The Claydon family firm has spent more than 20 years developing its Opti-Till system, drilling seeds directly into the field without intensive cultivation which can damage soil structure.
The machinery has been perfected on founder Jeff Claydon’s 400ha farm at Wickhambrook, near Newmarket – which has not been ploughed since 2002.
Instead, he said his company’s zero-tillage system enables crops to be established more efficiently, profitably and sustainably than traditional methods.
This has become particularly vital in recent years, amid economic pressures from dwindling EU-era subsidies and soaring costs, and the growing environmental challenge of climate change.
The company says its machinery reduces costs and environmental impacts, preserves soil health and structure, improves drainage and saves fuel – allowing food production to become more efficient while, crucially, maintaining yields and profits.
And despite agriculture’s economic challenges in recent years, Claydon has enjoyed continued growth, with record demand fuelling the opening of a major new production facility last year, which more than doubled production capacity.
The Wickhambrook factory now employs more than 70 staff and supplies the Opti-Till range of direct drills, straw harrows, rotary cultivators and inter-row hoes to more than 30 countries across the world.
Mr Claydon said: “You must always keep innovating and adapting for the very simple reason that we have to produce food more efficiently all the time, and with better quality as well.
“The adaptions we are doing are to make farming more efficient and more environmentally friendly.
“For 20 years we have been doing this now. and it has given us fantastic results and fantastic profits on the farm. That is not to say we will give up, that we have ‘got there’ – we will never get there in farming because there is always something new around the corner, and there is always going to be innovation because we have got to feed the nation, as well as the world.
“It is really important to have these products, and they are now stretching across more than 30 different countries that we are selling to. It has been an amazing success story, and it is giving the world all these environmental features.”
Mr Claydon, a third-generation Suffolk arable farmer, founded the company in 1981 to manufacture the Claydon Yield-o-Meter, the first device to provide an accurate “real-time” reading of crop yields on a display in the cab of a combine harvester.
In 2001, when grain prices fell to levels which made crop production uneconomic using traditional establishment methods, he developed the Opti-Till system. The first Claydon direct drill, named the V Drill, was launched in 2003 because of the need to reduce costs as the nation’s farming incomes slumped.
David Furber, UK sales manager, said: “The initial driver all those years ago was cost reduction.
“Farming incomes were under pressure, wheat prices and total income from farming dropped, and Jeff, with the heavy Suffolk clays here on the farm, needed a lot of intensive cultivations to prepare the land.
“So it was initially to reduce the crop establishment cost, but over the last 20 years we have realised there are many other benefits to soil health.”
Export sales manager Simon Revell added that recent weather extremes have highlighted the benefits of maintaining good soil structure, improving worm counts, boosting drainage and preventing erosion by removing “aggressive cultivations”.
Mr Furber also said the Opti-Till system uses less than 20 litres of fuel per hectare to establish crops, and the company claims the overall cost savings compared to a ploughing-based system are £121 per hectare, equating to £108,783 on 300ha over three years, with a 61pc time saving.
Meanwhile, as former EU subsidies are replaced by new government environmental payments, “no-till farming” is eligible for £73 per hectare under the new Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) – potentially further improving the farm’s bottom line.
This week, Claydon demonstrated recent additions to its range including the Evolution Drill Toolbar and Evolution Front Hopper – a 2,750-litre pressurised hopper designed to ensure reliable high-volume distribution of seeds and fertiliser.
Mr Claydon’s two sons Spencer and Oliver are also involved in the family business, as commercial director and operations director.
Earlier this year, the founder and chief executive was presented with the Suffolk Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group’s Peewit Award for Excellence in Ecological Farming, and this month Mr Claydon was also shortlisted for the “Game Changer” category at the Farmers Weekly Awards, which recognises individuals who have “driven agricultural innovation and had a positive impact on food and farming during the past 20 years”.
