Fourth-generation farmer Gemma Smale-Rowland farms with her parents at North Petherwin, near Launceston, north Cornwall, where they milk 120 pedigree Holsteins under the Glebewin prefix. She established the Cornish Moo brand in 2018 and was one of the first farmers in the country to install an on-farm milk vending machine.
Winter has so far been kind to us here in Cornwall. Very little rain and many dry mild days has made everything significantly easier.
Grass growth is incredible for this time of year which has been great for finishing the 600 store lambs quickly which is exactly what we needed with lamb price being strong.
Once again the labour problem has raised it head. On the farm we are under constant pressure due to having no relief from milking resulting in all of us always having to be on site twice a day every day.
Our industrys future surely must embrace more technology and help with the constant pressure we all feel from labour shortages.
As someone who has always been very anti consultant it was very much out of my comfort zone when we decided to take the opportunity of the governments future farming resilience fund.
It is scary opening yourself up to someone unknown and letting them into your business. I can honestly say I went into this meeting with my guard up. But by end of our initial meeting with Harry Batt from Andersons Consultants, I felt very comfortable talking about our business now and where and how we move forward in the future. Harry really embraced and understood what Craig and myself were looking to achieve. He also made some simple changes which have already made a huge impact on our farms profitability.
I know it is a scary thought and is well out of most farmers comfort zone, but I would highly recommend taking the opportunity while it is available.
We were lucky enough to be invited to the South West Farmer Awards in November. It was an evening to celebrate, to be surrounded by like-minded forward thinking and truly inspiring farmers. I was very honoured to receive the outstanding achievement award.
As you read this we will be into the new year, and the big red man will have been and gone. It is never relaxing for farmers and jobs still have to be done but I hope you will all have had a little time to enjoy the period. This was the first year we Christmas spent with my beautiful niece as last years plans were affected by Covid. Now she is three this one was special.
Im excited for 2022. Without a doubt there will be challenges, and life wont be so back to normal as we might have hoped, but things are looking to move in the right direction for our industry. Lets embrace it and look forward to the year ahead.
