You Can't Live Another Man's Dream
Andrew Wilson farms on a tenanted estate in the East Riding - 330 acres, 160 of potatoes, 1,250 pigs on straw yards, cereals, sugar beet, contracting work, and until 2019, a haulage business his dad spent 25 years building.
What we cover:
Building the business — How a single wagon in the sixties gradually became a serious mixed farming and haulage operation, and how divided responsibilities between Andrew and his dad actually made both enterprises work better.
Coming home the right way — Andrew wasn't just waved back onto the farm when he left college. There wasn't room. He came back as an employed tractor driver, bought his own house at 23, and earned his place. Why that matters — for the business and for him personally.
Building the landlord relationship — Before his dad died, Andrew was already the one communicating with the estate. Deliberate. Low-key. A chat at a barbecue. He became joint tenant in 2006. When his dad died in 2018, things were a lot more straightforward as a result.
Winding up the wagons — After his dad died, Andrew ran the numbers every which way. The spreadsheet kept saying the same thing. He made 12 drivers redundant in May 2019. It was the right call — and it still wasn't easy. The driver who left his cab like a showroom on the last Friday and wrote "The End" on his timesheet. That'll stay with you.
"You can't live another man's dream" — The advice that gave Andrew permission to do what the figures were already telling him. And why, after getting rid of the wagons and half the acreage, he was making double the profit. Bigger is not better. It's just more.
Family, tea at six, and getting out early — How Andrew manages to be home for tea most nights even in the thick of it. It's not luck. It's how the day is planned from the start.
The "farmers must" brigade — Andrew's biggest frustration with the industry isn't from within farming. It's the people with loud opinions and no skin in the game telling farmers what they must do. We get into that.
Succession and not farming your daughters' lives for them — Andrew might be the last of his family to farm. He's made his peace with it. His girls' lives are theirs. If one of them wants to farm, she'll have to earn it like he did.
Shoving shit uphill — What Andrew would say to someone stuck, blocked, and not sure why they're still on the farm. He's been there. He read the job columns. It wasn't all plain sailing.
Andrew is on social media and writes regularly for Farmers Weekly and CPM. If you want more of this kind of no-nonsense thinking, he's worth following.
If family bust-ups are making the farm feel impossible right now, you're not the only one. Have a look at empowerag.co.uk.
