The Farmers Mart Oct/Nov 2016 - Issue 48 | Page 65

Thornhill Hall Farm

Contact Kiwikit on
01584 879959

OUR PEL RANGE OF
ELECTRIC FENCING
INCLUDES:
· Battery Energisers
· Mains
· Solar

sits around 4.5 fat and 3.5 protein
at present and will probably hit
4.6 and 3.55 this year.
“When I had come back from
Harper Adams mum and dad
were producing 10,000 litres per
cow with big, powerful Holsteins.
We’re now at 5,800 litres per cow
because of the route we chose.
When I came back from college
my original intention had been
to go into farm consultancy but a
few circumstances changed that,
so I took over running the farm
while mum and dad went into the
bottling side.”
Farm consultancy the way he
may have imagined it in 1999
hadn’t been his course then
but he has encompassed it in
Evolution Farming more recently.
First the ever expanding dairy
operation of Evolution:
“On January 1, 2010, Evolution
Farming was incorporated as
a limited company with 50 per
cent shares between myself
and Oliver Hall. His family is in
Bingley and he had previously
won the RABDF Young Dairy
Person of the Year award, but
his uncle was looking to finish
with dairying on their small family
farm. Oliver and I got a 20-year
farm business tenancy on a
farm at Bleasby Grange, Market
Rasen in Lincolnshire where he’d
been rearing young stock and
converted it to a dairy farm. There
are now 280 milking cows there.
We’ve put in a Waikato 24/48
parlour. We also have a contract

farming agreement in Scotland,
where Oliver now lives. It had
about 140 cows that we’ve now
taken to 300 on spring calving
at Turnberry just behind the golf
course.
“Our latest major development
in milk is that we have signed a
tenancy for a 1,000-acre dairy
farm in Leicestershire. It’s the site
of what was the Co-operative’s
large dairy operation and we’re
going to milk 700 cows there. It’s
another tenancy this time with
Farmcare, the farming arm of
the Welcome Trust. The owners
of the farm are spending a lump
of money and we are going to
manage the process and the
farm.
“What we are about is
developing sustainable dairy
farming operations utilising the
economies of scale to procure
the best prices we can and
make savings on buying in bulk
of semen and dairy chemicals,
plus sharing machinery. With
operations in Lincolnshire,
Scotland and now Leicestershire
we are now a significant milk
supplier. In Scotland our milk is
collected by First Milk and goes
to Nestle. The price is presently
around 25ppl. The milk from
Lincolnshire currently and when
Leicestershire starts early next
year is all going to ARLA.”
Tom has a vision of the number
of cows he would like to see
being milked by farms in the
Evolution Farming remit in order

Kiwikit are proud to
supply Evolution Farming
with their Electric Fencing
requirements.
Kiwikit can supply Strip
Dairy Grazing Kits including
a Solar Fencer, Pigtail Posts,
Geared Reel, Polybraid Wire
and Fence Tester for

£299
ex.VAT

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Caring for the Health of your Business

Farm Vet Solutions specialise in farm animal veterinary care across a
large area of the East Midlands. We provide medicines, veterinary
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Telephone [phone]
www.farmvetsolutions.com

www.farmers-mart.co.uk Oct/Nov 2016 65