Catch up with our dairy entrants online Q & A
There’s no shortage of keen young farmers wanting to start out in dairy farming, the challenge is how do they get a foot on the ladder if they’re not in line to inherit the family farm?
Dairy Update hosted an online question and answer session with a panel of farmers who set up joint ventures to help offer some advice.
Meet the panel:
Neil Grigg and Tom Foot – Prospect Farming
Devon farmers, Neil Grigg and Tom Foot set up a joint venture milking 750 cows in 2009.
Pooling their resources under the name Prospect Farming, they started with 25 empty dairy cows. After taking on a farm business tenancy in Dorset they decided to make minimal investment in infrastructure and hire a mobile milking parlour. Subsequent savings have helped them increase cow numbers further. Cows are now milked once a day, kept out 350 days a year, and yield 6,500 litres a cow a year.
Tom Rawson – Evolution Farming
Tom Rawson set up Evolution Farming with business partner Oliver Hall in 2010. Today the company is made up of a practical dairy farming business and a farm consultancy business. The company milks about 1,250 cows over four units under a number of different arrangements. Evolution Farming has been at the forefront of promoting the “cow hire” concept. This allows producers to get a foot on the ladder, while farmers looking to take a step back can still get an income from their animals.
Read the transcript below to see what was discussed on the night:
Join the discussion on what more needs to be done to get more young people into dairy on our forum