Farmer Focus: Trip to China highlights growth of the dairy sector

I am a hands-on farmer and not one to sit down and put pen to paper, yet here I am about to begin my Farmer Focus journey.

At the beginning of August, I was fortunate enough to be invited on a once in a lifetime trip by Keenan to go on a dairy farm tour in China. The Chinese government aids smaller farms to join together to result in a big co-operative farm.

One farm I visited had 1,300 cows, 8,000ha of maize and they are preparing to take on board Keenan feeding technology to improve feed efficiency. The development of the dairy farms over there in the next five to 10 years will be very interesting.

I was delighted when I got home to find my wife, Sheila, had mince and tatties on the table for me. Never have I been more appreciative of a knife and fork after struggling to eat with chopsticks during the 10-day trip.

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But the cutlery was the only Scottish amenity I was grateful for. While away, the Scottish weather had been up to its usual tricks, and so I arrived home to find there was no third-cut silage or wholecrop in the pits. However, the weather picked up for both of our local shows, Dumfries and Stewartry, which helped to swell the crowds and a couple of great days was had by all.

Due to the warmer weather and the humid air we have had this summer, we have had a plentiful supply of grass. We have even taken on some early lambs for summer grazing this year, rather than winter grazing.

During the course of the year, we have been doing a lot of flushing on the farm. We are flushing a mixture of show animals and heifers of high genetic value. So while my son Michael takes a well-deserved holiday, I am left getting the recipient heifers ready in hope of some successful flushes.

Building work is well under way on the farm. We dismantled an old painted steel shed, shot blasted and galvanised it and have resituated it to join on to our new dairy shed, which was built in 2006, to give our existing cows more feed space. It is now half-roofed and next time you hear from me, it will hopefully be near completion.

Brian Yates milks 250 pedigree Holsteins in partnership with his wife Sheila, son Michael and daughter Anna in Castle Douglas, Kirkcudbrightshire. Surplus heifers are sold for breeding.