Leader in the limelight: John Pawsey

John runs an organic mixed farm in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. This consists of 650 ha of owned land and 1,160 ha farmed on Contract Farming Agreements or Farm Business Tenancies.

He grows combinable crops, including heritage wheat, spelt, milling oats, malting barley, lentils, vetches and chia. He also has 1,000 outdoor-lambing New Zealand Romney sheep.

Let's get to know John a bit more

What’s the best advice you have ever received?
Go with your passion, and everything else will follow. Whether you are looking for self-fulfilment or a more profitable business, allowing your passion for whatever you are doing to shine through has always resulted in positive outcomes for me.

It might not mean that it is the best business decision in terms of financial output, but being happy and healthy means that the result will always be positive.

What was the best decision you ever made?
Following the advice about going with your passion. It’s enabled me to build a financially stable business while enjoying the journey.

Also, understanding that people are our most important asset. We now spend a lot of time making sure that everyone who is connected to our business feels part of our journey. It empowers people and makes them feel valued.

There are so many other things that people need from being involved with a business other than money, although money is important. You need to spend the time to work out how people tick and play to their best abilities.

It took a period of people leaving our business for me to fully understand how debilitating that is for me and for the team.

Who do you admire most and why?
I have admired so many people on my farming journey.

• Andrew McShane from Hutchinsons, who I first walked my fields with in the 1980s.
• Ben Powell, who had been farming organically since the 1970s, five miles from me. He gave me the confidence to convert our farm in the late 1990s when everyone else said it would be impossible.
• Juliet Hawkins, when she was working for Suffolk FWAG 20 years ago, she fanned the flames of my passion for conservation when farming in a nature-friendly way was not a thing.
• Minette Batters, who supported me hugely in getting onto the NFU Crops Board and recognising the NFU Organic Forum as an asset to the Union, rather than a sideshow.
• More recently, I have huge admiration for Andy Cato from Wildfarmed. He is really championing pasture and multi-species cropping and helping conventional farmers wean themselves off pesticides and artificial fertilisers.
• Lastly, but most importantly, is Alice, my wife, who is a constant source of admiration.

This is an endless list…

What is your biggest regret?
I don’t have any regrets, but if you pushed me, it would be not planting more trees when I was in my 20s.

What has been the highlight of the year to date?
Apart from having just returned from a lovely holiday with my family, it’s probably been the Groundswell event. I’ve been to every one apart from the first one, and it just keeps on getting better and better.

Alongside the Oxford Real Farming Conference and the East Anglia Sustain Festival, it’s a vehicle for most of my inspiration on how to take our farming business forward in terms of food, the environment, soils and health.

The best thing about it is the positivity of the people attending. There is a lot of catching up and discussion about new ideas. I really feel that it is our farming spiritual home, to the extent that we now take our whole farming team with us every year and get a camping pass too to immerse ourselves in the event. I love its festival feel too.

What keeps you awake at night?
As soon as my head hits the pillow, I fall asleep. I normally put on the Archers podcast, and I’ve never heard the end of an episode!

I have so much to remember that I have developed a system that only presents me with the things I have to do that day, and I always make sure that it’s achievable. I review everything on a Friday and plan the next week, blocking out time for projects, meetings and the admin stuff. It very rarely gets on top of me, and if it does, I stop everything and devote some time to make everything manageable again.

What’s been the best AgriLeader activity you’ve participated in?
I don’t think that I have ever participated in one, but I probably should!

What one item (other than a spouse, child or pet) would you rescue from the flames?
I’m just not worried about ‘stuff’. Alice (my wife) always gets very nervous when I put our data on a Cloud-based system, just in case it disappears somehow. If it did, it would cause a bit of a short-term problem, but ultimately, we would muddle through even though we might have to start all over again. It might actually be refreshing!

So as long as I have Alice, my children and our pets by my side when everything is burning, we’d probably wrap some potatoes in foil and throw them in the fire for lunch!

When or where do you get your best ideas?
See above: The Oxford Real Farming Conference, the EA Sustain Festival and Groundswell, but also from social media, especially Twitter and YouTube, and generally from other farmers.

I am best in the morning, and so that’s my focused productive time, but also reading on holiday is incredibly productive – just emptying my brain – but it can also mean that I come back with a list of things that I want to try or change.

What superpower would you choose?
To be able to play any musical instrument that has ever been invented well.