We catch up with Steve from Wilkinson Brothers Ltd

Steve Wilkinson is a proud family farmer, that runs a well respected and long established agricultural business in Lincolnshire. We recently spoke to Steve to find out about how the farm started and how changing technology is impacting his business.

How long have you been established for?
The business was started by my father and his two brothers in 1958 and is now in its third generation, with my sons helping me to run the business today.

What do you specialise in?
Poultry, Arable and Beef production.

What’s the history of your business?
The business started as a modest 90 acre farm with a small dairy herd and a few chickens. This had to quickly intensify to support three families, so the dairy herd and poultry business expanded throughout the 1960’s and 70s.

In 1979, after the death of my uncle, the business was split into two, with the remaining uncle taking on the poultry side whilst my father took ownership of the dairy business with my brother and me as partners. We diversified into poultry and arable production after the dairy side ceased production in the mid 1980’s. We adapted the barns that were previously used to house cows into duck rearing units. In 2008, because of market pressures in the duck industry, we  redeveloped the site from duck to chicken production. Today we produce 3 million broiler chickens and 35k broiler breeders each year.

In the past 10 years we have installed four Biomass boilers to generate heat for the poultry sites. In addition to being more environmentally friendly, the move away from using gas to straw is also much better for the health of the chickens. In 2017 we re-introduced cattle onto the farm, and we now have 750 Aberdeen
Angus beef cows on a two year cycle.

Tell us about your background and how you got involved personally?
I grew up on the farm – my first job was feeding the cows at aged 3! I started working for the family business full time when I left school at 15.

How many employees do you have?
17

Who are your customers?
Our broiler chickens are reared for Moy Park who sell on to all the major UK supermarkets. Our beef is sold indirectly to supermarkets including M&S.

What is your working ethos?
Keep your arms around your business. Its important to be close to what’s going on at all times.

How has the last year impacted your business?
The Covid pandemic has made the operational side more difficult, but thankfully the impact on our business has been relatively low.

What are your biggest challenges at the moment?
Rising input costs.

What are your plans for the business in the future?
We plan to redevelop some of the older poultry sites to larger more modern sites. As our efficiency improves on the arable side, we hope to have more
capacity and opportunity to take on more land for crop growing.

If you could do it all again, what would you do differently?
Borrow more money to buy more land in 2015, when rates were low.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?
The Biomass boiler alarm!

How has changing technology impacted your business?
On the Arable side, in a move to improve overall efficiency and soil health, we establish all crops using zero till techniques and GPS controlled variable rate  inputs. The whole farm has been comprehensively soil scanned and from this data we create bespoke variable rate input maps for each field, which means we are using fertiliser and seed more efficient.

Tell us about working with Witham?
We have always used Witham. As far back as I can remember, Witham has been the go-to company for oil. They’re easy to deal with and you can rely on them to recommend the right product at a good price, for a fleet of different farm machinery. It’s easy with Witham!

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