A Brora beef and sheep farm is among the line-up of nine new monitor farms being established in Scotland.
Clynelish Farm, which is run by Jason Ballantyne and his wife Vic, in partnership with his father Murdo, has been named as the new monitor farm for the Sutherland region. The farm is also an SRUC climate change focus farm.
The Ballantyne family took on the tenancy at the 300-acre farm in 1982 and Jason took over the majority of the day-to-day management of the business in 2012. An additional 250 acres of land is occupied through either contract farming or rental arrangements.
The family runs a flock of 900 breeding ewes, of which about half are Lairg type Cheviots and the other half are Lleyn crosses. All ewes lamb outdoors at the end of April over a three-week period – a policy introduced by the family seven years ago to establish a tight lambing system.
Replacements are home-bred with about half the Cheviots staying pure and the other half now being put to an Aberfield ram. All cross ewes go to Meatlinc and New Zealand Suffolk rams. The family sells the bulk of lambs as stores through Dingwall Mart, and a small number of prime lambs go to Mey Selections in Elgin.
In addition, the Ballantynes run a herd of 80 suckler cows comprising mainly Simmental cross native breeds. All cattle are outwintered and calving takes place outside in May and June to continental bulls. Calves are weaned in the middle of November and brought inside to get a diet of silage and grainbeet. They are then sold as store in Thainstone at 10 months old.
The farm produces all its own hay and silage and this year the family grew 30 acres of brassicas to supplement winter keep for both cattle and sheep.
All straw for bedding and feeding is bought-in, along with draff from the neighbouring Clynelish Distillery.
The Ballantynes said they were looking forward to seeing how their farm, and others in the north of Scotland, would benefit from the new monitor farms initiative.
Jason Ballantyne said: “I think it is really important to us as farmers to challenge ourselves and look at our businesses and the way we do things. Hopefully by doing this, we can go on to make improvements and improve our bottom line.
“I’m particularly looking forward to collecting more data on our farm so that we can make more informed choices about which direction to take the farm in the future.”
The three-year monitor farms programme is being run by Quality Meat Scotland and AHDB Cereals and Oilseeds. Funded by a £1.25million grant from the Scottish Government, it will operate nine farms in the following areas: Nithsdale; Scottish Borders; North Ayrshire; Lothians; Mearns and Angus; Lochaber; Moray; Sutherland; and Shetland.
