Meet Ralph Parker

In Brief

Who  Ralph Parker

Age  43

Where  Highfield Farm, Royston, Hertfordshire

How big  1,000 acres

Grows  Oats, wheat, barley, sugar beet, peas

New kid on the block, or from a farming family?

My father was a farmer – he moved here when he was 30. I was born here and as a boy I helped on the farm. After studying economics at Newcastle I worked with a wine merchant. At 25, I went to agricultural college, then returned to farm fulltime. My parents, my wife and I are now joint partners.

Most satisfying parts of your job?

Getting in a good harvest that’s the fruit of your year’s work. The point of farming is to grow stuff, after all. I also like the fact that it’s a lifestyle business, which means I get to see plenty of my three young children.

Most irritating parts?

The weather; it means things are out of your control, and it’s invariably too dry or too wet.

What keeps you awake in the middle of the night?

Normally a screaming child.

How is the way you farm good for wildlife?

We’ve put in a huge range of habitats for wildlife, including areas along field margins for grasses, clover and wild flowers which produce pollen and nectar; seed crops for wild birds over winter; and hedgerows. We started farming this way around six years ago, it’s certainly made the farm more diverse and enjoyable to walk around.

Any specific stuff you’re proud of?

Seeing native grey partridges in the fields again, like when I was a child. The most important thing is that we’re enhancing the farm not just for me, but for my children and future generations.

What difference have these conservation measures made?

As well as grey partridges, we’re now seeing more corn buntings, skylarks, linnets and lapwings. You can spot and hear yellowhammers too, with their ‘little bit of bread and no cheese’ song. We’ve found at least six species of butterfly, including brimstones, orange tips and tortoiseshells, and many types of bees and hoverflies. 

What about flora?

Flowers and grasses do really well on our chalk soils. We’ve found rough poppy, dwarf spurge, round-leaved fluellen, spurrey and knapweed broomrape.

What are you doing when you’re not farming?

Playing with my children and their ponies, or being a taxi service. When I get the chance, I play football too.

Come the floods, what would you save apart from your family and friends?

Biggles and Scrumpy, our dogs.

Favourite breakfast cereal

I eat porridge. The children like cereal bars and the crunchy granola stuff.

If you hadn’t become a farmer, what would you be doing?

I’d have been a racing driver – my uncle was one, until he had a bad crash. Or I’d have become captain of the English cricket team; cricket’s got to be the best game in the world, plus you don’t have to start until 11am.

Your life ambition?

To own a farm in every continent. That’d be fun.