Ian Pye works a 250 acre dairy farm near Preston which also grows crops for the autumn calving herd.
Old Holly is an open farm where the public can come and watch cows being milked, have a coffee in the tea room and buy an ice cream from the small farm shop. There's a strong focus on school visits. Ian is also vice chariman of the NFU Next Generation Dairy Board.
'I’d always like to think that if you could measure profit and loss by the amount of smiles you raise, we’d be able to retire quite wealthy, as this month has seen us busy with school visits almost everyday. When a school books we ask if there are any topics or sections of the curriculum they would like us to cover, but we have had one booking circled in the diary since Christmas that simply said they didn’t want us to spoil the children while on the farm (not a real problem, as I’ve never spoilt anyone).
'The children were from Chernobyl and are in remission. The reason we weren’t to spoil these children is that they crave fresh fruit and veg, so we weren’t to over feed them as back at home it is the local food and environment that is causing the illnesses.
'Well done to the team on the farm for doing such a good job with them, but the point of me mentioning this is that in Chernobyl the food they grow and eat is deemed safe by their standards, but if any UK producer served food that caused such problems they would soon be in trouble.
'The next time you are asked about the quality of your produce, you have a simple answer that our food is produced to the highest standards. Having inspections and paperwork can be a chore, but it does give us the opportunity to sell our production methods, story and produce with pride.
'Back on the business side of things we have been clipping cows and in the summer sun with their nice clean coats they look very dashing. The tails won’t be clipped again until autumn as they will need some length in them next month to swish the flies once they appear.
'If the summer temperatures rise any further we will consider re-housing cows during the day so they have some cool shade, as I don’t really think rubbing suntan lotion onto every cow every few hours is really practical. Keeping cows in the shade will help maintain feed intakes and yield without stressing the girls.
'Other jobs around the farm have included vaccinating livestock against bluetounge, making hay, servicing tractors and machinery, painting gates, fences and catching pens in the nice weather and topping/cutting any weeds in pasture fields and around the manure stores (we aim to do this before the weeds start to set any seeds).
'We have also taken another cut of silage; the high temperatures meant grass soon dried and we put a load of grass over the weighbridge to see how much grass we had on a load. It’s not as much as you think when grass is this dry.
'One plant that loves the sun is, of course, the sunflowers. They are nearly a foot tall now and you can almost see them grow in the sun… if I sing to them they might grow even taller….or wilt!
'The farm also played host to the Kennel Club, who used it to train dogs for search and rescue. It served to teach me that not every dog owner is irresponsible and it was nice to meet dog owners that really respected the countryside. It’s just such a shame not every dog owner has such an attitude.
'Off-farm, and the NFU’s Next Generation Dairy Board had the chance to meet with a couple of milk processors in Wales to discuss various topics.
'What was clear from both meetings was the lack of transparency in the supply chain, but it was also good to hear support for the NFU’s work in the dairy sector in Europe and how it might address everyone’s problems in the future.
'Anyway I’m off to the bank now to try and explain why I’ve only been cashing smiles….. My explanations usually result in my bank manager’s tears!'
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