A farmer has applied to build a £2.1m chicken farm saying the business can no longer afford to stick solely to arable farming.
W Dring and Sons Ltd wants to build a ‘free-range egg laying unit’ housing 32,000 hens off Delgate Bank and east of Fen Gate between Weston Hills and Moulton Chapel.
The business is based at Woad Farm off Broadgate in Weston but says it can’t build the new facility closer due to National Grid’s plans for overhead power lines between Grimsby and Walpole. The land around Woad Farm is set to be affected by new infrastructure being added.
Documents submitted with the application cite the withdrawal of the Basic Pay Scheme, a UK initiative to replace subsidies previously received from the EU, labour shortages since Brexit and rising costs as reasons for the need to diversify.
“The need for diversification within the wider farming industry is now more essential than ever,” a report on behalf of applicant Chris Dring states. “Replacement schemes, while well-intentioned, offer reduced and less predictable financial support, creating greater income volatility.
“At the same time, operating costs have risen sharply: fertiliser prices for ammonium nitrate and urea surged by more than 250 per cent between 2020 and 2022, diesel and compound feed costs have increased in parallel, and these rises have not been matched by corresponding increases in farmgate prices.
“Labour shortages have also reached critical levels since the UK’s departure from the European Union, leaving many farms struggling to recruit both seasonal and permanent workers.
“This has been particularly damaging for labour-intensive sectors such as horticulture and dairy.”
“The average UK farmer is now aged over 59 – and significant challenges around succession planning and the ‘family farm tax’, the sustainability of traditional agricultural models is under significant threat.
“Diversification is no longer a choice but a necessity for farm businesses seeking to secure financial resilience and long-term viability.”
The documents add that the farm is ‘not generally considered a large-scale unit’ and that Environmental Permitting Regulations apply only to enterprises with 40,000 birds or more.
They also claim that odour issues with chicken sites come from manure being ‘retained and clean until the end of the flock cycle’ but that it the would be used as fertiliser on the arable fields.
