Caring and sharing on the farm works for us
It was around lambing time two years ago that I began to realise I was doing too much, writes Julia Evans.
The care farm diversification was getting busier, with increasing numbers of teenagers being referred to the farm, Monday to Friday, 9.30am until 3pm.
They need a lot of attention and patience, as does a lambing flock, which unfortunately doesn't stick to those hours. I was completely exhausted by the end of lambing.
I decided that I wanted to concentrate on the care farm and the care farm could afford to pay me. Employing a stockperson would have been a quick fix, but having spent years building up the pedigree Beef Shorthorn herd and Lleyn flock I wanted someone to share the responsibility and work of moving the enterprises forward, investing emotionally in it all.
We have known Tim and Lara Roberts for a few years, Tim as a meadow quality fieldsman and Lara worked for us on the care farm between the arrival of babies. We spent many months talking and thinking about what both parties really wanted and hoped for. I wanted to continue to work with the stock, walk the fields and still feel a sense of ownership and identity, be a part of moving things forward, and for the farm business to remain the backbone of the care farm.
Tim and Lara, with their young family, wanted to farm in their own right but without substantial capital this was unlikely to happen. In the end, after looking carefully at share farming, we have gone down the route of contract farming. The formula is a complicated and an evolving one, but includes incentives for Tim to make the business successful and as it expands (which we plan it to) he will become owner of a proportion of the stock. Ten months in, the day-to-day operation seems to be suiting both parties. Tim and I liaise a lot but he manages the practical day-to-day work with care farm help when needed. I still feel involved but more free to attend to the complex demands of the care farm. In fact I am about to start a part-time Foundation Degree in Child and Adolescent Mental Health.
Perhaps for us older farmers contract farming could be the way forward. We still want to stay involved with our farm businesses, but need some young enthusiastic blood to help keep the wheels turning.
* Julia Evans has an 80-hectare organic livestock farm on the Hereford/Worcester borders keeping a herd of Beef Shorthorn cattle and a flock of pedigree Lleyn sheep.
