Farmer Focus: Cattle get air time as TV crew arrives

May used to feel like a quieter month on the farm – spring drilling completed, cattle turned out, and only the spraying left to keep on top of. These days, however, it seems every bit as busy as the rest of the year.

It has certainly been an exciting month for us at Bee Edge as we welcomed the team from Landward, Scotland’s farming and countryside programme, to film the cattle heading out for summer.

See also: Young couple’s pasta start-up champions 100% British spelt

About the author

Annabel Hamilton

Annabel Hamilton farms 1,030ha of arable in the Scottish Borders with her parents. The arable area grows 65% winter and 35% spring crops. She is Basis and Facts qualified and runs a pick-your-own pumpkin patch. The farm finishes more than 300 Limousin cattle a year.  Follow Annabel on Twitter @annabelhami11

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We were delighted to host the crew, including presenter Dougie Vipond, who many will remember as one of the founders and drummer of Deacon Blue.

My brother and mother were thrilled to meet Dougie, while I was more concerned about the cattle deciding to test the fences…

With Landward celebrating its 50th year on air, it was a real privilege to be involved. If you fancy watching it, the episode is available on BBC iPlayer.

In April the Scottish government launched the Food Processing, Marketing and Co-operation Grant. The £9m fund offers support covering up to 40% of project costs for businesses within Scotland’s food and drink sector.

Fortunately for us, the egg-packing equipment for our new free-range egg shed qualified under the scheme, allowing us to submit an application.

Given the level of funding potentially available, it made good business sense to bring in a specialist company to handle the application process on our behalf.

Sometimes the smartest decision is recognising when someone else can do a better job than you can yourself. We hope to hear by mid-July whether our application has been successful.

Meanwhile, the new grain shed is nearing completion and, by July, Arthur and his cousins should be pedalling their toy tractors across a freshly polished concrete floor.

Groundworks and drainage have certainly been the nemesis of this project, with a few mistakes made and lessons learned along the way, but we are looking forward to having the building fully operational.

All we need now is a name – suggestions are very welcome but we already have “the grain shed”.