CHRIS Berry talks with Roy Thompson at Watton Carr , near Cranswick

Providing what is in demand has always been a proven way forward regardless of whether you are a farmer or in any other profession and five years ago the brothers at Scurf Dyke Farm came to the momentous decision of moving out of dairying .

It wasn ’ t undertaken lightly and there were tears shed . They , like many other dairy farmers who have left the sector , were one of those family farms who knew their cows like family . They knew them individually . It was a wrench when they were sold , taking up a whole day at York livestock market in Murton .

But five years on they are now producing beef animals that are in vogue , that are in demand and they now have 1200 Wagyu beasts on farm at any one time on a system that works well for them with Warrendale Wagyu .

And they are now also renting land off to a solar power company that is renting 245 acres of their land for producing green energy , another in demand product .

“ It was a painful time , when we sold the dairy cows ,” says Roy , who farms with brothers Ian and Keith . “ We had 200 black & white cows . None of us are getting any younger and it ’ s only when you come out of it that you realise how tying it is , you just accept it while you ’ re doing it . But it was getting hard and with the way the price fluctuates as well it never seems to get any better , that ’ s why it ’ s hard to get others to do it now .

“ We knew we had had to find something else to fill in the gap left by the monthly dairy cheque and that looked to be either pigs or cattle . We didn ’ t know

which way to go . Everybody seemed to be putting pigs in but luckily for us the Warrendale feller said could we fatten him some Wagyu . After we started we just kept filling up and filling up with more .

Scurf Dyke Farm runs across 1000 owned acres and has always had arable cropping as well as what had been the dairy farm and prior to that it had been arable , sheep and dairy .

“ Granddad ( Harry ) bought Scurf Dyke in 1945 . When Dad ( Hubert ) started with it , it was 360 acres , then he bought more land to reach the 1000 acres we have today . Dad went down the dairy route as he was making more money that way at the time .

“ The Wagyu cattle now make up the biggest proportion of the farm business , with income from renting land for solar power coming in next . It is all ground mounted and ready for Northern Grid to connect .

“ The solar power company Baywang approached us because we have pylons going right through our land and they were looking for plots of land near to pylons .

“ It was a no-brainer for us because at that same time 2019-2020 our wheat was so wet . Our pay-off is the rent that is equivalent to what we would have got from a crop .

The relationship with Warrendale Wagyu has seen the brothers ’ stockmanship and animal husbandry on-point and clearly Warrendale Wagyu are satisfied as the numbers have steadily risen in the past five years , and now they are also producing on Warrendale Wagyu ’ s olivefed beef contract .

“ We ’ ve just had a two year building splurge ,” says Roy . “ After we did a trial with five olive fed cattle for a month

Warrendale loved it and said to finish 50 a month . We ’ ve put four sheds up and extended some . We ’ ve now got nine sheds in all . Most of the work has been done by local farm buildings guys Ben Stockdale and Paul Colley . It ’ s Wagyu all the way now at Scurf Dyke . “ We are 100 per cent Wagyu ,” says Roy . “ All stock comes in at between 3- 4 months old and we take everything through to 26 months . It is all destined for Harrods and high-end restaurants and export . We have 1200 at any one time with 50-60 beasts in and out each month .

“ We own all the stock which Warrendale Wagyu sources , and they buy them back from us . They stay on a fattening ration a bit longer than usual for others doing Wagyu because they want the heavier beast , but they all go at 26 months regardless and whether steers or heifers . We ’ re averaging 400 kilos deadweight .

“ We use a Keenan feeder wagon . They are in on fattening rations from 16 months . Before that they are on a young stock ration from 3-4 months to 7-8 months and a growing ration from 7-8 months to 16 months . All rations are from RBC Agri .

“ They all go out to graze at some time in their lives . The young ones usually stay round about the farms we have across our 1000 acres and we rent another 500 acres on other farms . They are all inside

from the end of October and out again by the beginning of April , similar to when we had the dairy cows .

“ We must be doing something right because Warrendale have made us the only olive fed Wagyu farm in the country . The olives flavour the meat , providing better marbling .

Roy says they are now growing more barley , in order to feed them .

“ We don ’ t now grow a lot of wheat . We ’ ve moved to more barley and maize . We all do everything , but Ian is focused more on arable , Keith on contracting and me on Wagyu . We also do baling and foraging for others .

“ Our land type is mostly heavy and heavy to medium . We do both min-till and ploughing as we have all the muck to get rid of . We particularly plough for the maize , but try to do min-till if we can .

Ian says the varieties used in 2023 were Tardis winter barley and Diablo spring barley . Both new to them and that he is using Tardis again for this year . Yields for winter barley were between 3 to 3.25 tonnes per acre . The spring barley made a good 2.5 tonnes overall .

Warrendale Wagyu and their solar energy deal has given the Thompson brothers a feeling of a real win-win since their difficult time in coming out of dairy .

“ We ’ re definitely just as busy and you don ’ t know where time goes ,” says Roy . “ But we are in a completely different ball game . Where we were doing the early mornings and late nights of dairy farming we now just keep going until we get done . But at least we don ’ t have to be up at the times we were before .