New Entrants to Farming: Contract Farming (Dumfries) – Event Summary

The Contract Farming meeting was held at Woodlands House Hotel, Newbridge, Dumfries on Tuesday 30^th January 2018.

Alastair Beattie opened the meeting by introducing guest speaker Sandy Ramsay, who specialises in setting up and administering contract farming agreements.

Sandy started by outlining the three most common forms of joint venture farming: contract farming agreements; share farming agreements; and partnership agreements.  The defining features of each form of agreement were then outlined – e.g. share farming involves two businesses on one farming unit, with all income being paid into a “splitting account”, before being allocated in agreed proportions to the share owner (landowner) or the share operator (contractor).

Sandy went on to discuss the mechanics of how each agreement operates and supplied examples of agreement documentation, before finishing off by focusing on how the finances may be structured within the different agreements.