The Farmers Mart Dec-Jan 2018 - Issue 54 | Page 54

54 DAVISON FARM DEC/JAN 2018 • farmers-mart.co.uk MICKLEBY AND EGTON: WHERE THE LEARNING NEVER STOPS Chris Berry talks with Guy Prudom at Davison Farm, Egton ORGANIC farming doesn’t work out for downturn in the economy and consumers no longer had the extra cash to pay the premium.’ The move away from organic farming combined with lessons learned from that system has led to Guy feeling greater satis- faction with the moves they have made in cattle breeds and genetics. everybody and that was the case for the Prudoms who farm at Northfields Farm near Mickleby and Davison Farm just out of Egton in North Yorkshire, but Guy Pru- dom points out that it was by no means a bad experience. ‘What we learned about grassland man- agement while being organic was price- What we learned about less. We changed from ranching the farms grassland management to paddock grazing moving the cattle around and allowing the grass to recover, while being organic and because you can’t just go and throw was priceless a bag of nitrogen around when you’re organic you’re looking at making sure the ph in soil is correct.’ ‘I certainly wouldn’t want anyone who ‘We pulled out of the organic system is still in organic farming to think we didn’t that we’d started with on 31 December get anything out of it because we most 2007 in 2015 following a change in rented certainly did, and we have been able to land that led us to not having enough grass improve what we now do under tradition- to finish the cattle we had that we were al farming because of our experiences. It finishing at 24 months. At the time the also proved to us that the genetics in our Goodchild Agricultural Engineering - ETH.pdf 1 04/01/2018 16:12:41 organic price had crashed too due to the herd weren’t as good as they should have ‘ ’ What can we, do for you? WWW.GOODCHILDAGRI.CO.UK C M Y CM MY CY CMY K C LIVESTOCK HANDLING & FEEDING SYSTEMS Troughs and Feeders Gates Housing ATTACHMENTS Buckets Grabs Bale Spikes Weight Block TRAILERS Trailer Rebuilds Custom Trailers SPECIALIST M Y CM Railing Repairs MY Security Doors CY Steps & Ramps Installer for CMY Came Electric Gates K + More! Visit our website to view our constantly developing range of products & services Contact Joe Goodchild on 07814 755368 (Whitby, Yorkshire) been. That’s why we now have Stabilis- er cattle. They’re smaller cows than the big Simmentals we still have also but the Stabilisers are cheaper to keep through winter.’ Guy farms with his parents Peter and Christine who live at Northfields Farm that runs to around 500 acres and is predomi- nantly arable oriented. While Guy studied at Myerscough agricultural college and 69218 - JWMortimerLtd - 8TH.pdf 1 20/12/2017 15:22:12 spent two further years away managing an outdoor pig unit Peter had started a suckler herd that had grown to 80 cows. ‘I came back in 1993 and we knew the farm wasn’t going to be big enough to sustain all of us. I’d had an idea of wanting to push the arable side, but we were in the wrong area, so we began pushing further with the suckler cattle. We took a little extra land and upped the numbers.’ ‘Richardson & Smith of Whitby used to have an annual letting day at Ruswarp J W Mortimer Ltd Agricultural Engineers & Fabrication Spares & Repairs, Servicing, Tractor & Muckspreader Hire The team at J.W Mortimer wish G