|
The rest of the farming operation is all arable apart from an acreage for the DIY livery at Collingham . The Kilbys have 220 acres at Lilac Farm and a further 250 acres at Elvington . Recently they have acquired 150 acres in Shadwell through the Lady Hastings Trust . Geoff arrived with his mother in 1969 after having grown up on the family farm at Walton from the first day his parents moved in .
‘ I was born there that same day in 1947 ,’ says Geoff . ‘ It was a mixed farm and Billy my brother took it on fully when we moved here . I was always more on the arable side while he was always more interested in dairy and milking . We farmed together across the two farms at Walton and Collingham until 1984 .’
‘ In 1990 we added the farm at Elvington , near the airfield , through the agent for our estate Mark Grainger of Carter Jonas inviting us and others to tender for it as he knew we were looking to expand
|
with a young family . We were successful and bought a house in the village for a man who used to work for my neighbour and who has been with us ever since , Alan Thorn . He runs the farm over there , 23 miles away . It is limestone land here at Collingham and sand land with a bit of heavy clay over there . We grow wheat , barley , potatoes and sometimes oilseed rape .’
‘ This year ’ s winter wheat variety is Skyscraper . We have 55 acres at Collingham and
|
60 at Elvington , all for biscuit , or feed if it doesn ’ t make the grade . We tend to stick to one variety so that we don ’ t have to separate the grain in store . We also have 21 acres of Craft malting winter barley , we usually have more , it ’ s just the rotation ; and around 150 acres of Planet spring malting barley . Potatoes make up 25 acres here at Collingham and another 20 acres at Elvington .’
The latest acreage at Shadwell has been taken on , rather like the Elvington
|
acreage was added 30 years ago , because of margins .
‘ It ’ s also insurance in some way for us when we suffer from flooding here at Collingham ,’ says Sallyann . ‘ We also have 27 owned acres in Linton that we bought in 1979 and offers further arable land and grain storage . Where we are in Collingham there is no room to expand to put up another building and have adequate space in the yard for an artic to turn around .’
Son Stephen is also very much a part of the whole
|
enterprise and their daughter Amanda works in the health sector .
‘ We have several other diversifications on-farm in addition to the rapeseed oil ,’ says Sallyann . ‘ The DIY livery has 18 stables and 25 acres is allocated here for that at Collingham . We also sell stoves and hearths through our Wharfe Valley branding , but it is still the farm that underpins the other businesses . If we didn ’ t have the farm we couldn ’ t have the others .’
|