With more than half a century of farming experience and 20,000 hectares of land currently under its expert management, Sentry is one of the foremost names in agriculture in the South East.

Its flexible approach to farm management, which includes contract farming as well as a range of different management options, continues to win the company new business on farms in Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, East Anglia and across the whole of the country south of the M4.

“Farmers and landowners need varying amounts of support, and we are committed to offering the help they need, whether that’s full management, a contract farming agreement or anything in between,” explained Alec Smith, director of business solutions for the company.

Sentry also offers consultancy to farmers and landowners who are not in a more formal management agreement, a service that is growing in tandem with the company’s reputation for sound, bottom-line focused, business advice.

And the bottom line is the most important thing, as Andrew Martin, Sentry’s senior rural business advisor stressed. “We know farmers need to maximise their return and that’s our sole focus. We offer potential new clients a free discussion on the options available to them. Once they engage with us and we produce a plan for their farm, we guarantee that as long as they follow our guidance they will make more additional money than they pay in fees.”

It’s a bold promise, but one that’s backed by 53 years of experience gained since US -based Sentry Insurance bought some land and set up a company to manage it. That farm management company became a public limited company that was then the subject of a management buyout in 1999.

All managers now have a share in the success of the business, which Alec said allowed profitable ideas to spread quickly throughout the company.

Now employee-owned and boasting a flat management structure, Sentry no longer owns any land of its own but uses its skills to gain the best returns from 13,000 hectares of contract farmed land and a further 7,000 hectares of directly managed land which it farms on behalf of the owners.

Sentry is headed up by managing director Paul Christian, business solutions director Alec Smith and finance director Rebecca Arkley, while the employees own 50% of the company’s share capital, giving them a real say in the way it operates.

The way in which farms are managed is also almost infinitely variable. While the ‘standard’ contract farming format is for Sentry to provide a manager, workforce and machinery, leaving the farm owner to supply the land and the inputs, there is considerable flexibility built into the service.

The company, which looks after sites ranging from a couple of fields to landed estates, also has some farm business tenancies. With no two deals exactly the same, Sentry spends a great deal of time talking to landowners about exactly what they want to achieve, how much involvement they need and what level of risk they are looking for in order to come up with a bespoke deal that works for them.

“Our managers’ skills also go beyond the farmyard to wider estate management,” said Alec. “It means that we can also support landowners in areas such as woodland management, commercial activities and dealing with rental and commercial properties. It allows us to offer a fully integrated package.”

The good news for farmers and landowners in the South East looking for Sentry’s expert consultancy is that the company is about to open a new base that will be home to a team offering support across Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and the rest of the South East.

Headed up by Andrew and supported by assistant rural business advisor Lauren Morris, the team will be offering dedicated support to its farm managers in the area as well as consultancy services to other farmers and landowners who are not currently part of the Sentry family.

The office, set to open in the next month or so at The Old Granary, Hanover Mill, Mersham, near Ashford, will provide more local support for Sentry managers like Tom Ashby, who runs R Sternberg Farms, based at Frenchay Farm, just outside Tenterden in Kent.

“Instead of contacting the Sentry head office at Claydon in Suffolk I will have support on my doorstep if I need it,” said Tom, who hosted this South East Farmer interview.

At Frenchay Farm, Tom looks after 1,050 hectares of arable land within a much larger estate that includes woodland and grass. He grows winter wheat and barley, linseed, beans, oilseed rape and flax, expanding the rotation to improve grassweed control.

“It’s a wet farm, so land drains and drainage are important,” said Tom, who has been focusing on clearing and reinstating drainage ditches using the estate’s 13-tonne digger and a recently bought mole plough.

Tom already has three sustainable farming incentive (SFI) agreements in place and was looking to add a fourth, although that was before DEFRA’s shock withdrawal of the scheme was announced in early March.

His options include companion planting, unharvested cereal headlands, grass margins, winter bird food mix and cover cropping. “I have no bare land over the winter and bring in sheep to graze the land before drilling,” he added.

With a Countryside Stewardship scheme also in place at Frenchay Farm, Tom said the business was bringing in “close to the level of support we used to receive under BPS”.

Alec pointed out that recent calculations showed that, across all its farms, Sentry’s use of SFI options had brought in an average additional income of £205 per hectare “without taking much land out of production”. He said the figure was close to the average BPS payment and showed what focusing on the right SFI options could achieve, given the right advice.

That level of advice will be at the heart of the support offered by the new Ashford-based consultancy team, available to all, although SFI guidance to anyone not already signed up may now need to await the revised scheme.

“There is a lot that farmers are already doing that they could be getting paid for under SFI,” said Andrew. “As an example, if you routinely don’t apply insecticide to spring barley, you can sign up to that option and get paid £45 per hectare. Lots of farmers are already benefiting from variable rate fertiliser applications simply because it saves on input costs; they could be paid an additional £27 per hectare for something they are already doing.

“These are valuable options to look out for in any new SFI offering. The soon to be re-released capital grant scheme we hope will also bring more opportunities to farmers.”

