Clive Bailye

Dog & Stick – Survival Mode Apr 2026 For many arable farms, good management on its own is no longer enough. Right now, combinable cropping feels increasingly like a high-stakes gamble, and survival may depend less on pushing forward and more on stripping the business back to the basics. There are times in farming when good management really can make the difference.

It’s been about 18 months since my last contribution to Direct Driller, and during that time, a lot has changed — both on my farm and in British agriculture. I’ve always tried to be open and honest in these pieces. They’re not polished PR, not a government briefing and not a sales pitch for some new magic bullet. They’re simply the reflections of a working farmer who has spent most of his life in fields rather than meeting rooms. This time, though, it’s been harder to put pen to paper.

Written by Clive Bailye It seems like such a long time ago now, but back in 2008 when we made the decision to stop cultivating and direct drill everything, there really wasn’t a lot of drills on the market to choose from. This made our choice relatively straightforward, but also brought compromises that often saw us heading to the farm workshop to modify and adapt what we felt was needed.