Now that I have been working on my family farm for three years, I figure I’m at the stage where I should be thinking about the future; about my place on the farm, how I can help take it forward and weather whatever storms arise in post-Brexit Britain. 

Hence last week I attended a management course. This course, I thought, was cutting-edge and really helped frame in my mind the prevailing zeitgeist and addressed what farmers should do in the current climate. 

Here, in a nutshell, is what they said: 1) Look at your accounts. 2) Happy with the net profit? Good. Enjoy that for a moment and then move on to 3). 3) Remove from your accounts the basic payment (this is the EU funding farmers receive) 4) Still happy with the net profit? If yes, crack open a bottle of champagne. If not (and most farmers, I guess, will fall into this category), change your farm. 

And how are farms supposed to change post-Brexit? They will need, according to the course, to maximise the potential on the farm through diversification. Now this might mean expanding the range of crops we all grow, or finding ways to increase the value of our existing product. Or it might mean doing something completely non-farmy. Farms are much more than farms. The space can be used for all sorts of things, whether it be for office space, for carwashes, motocross, music festivals et cetera. You get the idea. 

This week I also met my local MP for North Dorset, Simon Hoare. He was positive about the future of farming but he did suggest that it was unlikely that farmers would continue to receive EU funding just for the amount of land we farm. The message I took home from this backed up what I learned on my course. Change, adapt, diversify. 

Now, as a farmer, I am naturally conservative (small-c). So it’s hard for me to do be a revolutionary. But this was my new year’s resolution: to think outside the box about farming, to work on my business as much as working in it.