Walford Farm and College able to withstand dramatic hikes in prices

We have taken the chance to reflect on the year and review our plans for the year ahead. The team have also been delighted with the recent two page Farmers Weekly article highlighting the past two year developments and outstanding results.

The lower cost, NZ style pasture based system and our focus on sustainable systems has allowed us to continue to increase our profits, milk quality and cow health.

It has been a challenging year and thankfully we have been able to withstand the dramatic hikes in prices of feed, grain, bedding, fuel and fertiliser that have hit the industry so hard.

A reflection of the changes has really highlighted the shifts and impact of several good decisions.

For example, the new grazing platform, targeted feeding, monitoring tags and change in cow type to cross-bed cows have enabled grass production to be maintained between 12t dry matter (DM/ha) to 17t (DM/ha) allowing average milk produced from forage of 5,000 litres per cow.

This was 985 litres in 2018. The higher cost concentrate feeding therefore has been able to drop to 1.7t per cow/year from 3.5t. The addition of a sustained high milk quality has allowed us to move to a new contract with the cheesemaker Joseph Heler.

With the introduction of more Shropshire sheep into the herd this week we are also looking forward to getting to some shows next year.

As we have just reached the end of our teaching year, the teaching, farm, equine, animal and motor vehicle teams have had the chance to visit other farms, centres, employers, industry specialists and colleges to continue to bring ideas back into the college and help our planning for next year.

This has brought some great benefits this year with many employers and businesses working with us and supporting the students. Over 120 of our students have been on work experience with a great group of employers.

All students have been able to access additional specialist workshops and over 20 companies including Shropshire Farm Vets, LIC International and Carr’s Billington have run discussion groups, open days or training programmes for our students.

Bronwen Bray is head of Walford Campus