R&R Farms ( Wrentham ) Ltd

The company was formed in 1989 by two farming cousins Robert and Roger Middleditch, who decided to amalgamate their power and labour inputs, on their respective farms, in order to reduce their individual fixed costs. Since then they have expanded the area farmed by contract farming other farms thus enabling a further reduction in their cost structure.

The total arable area currently being farmed by the company is 5470 acres under a full farming contract or
a Farm Business Tenancy, with further outside contracting done on an operation cost system.
The cropping on the farms is winter wheat, malting barley, vining peas, oilseed rape, winter and spring beans, sugar beet, potatoes and forage maize.

There is a considerable area into agri-environmental schemes including some of the arable options i.e. overwintered stubbles, low input spring barley, conservation headlands, headlands with no fertiliser, and summer fallow to encourage lapwings to use for nesting. There is also several kilometres of wild flower
and grass margins interspersed with pollen and nectar mixes to help bumble bees.

The average field size is relatively small at 17.4 acres, and hedgerows, which are managed for the benefit of wildlife, surround most fields. Consequently the area has a very high biodiversity, and some of the
farms have won conservation awards.

Although the farms are managed in an environmental friendly manner, they also achieve very high yields
for the crops grown on the predominantly Beccles series clay loams. The management philosophy of attention to detail and timeliness, backed up by a very capable, hardworking staff of five using some of
the best available farm machinery enables the company to efficiently manage the farms.

Soil structure is very good due to the use of two rubber-tracked crawlers on wide tracks, which achieve very low ground pressures and do all the top work. Non inversion cultivation’s are done on 50% of the arable land and on most farms all crop residues are incorporated back into the soil thus improving soil
organic matter. The company has a large range of cultivation equipment, mostly based on 6 metre
working widths, and has two combine harvesters, a Lexion 480 and a John Deere CTS.