COLLABORATION

Working together with other local farmers has proved successful in bringing down costs of machinery and creating greater income opportunity for the Blenkiron family who run an arable and poultry farm based at Lark Hall Farm , Northallerton .

Almost six years ago , Keith Blenkiron and fellow local farmers Mark Ward and Stuart Tweddle started a new separate business , Hambleton Farming Company . Keith tells how it came about .

‘ Mark , Stuart and I thought it would be sensible to amalgamate our resources such as tractor power and other farm machinery to try and cut some of the costs out of our own respective businesses .’

‘ We each had our own different situations where we were needing to update our farm equipment and machinery when we could have been sharing them and saving on costs .’

‘ Our own farm no longer possesses any planting , ploughing or spraying machinery and the new company owns all of the machinery to take us from stubble to stubble except for the combine harvester which we still retain .’

‘ Effectively Hambleton Farming Company is now our agricultural contractor with all of the resources that the three of us fund . That ’ s its job , but in addition to ensuring all of our own work is conducted well , we have also taken on a lot of external work as an agricultural contractor for others , which means

the machinery and equipment is being utilised far more effectively .’

‘ As well as cultivations and crop establishment , we carry out spraying , lime spreading and more recently umbilical work equipped with a 24-metre dribble bar with support tankers , and a separate Samson tanker using a 24-metre dribble bar .’

It has clearly been a real win-win for the trio of farmers involved , despite a few early setbacks . ‘ It ’ s always challenging to establish a new business venture , but we ’ ve now found our stride and it works well for us . It allows us to concentrate on the poultry and carry out yard duties . We all get on , which is a really good thing and Mark , who understands arable farming very well , spearheads the operation , and is supported by five valuable members of staff .’

‘ The timeliness of the operations has brought about significant benefits . We are now able to justify larger machinery that utilise the latest technology such as GPS guidance systems . This has helped produce higher yields through being able to establish crops with greater accuracy at the right time . There is a well-known phrase of ‘ well-sown , half-grown ’ and that is very much the case for us .’

HOME FARM

Keith ’ s father Herbert came to Lark Hall Farm with his wife Audrey in 1955 and the farm still trades today as H . Blenkiron & Son . Keith , his wife Kathleen and son Daniel manage the farm today with Kathleen handling all of the farms bookkeeping and accounts .

‘ It ran to 120 acres at the time when my father came and was a mixed farm including dairy cows and fattening cattle ,’ says Keith . ‘ The cows went in 1961 and that ’ s when dad went into poultry as well as beef cattle , which then increased to 200-head by the 1970s when I returned from agricultural college .’

‘ Sadly , we went out of bull beef two years ago as it proved less profitable than it used to be . We needed to invest in buildings that had come to the end of their lifespan , and we felt the margins in comparison to inputs just weren ’ t there . We decided to concentrate our energies where we felt we could progress further .’

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