Meet the NFU Sugar Board

Kit has specialised in combinable crops and sugar beet. He is on the BASIS professional register and is responsible for the farm’s agronomy and crop recording, health and safety and HR. LF Papworth Ltd won the Norfolk Champion Farms competition for 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2014.

Kit was a board member of Anglia Farmers for 12 years and was chair from 2011 to 2014, retiring from the board to chair the subsidiary AF Logic until its sale in 2017. He joined the NFU Sugar Board in 2020 with specific responsibilities for Red Tractor. Kit stepped down from his sugar board Red Tractor representation when he took up the role of Red Tractor Crops and Sugar Chair in September 2022.

Kit has been on the council of the Aylsham Show for many years, managing the food theatre. He is chair of Pensthorpe Conservation Trust. He has three children and lives with his partner Caroline.

Farming close to the Cambridgeshire-Suffolk border, Simon currently grows and delivers 40,000 tonnes of sugar beet into the Bury St Edmunds factory.

He also grows wheat, oil seed rape and beans, and runs a farm contracting business and agri-haulage company.

Since graduating from Shuttleworth Agricultural College in 1996, Simon has developed the farm business with a commitment to utilising sustainable and innovative growing techniques. He is committed to the continual development of the sugar beet crop amid challenging agronomic pressures and the removal of quotas in 2017.

Having had the privilege of participating in the 2014/15 Sugar Industry Programme, Simon was delighted to become an appointed member of the board. He lives with his wife and two sons, and when work permits, Simon can be found racing his Caterham or supporting Norwich City Football Club.

Alison's father was a pioneer of the first six-row self-propelled sugar beet tanker harvester. Today the team harvests around 1500 acres of sugar beet and has a 4000 tonne contract of their own. They grow W wheat, OSR, and W barley. As a business, they have always appreciated the loyalty of customers, and the importance of building long-term business relationships, some now spanning three generations.

Alison's college years were spent at Hampden Hall in Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire, and the Norfolk College of Agriculture. She participated in the 2014/2015 Sugar Industry Programme.

She lives with her partner Simon, who works as an agronomist, and her son, Joe.

After graduating from Haper Adams in 2010 with a degree in agriculture and crop management, George went into farm management with Velcourt, working in Norfolk and Kent before spending seven years managing a large arable farm in Alnwick, Northumberland.

He returned to the family farm in 2020. He has been BASIS and FACTs qualified since 2012 and on the professional register ever since.

He grows just over 3600t of beet, now supplying Newark since the closure of the York factory.

Beet is grown on the lighter soils which occupy about a third of the farm, with winter combinable crops occupying the heavier soils.

After taking part in the Sugar Industry Programme in 2022, he took up the role of North East Sugar Forum chair.

Originally co-opted onto the board in 2024, he is passionate about representing the interests of Northern beet growers.

Andrew manages a 1000ha Cambridgeshire farm growing cereals, oilseeds, pulses, sugar beet and potatoes.

He is leading the third generation of Sugar Beet growers for the business and with over 22 years experience has overseen many changes on the farm to keep this key crop, and others, profitable. The business grows 10000 tonnes of Sugar Beet for delivery to the Wissington Factory.

Graduating in 2001 from Newcastle University with an Agriculture degree, he returned to the family farm.

Andrew is BASIS and FACTS qualified. With the farm in the Countryside Stewardship mid-tier, Andrew is keen to trial and integrate innovative farming methods, seeking to minimise the farm’s environmental impact whilst keeping expenditure low.

He currently sits on the NFU Sugar Board representing active sugar beet growers in what is proving to be a quickly changing market, ensuring growers get a fair deal from British Sugar.

Ten years later, John established an award-winning recruitment business, growing it to 100 staff and servicing some of the fastest growing and most innovative companies in the world, where he saw good ideas put into practice, fast. He also learnt to deal with complex organisational structures in large corporations.

Initially starting farming as a hobby, he finally went full time as the issues that Covid-19 would bring became apparent. Fully up to speed on good agricultural practice, he is also politically aware and commercially very experienced, and looking to bring a different perspective to the board.

He is interested in several areas of Board activity; beet delivery, factory performance (and sugar extraction), crop forecasting and AI, and the preservation and evolution of the IPA. His motivation for joining the board is primarily to help tackle unfairness in the supply-chain and support the industry to become an exemplar of best practice.

BASIS, FACTS and soil and water qualified, he uses his skills and experience to farm as sustainably as possible.

Robbie is passionate about growing beet and bringing the views of growers within his area to the NFU Sugar Board.

His priority is to help secure a sustainable and profitable return for growers, increasing confidence in the crop and securing the future of the homegrown beet sector.

Robert wants to see the UK beet industry held up as an exemplar of good practice, maintaining high levels of quality and public trust whilst ensuring fair and stable remuneration across the supply chain. He is passionate about seeing growers supported and rewarded for the vital role they are able to play in securing a sustainable sugar supply chain.

He represents the interests of sugar beet growers on the Red Tractor Combinable Crops and Sugar Beet Board.

He left in 1989 to join Sucden in Paris, then left with other senior management in 1991 to start CR Sugar trading in London as joint Managing Director (CR Sugar was the London office of Czarnikow Rionda).

In 2000, Paul started Sussex Commodities and held a board position with an associate ex ED & F Man, and from 2004 he has been running his own trading company.

Paul has a huge amount of consultancy experience, having consulted for a hedge fund, major bank and a large trade house in sugar during that time.