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Guy ’ s world was exacerbated even more with his agricultural contractor ’ s hat on .
“ Every agricultural contractor should and will do their best you can for everyone , but this is also where the weather would just break you , as you couldn ’ t get on to your own farm at times let alone your customers ’ land .
“ We are mainly stubble to stubble contracting , but we also do some contract farming . One thing I have learned is not to run older kit , so we run a modern fleet because I don ’ t want to be spending money and time fixing machines , so when they break down I can just ring the supplier and say , can you send me another one because I need to keep going .
Guy currently has one New Holland rotary combine and he ’ s just gone up to four tractors . This summer he ’ s working in conjunction with Pete Caley of Smithy Briggs Farm , where he is providing a tractor and labour whenever he needs it to help him run his hay baler .
Guy tells of how today ’ s Beef Shorthorn herd came about .
“ Dave worked away from the farm for a time , having taken a farm manager ’ s job at Cirencester University ’ s farm . We had grassland on the farm here and bought a load of Luing cattle out of Scotland , they were nuts but we took them on to fatten them up and did so , but when Dave said he was coming home and he ’ d also said he wanted Beef Shorthorns because my uncle , who is an agronomist for Hutchinsons , has a smallholding down in Leicestershire and he had them . We had always quite liked them , they ’ re a nice native breed , so we bought a few heifers off him and that ’ s how it all started .
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“ We breed our own heifers , and buy some cows off places including my uncle ’ s . We have some grassland down bottom of farm , that can flood in winter , which is just low input grassland getting on towards Bransholme and the cattle suit that type of grass . They calve in March inside and we run the youngsters through the next winter again . Dave sells as stores into Hull Market , where Ralph Ward has people come from miles away .
“ We now have 45 in the suckler herd . We don ’ t finish them as yet , as we haven ’ t the facilities to do that and we are getting good prices for these as grassfed stores . They ’ re starting to become a core part of the business .
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“ Dave weans his lambs on grass leys . We silage the grass leys first and that goes to the cows .
“ The sheep are New Zealand Romneys with their main thing being that they are lambing outside , apart from this year when we couldn ’ t because of the weather . We ’ ve played around with lot of breeds but the Romneys are good for us and low intensity . A lot go as stores with the buoyant market and we are paid a good price for store lambs .
Ralph Ward of Frank Hill & Son and Dunswell Mart ( Hull Mart ) is the Shelby ’ s agent for everything and Guy feels it is a case of use it or lose it for their mart .
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“ It ’ s a great mart to support and it ’ s our last local mart . We ’ d have many miles to cover to get to the next nearest at York or Selby .
The pigs enterprise at Benningholme runs to 950 pigs from growers to bacon going to Cranswick . And all pigs are on straw .
Guy is married to Bryony and says he ’ s the outsider .
“ Bryony is from Flinton , so she ’ s the local girl . We have a daughter Poppy who ’ s 10 and son Ben who is 8 on July 27 . Bryony and I were both members at Skirlaugh YFC . She paid zero attention to me until we got into our 20s . Dave ’ s wife is Rhiannon and they have a little boy called Fynn . Our mum is Marianne .
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Guy said , when we spoke just before going to press in late June , and with a short time to the General Election , that he hadn ’ t seen anything about what anyone was going to do for farming .
“ Politicians and anyone not connected to farming literally have no understanding that if we didn ’ t do our job , not just farmers in this country but worldwide , we would starve as a population , but we are literally the bottom rung of the ladder . People like politicians seem more bothered about how many followers they ’ ve got on social media than supporting the person that grows the stuff that keeps them alive .
“ We ’ re an easy target . We get attacked about everything , whereas if you actually looked at such as grass-fed beef and grass-fed lamb it ’ s probably the best source of protein that ’ s good for the climate that ’ s out there , but if you hear the media we ’ re the scum of the earth and we ’ re poisoning the rivers .
“ There are times when you just can ’ t get excited about agriculture , and I want to be because I like my job , enjoy what I do , but there ’ s sometimes it just beats the hell out of you .
“ Jeremy Clarkson has done a great deal to highlight the outgoings we have are sometimes astronomical and that we cannot dictate anything we get at the end of it . It just breaks you when you can go in and look at a loaf of bread , and I think Clarkson made this point , and it is £ 1.40 , yet the farmer gets 25p and takes 100 per cent of the risk of growing the raw ingredients .
Oh , look it ’ s bloody raining again !
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