One area where farmers already on the SFI scheme can look to Andrew and Lauren for advice is on planning, monitoring and submitting the right evidence to ensure they are paid at the end of the process. “The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) will require more than just a signature on a form but will be looking for invoices, photographs and the like,” said Andrew. “We are already seeing a swift increase in inspections, so correct evidence is vital.”

Sentry has a dedicated portal that will help farmers upload the right evidence to the agency and has first-hand experience of the process. “We have been through RPA inspections on some of our farms and passed with flying colours,” said Alec.

The consultancy side of the business now establishing a permanent presence in the South East has grown steadily from just three people in 2020 to 14 now, with Andrew and Lauren two of the more recent recruits. Sentry also partners with Agrovista to obtain specific agronomy advice, although Tom, who is BASIS-qualified, tends to do his own crop walking.

Up until 2021, Andrew was farming his own 1,000 acres on Romney Marsh and operating a contracting business that looked after a further 3,500 acres of Kent farmland. He then began working as a consultant and has been with Sentry since the new year.

“I have a practical farming background and ambition to help people find their way through the complexity of government support schemes,” he said.

“With schemes like Countryside Stewardship, together with the old and the upcoming SFI, where options can be layered, farmers need to be diligent about meeting the requirements. It’s easy to get it wrong and fall outside the parameters. At the same time, land values are higher here in the South East and farmers are having to work hard to keep their businesses profitable.

“We can offer a full farm business review that will help farmers get their business structure right and help them make the right choices – and get the paperwork right – when it comes to government support schemes.”

Assisting Andrew in this exciting new venture, Lauren also comes from a farming background, although she took a few years away from agriculture to complete a biology degree.

Her family runs a farm contracting business at Broad Oak Brede in East Sussex and she gained valuable experience working on a dairy farm. “I am keen to make sure farmers collate the right evidence in support of government schemes and then submit it on time,” she commented.

With a variety of reasons prompting farmers and landowners to invite in expert help from Sentry to run, or assist with running, their businesses, Alec pointed out that what he called “the Clarkson effect” had led to an increase in people who had never farmed before buying land and then looking for help in using it productively when they realised the skills required.

“In other cases, we help people who want to retire or who are moving on to do something different or who just want to make the most of our expertise and the economies of scale that we can bring to bear, given the scale of our operation,” he went on.

Andrew pointed out the huge opportunities offered by the Garden of England and across the South East in general. “There is massively varied agriculture in this part of the world,” he said.

“We have challenging land here, but we also have great wheat-growing land along with ideal conditions for fruit, hops, vines and livestock. It’s a real mixture and offers great potential. Sentry has the skills and the knowledge to take advantage of those opportunities, either by managing the land or by providing consultancy.

“One of our other advantages is that we have a large number of farm managers within the 65-strong Sentry team, which means we can draw on a huge pool of experience and skill. If there’s an issue, someone, somewhere in our team will have come across it before and will be able to suggest an answer.”

While Tom has been at Frenchay Farm for three years, Sentry was first invited in by  R Sternberg Farms in 2019, when the family farm was employing a manager.

Sentry initially provided advice to the manager, but later the company was asked to play more of a direct role in the estate and began a contract farming operation, providing labour and machinery.

“Strategic decisions related to the estate on issues such as SFI, grain sales, rotations, machinery changes, staffing, and health and safety are taken between family directors and Sentry at quarterly meetings,” Tom explained.

The economies of scale that Sentry enjoys are also on offer to non-Sentry farmers who sign up to the company’s SentryPro membership scheme, which spreads the benefits of the company’s buying power.

SentryPro allows farmers to buy inputs, machinery or other products at an advantageous rate that reflects the large discounts Sentry is able to negotiate, given the 20,000 hectares it farms.

Procurement manager Rachel Cooper is tasked with encouraging more businesses to take advantage of the deals on offer, and has calculated that the savings on an average farm’s annual fertiliser bill would more than cover the costs of membership – currently £400 per year for farms of less than 200 hectares and £750 for larger holdings.

“As another example, one of our members asked us to price an organic seed mix for him. We managed to save him £1,000 on that one purchase alone,” Rachel said. Another farmer, she added, joined the scheme to take advantage of a better price on a Claas combine harvester.

Alec pointed out that the scheme didn’t just offer better prices but offered products and inputs that had been tried and tested by Sentry on the farms it worked. “Farmers can have confidence in what they are buying,” he said. “If it’s good enough for Sentry then it’s clearly going to do the job.”

The quality is reflected in the big-name brands with which Sentry enjoys a strong relationship, including the likes of John Deere and Amazone. “We work with good partners and SentryPro members enjoy first class service as well as great prices and payment terms,” said Rachel. “They can also relax and let us worry about finding the best price and sorting out the paperwork while they get on with the day job.”

Sentry can also provide bookkeeping and accountancy support, either in the short or long term. “We can provide dedicated and trained staff to help with the likes of VAT returns, management accounting, cashflow or payroll issues, either on a long term or perhaps just to cover maternity leave,” Rachel said.

“We are here to help,” summed up Alec. “Whether that’s by direct farming, providing advice or supporting procurement, Sentry aims to be the first port of call, and our new dedicated office at Mersham serving the South East will help that ambition.”

Photos: ©Martin Apps, Countrywide Photographic

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