looking for opportunities, but they must fit with his business plan:

“We don't want to be buying work. We want to be buying passive income. Too many times you see people growing, growing, growing, but you need to be better before you get bigger.”

He added: “It all comes back to that, having that vision and do what you're doing to make sure that it aligns with where you want to be. Don't do the things that are slowing you reaching your destination. Just be better than you were yesterday.”

Nikki agreed and reiterated having that sense of purpose: “It's very easy to kind of say, well, I just want to be more profitable. How much more profitable? And what's that profit going to pay for? What is it that you're trying to achieve?”

Peter’s showstoppers

1. Balance can’t be achieved by just one individual – it needs a team, support and good communication, involving the right people in the right decisions
2. Build a business to achieve your goals – making sure it fits your plan before looking to grow
3. Find your purpose by clarifying what you want to achieve and how you can do it – keep asking why and work out how much is enough

Listen to the full episode at https://www.cornishmutual.co.uk/news-advice/farming-focus-podcast/ - also available via Spotify and Apple podcasts.

Nikki Yoxall is Technical Director at Pasture for Life, where she leads on research and knowledge exchange. She is also grazier based in Scotland’s Angus Glens and currently undertaking a PhD on agroecological transitions.

Andrew Brewer runs a pasture-based dairy farm comprising 500 Jersey crosses across 400 hectares with his wife and two daughters. Winner of several awards over recent years, Andrew was named Farm Carbon Toolkit’s 2024 Carbon Farmer of the Year.