Farmingmatters

Farming through hoops

Iwrite this sitting in the farm office on a wet December day. It seems a distant memory when we were worrying about water shortages and lack of grazing on the hill. Resilience has never been more important, no matter what the weather decides to throw at us. Opportunity will be one of the key themes at the Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) which I am attending in January as part of the Emerging Leaders Programme sponsored by Scottish Enterprise.

Having applied to be on the programme, I was delighted to be accepted along with 22 others across the UK and we met in November to network and prepare for Oxford.

The location was Fera Science, a UK business with 350 scientists based at the agri food innovation campus near York.

Our discussions were focused on soil health, crop management, integration of data and ecological monitoring.

Healthy discussions and conflicting viewpoints harvested innovative thinking there and then. It reminded me of why I enjoyed the Scottish Enterprise Rural Leadership Programme in 2015-16.

I don’t see myself as a natural leader but I relish the opportunity to be pushed out of my comfort zone and to have our agricultural, sporting and tourism enterprises challenged and looked at from different perspectives.

The Rural Leadership Programme delivered on those needs but that was three years past and quite frankly feels like a long time ago. The extreme weather patterns of 2018 impacted our performance with lower calf and lamb weights, pressurised fodder management and lower barley yield. This, coupled with Brexit uncertainty, has meant being resilient and adaptable on the farm is now a basic industry requirement.

On our family spread we’ve built up a mixed enterprise with a Simmental and Angus suckler herd, Mule and Texel cross ewes, organic sheepmeat for Marks & Spencer, malting barley production for the local whisky distillery and commercial shoots.

But in the last four years we’ve invested more capital and more focus on delivering inclusive experiences on our farm, in part with support from LEADER and The European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development for the newest of the increased accessibility lets.

Our brand, Lindores – Stay Ride Relax, offers both domestic and international guests luxury and relaxing rural holidays and they’re coupled with Lindores Equestrian.

So where above I grumbled about the hot dry summer affecting our core cattle, sheep and yield performance, on the flip side the hot weather was a big positive for the equestrian training camps and holiday tourists.

Scotland’s landscape is our asset, which was realised for us when Red Bull filmed famous mountain biker Danny MacAskill on our farm. The film, Wee Day Out, has been viewed 24 million times on YouTube and Danny has been back to race a top British equestrian eventer horse over our farm – completely new film footage that will be released in 2019.

So, as is more and more common in farming, we are not solely food producers we are diversified businesses operating in multiple industries.

With the departure of CAP post-Brexit and greater emphasis on natural capital and the environment being proposed, I foresee our mixed business model will certainly take a dent in the journey but I want to maintain a sustainable business for my kids.

We just might have to think harder, collaborate and be more creative.

So it is with an open mind that I will freshen up after the New Year festivities and embark on two days, listening to more than 40 speakers, network with my programme peers and the 600 other delegates at the Oxford Farming Conference.

If you can’t make it we’ll all be posting highlights on Twitter using #OFC19.

We are not solely food producers we are diversified businesses operating in multiple industries

Braeside of Lindores has diversified into multiple industries.