Bill Legge has been an MBM grower for nearly 30 years working closely with agronomist Chris Marshall for many of those years. The farm, Further Fen Farm, is based on the Norfolk/Cambridgeshire border and grows potatoes in and around the Fens.
A dozen or more different varieties of potatoes are grown each for a specific use, ranging from old favourites such as King Edward to newer varieties such as Victoria and Saphire. The crop is all stored on farm and delivered to the MBM packhouses direct with one of the farms own three HGV?s. Bill also hosts one of MBM?s 12 variety trial sites where new varieties are grown and assessed for their different attributes.
A.L. Legge & Son Ltd was started by Bill?s father Les in the 1940s when he rented an acre of land from the church. Originally a horseman looking after other farmers? horses, Les proved an innovator of his time when he bought one of the first self propelled drills and set up his own contracting business drilling other peoples land with carrots, onions and sugar beet. Up until this time such precision work had been carried out by horse drawn machines. With the money Les made contracting he built up his own farm, renting and buying land.
When he had finished college in 1965 Bill joined his father on the farm and in 1973 took over the management of the farm. In the year 2000 the third generation of Legge became involved when Bill?s son Pete joined the team. Today they farm 4,000 acres of land, of which 800 acres is used for growing potatoes. Other crops include sugar beet, wheat, barley, peas, oilseed rape and linseed. Until recently Bill had his own herd of beef cattle. They have continued the contracting business started by ?granddad? and amongst other tasks bale and stack 6000 acres of straw for a local straw fired power station.
The farm was one of the first to take part in the Countryside Stewardship Scheme some 6 years ago. For Further Fen Farm this involved the planting of 6 metre wide grass buffer strips around every field, public access around some fields and hedge planting as well as the preservation of ancient ridge & furrow grassland and creation of a reed bed to encourage and protect wildlife habitats.