The Farm Profit Programme is an ambitious new project delivered by the Farmers Journal and ANM Group with the support of the Scottish Government. The objective of the programme is to improve the technical performance and profitability of livestock farms across the north and northeast of Scotland. Read more

We farm in a family partnership at North Cranna, on the outskirts of Aberchirder, Banffshire. The running of the farm is a real family affair, with my wife Muriel, son Scott and myself, Arthur, looking after the day-to-day work and daughters Gemma and Amy and uncle Charlie helping when we are busy. The farm extends to 164ha and is quite steep, running from 160m to 800m above sea level.

It is mainly a grass farm, with some spring and winter barley grown for feeding and bedding. There is a herd of 150 cows split between spring- and autumn-calving. Cows are mainly Simmental, with a few Saler-crosses.

Stock not kept for breeding are sold as stores at 12 to 14 months of age at Thainstone. We also run a flock of 240 Scotch and Cheviot mule ewes. These go mainly to Texel tups, although we do have a couple of Suffolk and Beltex tups. Lambs are mostly sold prime through the mart.

The farm is currently well stocked. Over the next few years in the programme, we see a similar number of cows on the farm, but by changing grassland management, we plan to increase sale weights and improve overall output per cow. We also plan to tighten the autumn-calving period and work toward a strict 10-week period, to make management of young stock much easier.

On the sheep side, we plan to increase the number of lambs weaned per ewe and increase performance from grass. This will help improve our output and should reduce sale age. Getting lambs out of the system earlier will allow us to increase ewe numbers over the next few years.