This year the Cereals Event is returning to a popular Lincolnshire location after a 17-year hiatus – and early bird tickets are now on sale.

Andrew Ward MBE will welcome visitors to Heath Farm on 11-12 June, with the 52-ha site showcasing the latest developments in arable agronomy, machinery, technology, and business advice; from over 400 exhibitors, 200+ live demonstrations, two days of seminar programmes, and several hundred individual crop plots on display.

Recognising that events must properly serve the people and businesses in the sector Mr Ward is looking forward to being involved in shaping one of the UK’s largest arable shows.

“There have been huge changes in farming, some of the biggest since the Second World War,” says Mr Ward. “There’s tremendous pressure on producing food and being able to do it profitably. And while some of this can only be resolved at Government and policy level, which farmers have been campaigning for, there are also opportunities at farm level.

“No event is a silver bullet, but I would say that Cereals offers a lot to a range of arable and diversified businesses and their ambitions. Visitors can find the knowledge, technology and, importantly, the conversations that can help safeguard their future.”

New features for 2025

This year’s Cereals Event will not disappoint when it comes to new elements, nor the return and expansion of its most popular and impactful features – all included in the ticket price.

New to 2025, and leading the regenerative agriculture conversation, the BASE-UK Regen Conference area – themed ‘Robust farming in a changing climate’ – will feed farmers’ growing appetite for more knowledge, demonstration, and experience. A series of seminars and open-floor Q&A sessions will be shaped by the expertise and experiences of some of the leading regen farming and advisory voices – exploring how regen ag can fit and affect farm businesses of today and tomorrow.

Building on resilience and the future of the arable sector, the new Young Farmers Spotlight will welcome the next generation to a multi-session day. In partnership with the National Federation of Young Farmers, and the regional Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Clubs, the Michelmores-sponsored programme will host a breakfast, before the day opens to talks focused on key innovations that will shape the future and influence careers and progression. The sessions will be rounded off with a friendly networking event – the perfect opportunity to meet new friends and contacts.

Fresh talent will also be found in the agronomy zone where budding agronomists will be put through their paces in the new Ceres Rural Crop Challenge. Teams of six students from leading agricultural universities will go head-to-head in growing and managing a winter wheat crop. They will be judged by an expert panel form Ceres Rural and the AICC, and the winner will be announced with prizes awarded on 11 June – including tickets to Cereals at Diddly Squat in 2026.

The long-standing and popular Syngenta Sprays and Sprayers Arena will benefit from a new format for 2025. Its refresh will provide even more opportunity to demonstrators and visitors alike to dig into the detail of cutting-edge spraying machinery and technologies.

Returning favourites

Never an area that goes unvisited, the Cereals’ agronomy zone – with over 600 individual crop plots from 25 leading exhibitors – will display a diverse range of crops, agronomy simulations, agri-environment options, and demonstrations of crop-focused innovation.

Expect to see popular group one to four winter wheats and two and six-row hybrid barleys as part of the Ceres Rural winter wheat and barley feature. Curated by Ceres Rural and Cereals arable project manager Jonathan Backhouse, it never fails to display interesting varieties from the latest AHDB Recommended List (RL). And this opportunity extends to all the zone exhibitors’ individual crop plots, where leading RL varieties and exciting candidates can be seen side-by-side, with experts on-hand to guide and advise.

From top to bottom, the 20m-long NIAB Soil Hole will also return, giving a unique insight into cultivation effects and crop growth below ground. Also focusing on matters underground will be the NAAC Drainage Hub as part of Cereals’ working demonstration offering, combining technical expertise with a practical approach to land management.

Back above ground and the Drill Demos will undoubtedly draw crowds. Showcasing the latest in cultivation and drilling machinery and technologies, the demos will be an impressive display of precision equipment and innovations in land preparation and crop establishment. But that is not all when it comes to the offering; visitors will be able to check out more working demonstrations by the likes of Agriweld, Merlo, and TWB Engineering. Not forgetting the impressive robotic and automation demonstrations by AgXeed and Autonomous Agri Solutions, with drone technology also in action.

