Page 40 - Shorthorn Magazine

GAINA MORGAN REPORTS
Dairy herd plays a pivotal role in family’s expanding business
A willingness to anticipate and adapt to change underpins the mindset of the Rees family, which runs a dairy farm in West Wales. Gaina Morgan reports.
The Rees family, which farms in the Towy Valley. Left to right, Llyr, Peter, Carys, Huw, Elizabeth, Carwyn, Emily and Alun.
automated milking systems in Northern Europe, they did not opt for robots when replacing the parlour.
Peter says his experience in the Netherlands and at Gelli Aur College where he led the agriculture team, taught him that the need to ‘sweat the assets’ for robot milking would not suit their system.
And he says despite the business expansion over the previous decades, cow numbers will not be increasing going forward.
These days, with sustainability the buzz word and energy and fuel costs rising exponentially, the emphasis is on control of costs and inputs.
“We will now perhaps move towards more regenerative farming.
“It is quite likely that we might even reduce numbers slightly to make it more sustainable, with current feed and energy and fertiliser prices being what they are and Welsh Government legislation being another issue”, says Peter.
“We need to be able to keep to our own resources really; we need to be able to grow as much forage for ourselves and to be as sustainable as possible.
“I think you have got to be efficient in what you have and, actually, I think labour and having a reliable work force is going to be a key factor.
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The Rees family has been farming in Carmarthenshire since the late 1940s and now brothers Peter and Huw Rees, along with Huw’s family, run the autumn calving herd alongside an award- winning five-star touring caravan park, with a soon to be open wedding venue also adding to the family’s business interests.
Peter and Huw’s parents, Cyril and Margaret, began milking in the Towy Valley, with just five cows after World War II, and from there they steadily built the herd and business.
The farm has expanded, and the family now milks 320 home-bred pedigree British Friesian and Shorthorn cows at Dan yr Allt, Landovery.
They also farm Little Hall and Green Grove, the latter is where they will be opening the wedding venue. A 40-point rotary system was installed two years ago at Dan yr Allt and means two people can milk in two hours.
The brothers say the new parlour has ‘revolutionised’ their milking. Interestingly, although Peter’s Nuffield Scholarship 30 years ago focused on