It’s only five days to go until awards night, it’s time to get to know the nominees for the Arable and Dairy categories.
Arable Farm of the Year
Johnnie Balfour, Balbirnie Home Farms
“At Balbirnie Home Farms in Fife, we manage approximately 700ha of arable ground.
“Our main crops are oats, wheat, barley, beans and carrots, as well as short term leys in order to integrate our cattle into our arable ground.
“As a team we are delighted to be nominated and look forward to a good party on the Awards night.”
Balbirnie Home Farms
Neil Ramsay, Hamish Morison Farming
“At Hamish Morison Farming we have an arable unit with 800ha cereal crops, comprising winter wheat, winter barley, oilseed rape, and spring barley.
“We are a big user of organic manures in the form of poultry litter from our sister poultry unit alongside a couple of muck for straw deals. This leads to the farm using next to no bagged P and K and keeping the soil in a good fertile state. We also store 12,000 tons of grain on farm through a commercial grain store and we mix our own feed for the poultry unit.
“We have a philosophy to just get the crops in early and off to a good start. Whether that is with shallow till, noninversion or the plough for primary cultivations, the options are there for the soil conditions on the day and not being scared to change if weather turns against us.
“Everybody here works hard and attention to detail is ingrained into the team. This award is a credit to everybody on the team, and it is such an accolade to be recognised for all the hard work we put in throughout the year. We are genuinely proud to be honoured alongside the other nominees and take pride in our small but hard working team.”
Arable farm of the year finalist, Hamish Morison Farming Ltd, John, Jake, Keith, Hamish, James, Douglas, Neil and Robert with Woody the dog at West Morriston Ref: RH140924037 Rob Haining / The Scottish Farmer...
John Wilson, Over Rankeilour Farms
“I have been manager here at Over Rankeilour farms for 30 years now running the business for two generations of the Crombie family who live on the estate.
“The farm extends to 550ha with another 150ha contract farmed for a neighbour and 50ha rented in annually for growing broccoli. We grow 170ha of wheat, 140ha of spring barley, 70ha of winter oats, 45ha of potatoes, 130ha of broccoli, 40ha flax, and 8ha of honeyberrys. Staff consists of myself as manager with three full-time tractormen, a part-time farm secretary and a team of seasonal workers for broccoli planting and cutting.
“We have also invested in renewable energy with a wind turbine, two shed roof solar arrays and two biomass boilers which run off our own woodchip from the farms 100ha of forestry. The farm is very commercially driven but also farmed with an environmental focus with recently established wild flower meadows and hedge strips to provide a diverse habitat for birds and insects.
“I was very surprised to be nominated for this award but always nice to think someone thinks we are doing a good job”
Dairy Farm of the Year
Gavin Baillie, JD Baillie and Sons, Crumhaugh Farm
“Our business is JD Baillie and Sons, Crumhaugh Farm, a family run dairy farm.
“We have a herd of 260 pedigree Holstein cows with a current herd average of 11,109litres at 4.27%BF and 3.53%P. Cows are milked twice a day through a herringbone parlour. We sell around 50 fresh calved heifers each year either at pedigree sales or privately.
“We also grow around 190 acres of cereals with all barley, wheat and straw used on farm, with the majority of tractor/field work done by ourselves.
“We were absolutely delighted, though pretty shocked, to be chosen as a finalist considering the standard of dairy farms in the country.”
The Baillie Family at Crumhaugh Farm, left to right: James, Isabel, Jimmie, and Gavin.
Andrew Neilson, East Brackenridge Farm
“We are a family run partnership consisting of myself Andrew, Dad Hugh, Mum Liz and Gran Daisy.
“I’m the fourth generation of the family to farm dairy cows here and we milk 320 pedigree Holsteins with 380 followers under the Overside prefix. Our average is 12,784litres of milk sold per cow with a 305-day lactation just over 13,000, at about 3.97%BF and 3.34%P. Our pregnancy rate is running at 29%
“At East Brackenridge we farm 350 acres, sitting at 850ft above sea level, where we do multi-cut silage, usually four to five cuts and generally grow winter cereals for whole crop. We have two full time employees Kirsty Hutchinson and Iain Campbell with quite a few relief milkers for three times a day milking. We have also invested heavily in renewables and currently have 220KW of solar, and a biomass boiler.
“We are delighted to be nominated. There have been some incredible farmers who have won this award before and it would be an honour to be amongst them in future. That being said we are up against some strong nominees in the category so genuinely very proud to be shortlisted.”
The team at East Brackenridge: Iain, Liz, Hugh, and Andrew
David Campbell, JR and T Campbell, Low Ballees Farm
“We farm 310 acres in North Ayrshire and we grow 50 acres of arable half winter wheat and half winter barley with the rest being grassland.
“On farm we milk 170 pedigree Holsteins cows with 290 head of stock in total rearing our own replacements. We rely on Lely A5 robots, with the average lactation yield 11,355kg with combined fat and protein of 848kg. Our average cell count is 130, and an average BatcoScan of 14 with a calving interval of 392 days. All of our milk is sold to Graham’s Dairy in Stirling.
“I’m the fourth generation and farm alongside father. We bought the Low Ballees Farm 20 years ago but we had been tenants here since 1927. We are in our second year of being an AHDB Strategic Dairy Farm which has really helped us focus on certain aspects of the business, from environment to animal care.
“As a family we are humbled to be in the top three finalists and we just try to keep improving our farm performance year on year. To be honest the recognition itself already seems like a win in our eyes.”
The three generations at JR and T Campbell, Low Ballees Farm
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