Yearn to learn brings continued fresh perspective

Dairy farmer Haydn Evans is a man with a razor-sharp grasp of numbers, a gift he carried with him from his earlier professional life as a senior bank manager.

Back then it was interest rates and credit scores that occupied his mind, but the figures he is now more concerned with are those that indicate whether or not heifer replacements are on target for entering the milking herd.

Haydn and his wife, Jan, farm in Carmarthenshire at Parc Eithin near Llanybri where, since they stepped back from the day-to-day business of milk production, they rear heifer replacements for their son and daughter-in-law, Stuart and Catherine.

The farm is one they bought in 1995 when Haydn worked for NatWest and Jan oversaw the call centre operations for Lloyds TSB, renting out much of the land while building up the foundation of a dairy herd before farming full time.

For two years the land was farmed conventionally but the economics of milk production meant either scaling up cow numbers or capturing a higher return for their milk.

“We either had to go into a land grab which meant higher gearing and I was nervous of having too high a level of borrowing, perhaps because of my background in banking or maybe because I was not bold enough, so I worked out that we had to do something exceedingly well, either shortening the supply chain or by doing something that would give us a higher milk price,” Haydn recalls.

“You need a different skillset if you are intending to produce ice-cream or other products so we instead looked at organic and could see that it would be the best option for us with our small number of cows.”

Conversion to organic started in 1999, a system which Stuart was interested in too as he embarked on a degree in organic agriculture at university in Aberdeen.

It is a system they remain loyal to, producing milk from 110 British Friesians and growing much of their own feed on around 300 acres.

Oats, barley and peas provide nutrition for the cows and youngstock alongside 25 acres of turnips, swedes and brassicas which are grown to fix nitrogen and provide winter grazing.

“It is a very simple cut and carry feeding system for the cows with very little machinery needed,” Haydn explains.

Stuart produces milk from a spring and autumn block calving herd at Lan Farm, Meidrim, a short distance from Parc Eithin.

At Parc Eithin, Haydn and Jan concentrate on breeding the heifer replacements for that herd.

“My role is to rear the calves, to get them pregnant and to send them back as in-calf heifers,” Haydn explains.

Removing himself from the tie of milking enables him to devote time to other roles and commitments, including as NFU Cymru County Chair for Carmarthenshire and sitting on the NFU Combinable Crops Board at a national level.

Other roles which occupy a lot of his time is mentoring and facilitation, which he does through Farming Connect.

His combined background in banking and farming is valuable to the farmers he mentors, helping them to shape their businesses, but he also meets those at a crisis point, helping them to navigate what can often be significant challenges. The farmer who was unprepared for a Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) inspection and another who had run out of winter fodder for his cattle, he has helped to steer those farmers through tricky times.

Haydn has been mentoring for 15 years and ‘enjoys it 150%’.

Although experience is important, he suggests that it is the “bandwidth’’ of a mentor’s contacts that can be equally helpful.

“As a mentor you aren’t meant to be a specialist, your job is to seek the specialists needed by that farm so having a big range of contacts, assessing the situation and knowing what strings to pull, those are really useful.”

In the case of the farmer with the fodder crisis, Haydn contacted Forage Aid and a trailer piled high with forage was delivered to the yard and others donated feed too, including one farmer who provided concentrates.

“In what other industry would that happen?” questions Haydn. “There is a tremendous amount of kindness and comradeship within the farming fraternity.”

As a mentor, once that crisis point has been dealt with, Haydn says his job is to help the farmer to work out a way forward.

“You have to help them to look at how they got into the mess they are in and what they can do to get out of it, and with that often comes change.

“In that particular case we looked at the farm, started getting people in with specialisms in generating alternative income streams, and the farmer has just signed the heads of terms for solar.

“It is not my remit to offer specialist advice, I look at the situation holistically in terms of where something might sit within the business but there is one word in there and that is ‘change’ and how you handle change management, that is the key.”

The often uncomfortable notion of change also sits at the heart of his facilitation work, often around generational succession within a farming business.

Haydn and Jan have settled succession in their own business, recognising that there is a 'window of opportunity' that many farmers often miss through inaction.

“When you are planning for the future there is a window for people of the older generation and if they go past that window, it becomes very difficult to get cohesion and sensitivity around it, sometimes because of ill health in that older generation.

“It worries me that people don’t confront succession before that point, especially now that we have changes to the inheritance tax rules in agriculture on the horizon. Granted that immediate threat has subsided for some with the UK Government’s concessions before Christmas last year, but for others that window is still closing.”

Haydn also sits on the Agricultural Land Tribunal Panel and has done so for 12 years, describing it as an ‘absolute privilege’.

He never shies away from opportunities to educate himself further on agriculture either.

“I am deeply conscious that I was the oldest farmer who completed the FACTS exam at Gelli Aur but that doesn’t bother me. I went through an agronomy course earlier that year, too, and the others on the course were a fair bit younger than me.

“I enjoy the interaction with the students and the challenge. Farming shouldn’t all be about being under the cow, you have to have a bit of give and mental improvement.”

At 70 and very active, he seems to be blessed with good genes. “My mother was 88 and still climbing gates,” he confides.

With good health and energy there is no reason for him to row back from his farming duties just yet. “Farming forces you to get out and to keep fit so whether I pack it up at 72, 74, 76 I don’t know, none of us knows where our health will be at any given age.

“We all need luck but you also have to have balance and to respect your health, it isn’t all down to luck.’’