The Farmers Mart Aug/Sep 2013 - Issue 29 | Page 54

Rooker hill farm

Much to do at Rooker Hill
Chris Berry talks with the Dales of Boroughbridge
The phrase ‘mixed farming’ appears to have been invented for Ben and Kate Dale at their tenanted Rooker Hill Farm, just a couple of miles north of Boroughbridge. While their 1,200 acres, across three farmsteads including one at Ellenthorpe three miles away - and another near Ripon five miles away, may sound enough for it to be quite simply an arable concern, they also have both beef and sheep enterprises. Wheat, barley, oilseed rape, beans, fodder beet and forage maize are all grown; Ben buys in 700 store cattle a year; they have a small pedigree Limousin herd of eight cows; 80 breeding ewes are kept on the banks of the River Swale; and 1,000 lambs are also bought each year. They most certainly don’t put all their proverbial eggs in one basket! Ben nor Kate looked in any way distressed when I met them - even though there is always much to take care of and especially considering last year’s weather. “There’s one part of the farming acreage that floods very badly and we lost quite a bit of crop there,” said Ben. “We should have had 450 acres of wheat but we only managed to keep 280 acres. We also lost oilseed rape. It was a horrendous time and we had plenty of land that didn’t get sown at all as it was so wet.” Ben planted 250 acres of spring barley earlier this year in an attempt to make up the shortfall, but he is aware that harvest which was starting as we were going to press would not come anywhere near to covering what he lost last autumn no matter what he tried. “I come from Thorpe Bassett just east of Malton and so my background was in livestock, but I also enjoy the arable side,” he explained. “We came here 24 years ago. I buy strong store cattle in at 500-600 kilos and take them through to 700800 kilos. The store sheep I feed up on stubble turnips.” With such a varied farming operation, Ben and Kate employ two men full-time both of whom have been with them a number of years – Andrew Chapman and Roger Bagnall. “They are both extremely reliable, hard-working men and we value them highly. Andrew was recently selected as one of the finalists in the

‘They don’t put all their proverbial eggs in one basket’
Add into the pot the fact that Ben is usually to be found in livestock markets up north, buying all the cattle and sheep himself; and Kate is heavily involved with the Aldborough & Boroughbridge Show, which celebrated its centenary in July; plus she is also the coordinator of the Yorkshire Rural Support Network and your head could well be spinning with what goes on both here at Rooker Hill and elsewhere. To their eternal credit, neither

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Aug/Sep 2013 FarmersMart

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