Adding to the exchange of news, knowledge, and experience, the KWS Seed to Shelf Stage agenda will provide two days of dynamic panels and Q&A sessions. From post-budget agriculture and harnessing new technologies to diversification, financial strategies, and much more, it will hit on the key topics that are shaping the future of farming.

Early visitor numbers are up 25% proving that Cereals exhibitors and features provide a wealth of practical and technical expertise, says event director, Alli McEntyre. “Every year we learn more about what Cereals visitors want. This year’s line-up reflects all that feedback – we are absolutely committed to making the event even better every year.”

  • To register for tickets and find out more about the event, visit www.cerealsevent.co.uk
  • Young Farmers Club members will be offered free entry with a discount code that can be acquired through their respective clubs.

Panel: Host farm profile – Andrew Ward

Roy Ward Farms has been an arable enterprise in Lincolnshire since Andrew Ward’s father took on the tenancy of Heath Farm in 1958 – and this year’s host farm for the Cereals Event.

Evolving over the years – and garnering an audience of 19.7k subscribers on Andrew Ward’s YouTube channel – the farm is a returning Cereals host farm with stints completed in 2004 and 2008. Today it is a 445ha arable operation, incorporating cereals, cover crops, and agri-environment principles.

Andrew’s approach to taking on a challenge head on and not being afraid to experiment – being the first farmer to grow a baked bean crop from British seed – is what makes him a solid Cereals host farmer. “No farm can farm perfectly, we all experience some real highs and some real lows – and I don’t mind sharing both,” he adds.

With its composition of heavy, medium, and light soils – comprising clay, silt, and sand – at its peak it was 648ha with a wheat-heavy rotation. However, in 2013, Andrew had to implement drastic but strategic action to recover yields and profits from black grass invasion.

Hitting the problem hard, in the first three to four years he sprayed off some 60.7ha of growing acreage and grew little wheat. He implemented a traffic light system to his cropping to regain control and manage the problem:

  • Heavy land – heavy burden – treated as red ground, no wheat grown, only competitive spring barley,
  • Medium land – medium to moderate burden – treated as amber ground with a four-year rotation; sugar beet (harvested September/ October), spring barley (if burden high) or winter wheat (if burden manageable), oats, then winter wheat,
  • Light land – minimal or easily manageable burden – treated as green land with a four-year rotation; sugar beet (harvested between December/ January), spring barley, oats, and then winter wheat,
  • Hand-rogued extensively and used Roundup where necessary,
  • Delayed drilling (around 25 October) used as a black grass control measure across the whole farm.

Steadily improving over the years, the farm now has control over the invasive weed. The rotation once again includes continuous wheat, on heavy land, with Andrew reporting that his best yields last year came from the crop.

 “We follow the same cropping on the medium land as we did under the traffic light system, minus the spring barley, and taking advantage of the yield benefit to the wheat following the sugar beet,” says Andrew. “In some fields the rotation will have three wheat crops following the sugar beet. On light land we have removed the oats and grow two barley crops.

“We still hand-rogue and we will target treat with herbicide. However, we are now using 34% less herbicide and we target all our inputs.”

His farm also demonstrates a balance between nature, soils, and production; not ploughing since 2003 and instead using a combination of Simba machinery and modifications to maximise soil health and achieve optimal establishment across a range of crops, soils, and conditions.

Since 2005 he has maintained 6m flower margins in every field to support pollinators and beneficial insects, grows winter bird feed plots throughout the farm, has placed songbird and gamebird feeders, and built a large pond area. More recently, he has introduced the Sustainable Farming Incentive’s legume mix option into his sugar beet rotation, and he is also currently running a nitrogen efficiency trial as an Innovative Farmers demo farm.

“I’m looking forward to hosting Cereals once again,” he says. “We’ll all express our disgust at current affairs and share the day-to-day gripes, but there will also be plenty of talk that invigorates and excites us – it’s amazing how coming together can really be the change we need.”