The Business Interview - A Rural Business

The business interview talks to Martin Gosling of Gosling and Partners who runs Stone Farm at Wickham St Pauls. A family partnership between Martin and his wife, he describes some of the skills required for managing today’s farms and assets.

What makes your business stand out from your competitors?

Farming is slightly different to other market sectors. Farmers can adopt any number of different techniques to improve the quality of their produce (weather dependant of course!), but ultimately can only really gain a competitive advantage by attention to detail and building a reputation for reliability and quality, which obviously takes time. As we will all know, that same reputation can be damaged with one moment of inattention or even one unfortunate set of circumstances.
We conduct the majority of our work on these principles using the standard agricultural techniques and a focus on mechanisation to reduce labour. George Wright assists us on a day to day basis by providing contract farming and professional advice. His experience is particularly invaluable given he acts as a contract farmer in Europe and therefore is able to draw on a wider range of techniques than are available in England.

How do you see your business developing in the future?

Expansion. Businesses generally have a critical mass, if they are unable to reach this then they do not survive. Economies of scale assist larger farmers enormously and therefore the goal is always to expand your holding to improve financial performance.

Of course, it is all about expanding in ways which are designed to maximise either income or capital gains. We aim to balance our expansion plans to ensure that capital gains are not pursued at the expense of wise cashflow management.

How has Birkett Long helped your business?

The family has used Birkett Long for almost seventy years on a diverse range of matters, they are big enough to cover all relevant commercial and private areas of law, but not so big as to lose their personal touch.

In January 2010 I needed to resolve a dispute and contacted David Wybar, who is head of the Rural Business team (RBT) at Birkett Long. On hearing the details of my dispute he recognised the critical issue was whether the role played by a third party was that of an authorised agent or an independent broker. He brought in Mark Wrinch, a member of the team specialising in commercial litigation, to advise. The process was straightforward as the RBT clearly work together on a number of issues.

The background to the dispute is that we sell our oil seed rape to a particular company, usually dealing with a well known local agent and have never experienced any difficulties in the past. Unfortunately in this case the company purchasing failed to make payment in the proper amount. In the agricultural market, price is usually negotiated either by open market rate at the relevant time in the contract or, alternatively, at a fixed rate. Fixing guarantees income and assists cash flow management but the open market can sometimes permit greater income, depending on the vagaries of the international market, weather conditions, etc.

On this contract the original agreement was for the price to be negotiated at open market rates on collection and a contract was sent to the company concerned by the agent. I then wanted to set a fixed price and the agent agreed to vary the contract and wrote on the original contract to that effect. Imagine my surprise when the crop is harvested and collected and payment arrives at a considerably lower amount per tonne than the fixed price. The company had paid £146 per tonne less than agreed and refused to pay the correct amount, seeking to rely on the original contract as the open market rate was particularly low. I’m sure many of us have had experience of this before, but in this case the total amount owed by the company was £10,500.

Mark understood the background to this matter immediately as his father is a farmer and regularly deals with these issues. This, coupled with his legal skills, enabled him to resolve the dispute quickly and with full recovery of the legal costs incurred in doing so. After initial meetings to clarify the full fact pattern, review of contract documentation and a letter of advice from Mark about the prospects of making a successful claim, I authorised the claim and a detailed seven day pre-action letter was sent to the relevant company. They rebutted the claim with what I can only assume was a bluff, because a final shot (letter!) across the bows giving a three day deadline before a claim would be issued in court, resulted in an offer to settle the matter by full payment of the amount outstanding and full payment of legal costs incurred.

Would you recommend Birkett Long to others and if so why?

Yes, my wife and I would. Cash flow problems were resolved within three months of Birkett Long’s instruction at no long term cost to me. Work in other areas has also always been of a good standard.

Gosling and Partners can be contacted on 01787 269369.