Sustainable and profitable Hovesen shows the way

Yields at Salle Farm are consistently and substantially above the national average, demonstrating how precision farming balanced with respect for the environment can also be profitable.

Salle Farm is home of the rotation and its estate manager, award winning arable farmer Poul Hovesen, follows a modern seven course rotation that is key to his successful strategy.

Poul is also a member of the Agri-TechE Stakeholder Group and will be part of a panel discussing the challenges of translating science into farming practice during Agri-TechE Week 2014. He was interviewed about this by Chris Hill, the recently appointed agricultural, food and farming editor at the Eastern Daily Press.

Poul says that farming is still vulnerable to climate change as freak weather becomes more common, and argues that science has a role in improving resilience within the industry: “Agri-TechE can help us to understand what went wrong and maybe even prevent it from going wrong again. We need the scientists to help us understand what we can do to improve our methods. For example, does it help to have cover crops? Does it help when we plough or should we have zero-till?

“There is a  need for a more joined up approach to research and development with teams working on soils and agro-chemicals.  As farmers we need to have an understanding and respect for what research can do for us and to be knowledgeable enough to challenge our advisors and agronomists. If we do not, it is not precision farming.”

Crop research is crucial for future sustainable food production, says Poul, but not to produce lots of varieties of wheat with little difference between them. The biggest benefit will come from helping farmers to identify which varieties would grow best on their land and under their field conditions.

“Hopefully agri-tech will bring together the people that have a passion for farming with scientists that will help them to understand it better – if so this will be a good outcome.”

To read the full interview please visit the EDP24 news page.

Poul will be speaking at the Agri-TechE Thought-Leadership Seminar as part of Agri-TechE Week 2014. To find out more please click here.