CHRIS Berry talks with Anthony and Karen Scaling at Keld Knowle Farm .

Dairy cows , beef , arable crops and caravans is the farming and general public mix that Anthony and Karen Scaling of Keld Knowle Farm , Wrelton near Pickering run across around 230 acres with a similar acreage contract farmed just five miles away at Great Edstone .

Today ’ s dairy herd runs to 120 cows with two-thirds being Holstein Friesian and one-third Ayrshire . Beef cattle are reared and taken to finishing . Crops are wheat , barley and spring beans .

‘ I ’ m still farming in partnership with my parents Clive and Lilian ,’ says Anthony , who became a lecturer in crops at Bishop Burton College when he was 21 after having completed his degree in agriculture at Newcastle University .

‘ We have been on this farm since 1964 . My grandfather had the next-door farm over the hill and bought Keld Knowle , which was originally just under 140 acres . My father took it on from an old chap who had sold it literally lock , stock and barrel . He took over 8 bullocks and 40 ewes and had to come and feed up for the first time on Christmas Day 1963 .’

‘ Grandfather had dairy cows on the original farm over the hill and had 80 Friesians by 1980 . This farm was used for the heifers . He took the ‘ golden handshake ’ and went out of milk , agreeing to go out for five years . I was going into 6th form and on to university at the time , which was when milk quota came in and because of going out of milk , quite understandably , we didn ’ t get any quota .’

‘ When I finished at university I found a job elsewhere , which was when I began lecturing at Bishop Burton . My original farming interest was arable as I enjoy working with crops . I was at the college for many years and it was with a heavy

heart when I finished . I enjoyed the youthful enthusiasm of students – and I still rather miss the income it brought about ! But it was time to leave .’

‘ I was needed more back at home and something had to give . I had always come back on an evening and was at home on weekends . In many ways the college role had been a perfect situation as I had 10 weeks ’ holiday a year and so I was effectively being paid to drive my own baler . It had worked well for me . I left in 2007 .’

Keld Knowle Farm had been mainly an arable farm with a small beef enterprise , but in 1990 the opportunity arose to go back into milk . By now it wasn ’ t

Anthony ’ s grandfather but his uncle who made the decision that he didn ’ t want to go back into dairy cows on the original unit over the hill .

‘ That ’ s when my parents started dairying here . The EU allowed those who had agreed to go out of milk for five years to come back , but with a range of restrictions including that whatever quota you were given had to be used within a set period of time . We received quota relating to 80 per cent of what we had been producing previously over the hill .’

‘ We sold some sucklers and calves in order to buy a pedigree Ayrshire herd of 33 cows out of Northumberland . We thought we would get more value for money buying Ayrshires as they were less expensive than equivalent black and whites with a view to crossing them

with Holstein Friesians . We still had two black and white cows from the previous dairy herd that were by then 10-year old sucklers .’

But there were those in the area who were concerned about them crossing their new pedigree breed .

‘ We had started putting the cows to AI producing crossbred heifers , but the local Ayrshire breeders turned up and said we couldn ’ t possibly cross them and that we should keep them as pedigree , notably Alan Myers from Rosedale . They helped choose a few Ayrshire bulls for us and that got father going with them . We continued to breed from our black and whites too and that ’ s why the herd is Holstein Friesian and Ayrshire today .’

‘ The Holsteins average around 9000 litres a year and the Ayrshires around 7000 . It is a closed herd . We haven ’ t bought anything since 1993 . We are on all-year round calving and our milk goes to Arla , where we are full members which is something I ’ m chuffed about because it ’ s no longer ‘ us and them ’, it ’ s now ‘ us ’ together . It has changed the whole relationship for the better and Arla now seems to have a certain influence over the milk market . It has been a tough , rocky road since vesting day in the mid-90s , but we are all now in a much-improved position .’

‘ We originally went with Northern Milk Partnership on vesting day . I had wanted to go with Milk Marque but my father said we needed that extra penny per litre . And he was right .’

‘ Our parlour is a DeLaval and our caravan holiday visitors to the farm love to watch the cows being milked , which they can through a window at the end of the parlour .’

Achieving a decent price for Ayrshire X beef cattle in the live market led Anthony down the route of finishing all stock on the farm .

‘ I used to struggle to sell the Ayrshires and crossbreds at market because there

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