Page 42 - Demo

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.
GAINA MORGAN REPORTS
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
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.
Efficient
“We were not enthused by the thought of
having 1,000 cows, or anything like that.
“So you have then got to say, well if
you are not going to go that big, you
have got to go to the next most efficient
position and you either come down to
100 cows and a robot and do not employ
anybody or you have that intermediate
stage, where you can afford to employ
staff, but you are still efficient.
“That is the position we are in.”
He adds that ‘time will tell’ whether
they have the right amount of land for
their cows, or whether they have to
reduce stock numbers. Cost per litre is
now the important factor for the family
and the aspiration is to have a simple,
viable system.
It is all about controlling costs. If we
can control our costs and produce milk
economically, then we have a chance of
surviving,” says Peter.
Huw and son Alun, have everyday
responsibility for the cows, with Huw’s
In-calf heifers from the Amber herd
of pedigree Dairy Shorthorns.
Shorthorn
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