Top Suffolk farmer hangs up his ploughshare after 26 years

Andrew Williams has built up and presided over an enormous 4,800-acre farm venture - Home Farm (Nacton) - stretching from the edge of Ipswich down to the Port of Felixstowe.

His remarkable career took him from humble beginnings near Ipswich to one of the top farm posts in the county.

Set in high quality agricultural land, Home Farm produces a range of vegetables and cereals - including around 240ha of potatoes, 100ha of onions, 50ha of cauliflower, 110ha of vining peas and 40ha of herbs, 22ha of cabbage, 16ha of broccoli and 16ha of brussels sprouts.

It also grows a range of niche crops among its range of about 30 vegetables which are being harvested throughout the year - from organic red beet to organic quinoa.

It's a forward-thinking business and has adopted hi-tech equipment - including a Robotti unmanned tractor and two weed droids - as it gears up for farming's next era.

The farm is an intensive year-round operation, with planting and harvesting rolling on throughout the year.

It's based on the historic Orwell Park Estate which is owned by the Bence-Jones family.

The farm is a stand-alone business with about 12 or so landlords, 50 employees and about 100 customers - making it a hugely complex operation.

"We farm for about 12 landowners in total on different agreements and the family is one of those but we are tenants on all of those - we don't own any land," Andrew explains.

"It's a big chunk of the Felixstowe Peninsula."

Now aged 60, Andrew has stepped down as farm director and is succeeded by Richard Parry. Richard previously worked in Shropshire and also managed AW Mortier Farms at Alderton, near Woodbridge, and joined in January.

Andrew will continue to live on the estate - and plans to continue with the business in a support role.

"I have enjoyed it thoroughly, but as you can imagine, it's very demanding, a business like this," he says.

"Twenty-six years is a long time. I got to the time I felt I was holding back on decisions because I didn't feel I was the future."

He has loved his job, he says, but in the last few years as the business grows and the investments become larger it has become more pressurised.

"The pressue on us to get things right goes up," he says. "There's more money invested in the crops and the pressure just ramps up on everybody.

"It's demanding, it's challenging, but I have enjoyed the challenge. It has been good fun - it really has. There have been some challenging moments but it's been good."

His retirement will allow Andrew and wife Jayne "to do some of the things we have not been able to do" because of the demands of the job.

Andrew's rise through the farming ranks is remarkable. He came from a largely non-farming, working class background and gained his farming qualifications on day release.

He grew up in Rushmere, near Ipswich, and while his grandfather was a blacksmith in Belstead - his one connection with farming - his father and his uncle were both in the Navy.

Although he worked as a youngster on John Fenton's Farm at Kesgrave, he followed in his father's footsteps and spent two years as a Naval rating in Portsmouth and Plymouth.

But he was drawn to a farming life and decided to quit the Navy and return home. It wasn't easy to secure a job on a farm so he spent time repairing containers at Felixstowe before securing work at Andy Mayhew's Sheep Drift Farm at Brightwell.

He spent the next seven years there and attended Otley College on day release, eventually gaining a national certificate in farm management.

"It was brilliant for people like me from a working-class background," he said of his college route to success.

He rose to farm foreman before branching out on his own by forming farm contracting business J and A Farm Services at Wickham Market, with a friend.

Among their customers was Home Farm (Nacton). When its then-boss Roger LeBlanc decided to quit and migrate to New Zealand, Andrew succeeded him.

In those days it was a much simpler business, covering about 800 acres and with four employees. Today, as a much bigger operation, Orwell Park Estate farmland represents about a quarter of the land that the business farms.

Andrew is particularly proud of the farm's safety record under his tenure, and of "keeping people safe and happy and employed".

"It's been interesting. We have done lots of different things really," he says. "Nacton's a great place with some great people and it really became home. We put our heart and soul into it."

Daughter Helen Micklesen now works at the farm as a technical manager, and his youngest son Matt works for farmer Robert Rous at Dennington Hall, Eldest son Martin has various business interests and lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Andrew and Jayne have four grandchildren.

He and Jayne will be taking it easy this summer but Andrew will still be maintaining his position on the Board of Felixstowe Hydrocycle - a scheme which pumps fresh drainwater otherwise heading out to sea into farm reservoirs. He is also part of Woodbridge farmer AJ Paul's farmer-led landscape recovery drive.

He likes to stay active and is a keen cyclist. He hopes to make it from Land's End to John O'Groats now he's retired. He also likes to play football.

"As a family we have all made sacrifices over the years to a job I love but I think it's time to be a little bit more selfish about it perhaps," he says.