After completing the first year of a mechanical engineering degree, I took a year to

work for a luxury automobile makers at International Research and Development in Newcastle. It was

during this year when I decided to change to an agricultural course, as this would suit

my interests and background much better. I worked as a Joiner and Builder in my

father's business during holidays. I also worked on our own dairy/arable farm at all

possible opportunities and on neighbouring farms at busy times. I then took a post with

as an Agronomist, based in Kelso and living in Clintmains by St

Boswells. Here I gained a BASIS certificate in crop protection and a working

knowledge of arable farming and the supply side of the industry.

In 1999 we moved to Lincolnshire to a post as an Assistant farm manager

on a 2000 acre cereal farm.January 2000 saw us moving back to Scotland,first as an assistant

manager and then a year later taking over as manager.

Southesk farms is a large arable business covering over 4000 acres. We grew WW,

WO, WB, WOSR, Potatoes and Strawberries. When I took over as manager the farm

was losing money and had reverted to a purely cereal enterprise. In 2004 I started the

soft fruit enterprise which grows 25 acres of strawberries and employs a fulltime

Berryman and 90 casual labourers. I started the potato enterprise in 2005 with an

agreement with Taypack, a potato processor and pre packer, to grow 250 acres of ware

and salad crops.

The farm is now profitable and employs 5 fulltime staff. At Southesk I answered

directly to the landowner and had responsibility for all aspects of the farm business

including budgeting and producing cashflows.

I decided to start our own livestock enterprise separately from Southesk both to branch

out from employment and also because there was no way to incorporate this in Southesk

farm. We established the Farnell herd of Pedigree Simmental Cattle in January 2006

and have had success at shows and the bull sales in Perth. In March of the same year

we started a cattle storing and finishing enterprise and quickly built numbers to finish

200 per year.

We Moved to a farm in December 2009 continuing to build up the Simmental and

store cattle numbers. The farm is a 435 acre tenanted farm on Lothian estates it had

been completely arable until that time we farmed for 6 years without a single farm

payment. The farm is a low lying farm with drainage issues. In 2012 we took the

decision to start a robotically milked herd of Holsteins as we felt this would get the best

from the farm and the resources and skills available. We continued to grow the dairy

herd and were milking 150 through 3 robots on an organic system we averaged scc110

bactoscan 15 Unfortunately the tenancy here was moved to a short term 2year

rolling basis not giving us any security of tenure. We took the difficult decision to sell

off the cows and machinery at the end of 2021.I took up a position in Staffordshire in

January 2022 running a 300 milking cows and followers on a Tesco contract