UK smallholdings to vast beef enterprise in Paraguay on sale

Smallholdings rarely feature in Farmers Weekly land articles, but this week sees a brace of similar-sized but contrasting holdings.

Both tourism and equestrian income supports Werngochlyn Farm, which sits in a private location near Abergavenny, Monmouthshire.

There is a large Grade II-listed farmhouse, which needs some modernisation, an adjoining three bedroom cottage and a bedsit. Further traditional buildings have scope for conversion.

See also: Making a will – what farmers should consider

The holding also has four self-contained holiday units with a games room and swimming pool. Significant equestrian facilities include floodlit indoor and outdoor schools with about 9 acres of paddocks.

There is a well-established livery yard with stabling for 20 horses, well-served by further buildings. The land is mainly level grazing, with some mature trees and native hedge boundaries. 

The guide price is £1.75m and it is on the market with Powells Rural.

Shropshire

Wilbrighton Manor Farm, near Newport, Shropshire, is a residential smallholding with potential. There is a partially renovated four-bedroomed dwelling, a range of traditional brick buildings and about 6.25 acres of pasture.

It is on the market at £900,000 with Berrys, and has equestrian/residential/tourism development potential subject to planning consent.

The buildings – about 633.5sq m and mainly single-storey brick – are around a central concrete yard with separate road access.

Wilbrighton Manor Farm, Shropshire © Berrys

Scottish Borders

In the farms market, Whitlaw Farm near Lauder has recently been launched by Galbraith, with a traditional farmhouse, almost 265 acres of mainly pasture, some amenity woodland and a good range of modern and traditional buildings.

The farmhouse has five bedrooms and there is a large yard area. The land is Grade 4.2 and 5.1 with smaller areas of Grade 4.1 and 5.2, with field access from an internal network of farm tracks.

The traditional buildings are stone and slate, and largely redundant for agricultural purposes.

The modern buildings include three steel portal frame cattle courts, a store shed, a pole barn, straw and sheep sheds and a 100-tonne moist grain tower.

The overall guide price is for offers over £1.215m, but the farm has been lotted four ways. Lot one is the stone farmhouse, 5.61 acres and a small group of outbuildings for offers of more than £595,000.

Lot 2, at offers over £430,000 for 220 acres, includes the bulk of land in nine fields, with a restricted grazing regime on some of the land not included in the sale, as part of a neighbouring woodland plantation scheme.

Lot 3 is offers of £140,000-plus and includes the main farm buildings with 15.4 acres. The final lot at offers over £50,000 has 23.8 acres in one field of mainly Grade 5.1 land. 

Large-scale Paraguay grass-fed beef operation

With 109,000 freehold acres and 46,000 head of Brangus cattle, this breeding and fattening operation in Gran Chaco, Paraguay is on the market with Brown & Co.

Partner Adam Oliver said:

“The environment in Paraguay for those seeking long-term, scaleable investments is positive and stable and consistent ongoing investment is improving the logistics and access to market outlook.” 

The guide price of US$90m (about £74m) includes the land valued at about £500/acre and the cattle at £16.4-£20.5m.

Eighty per cent of the water required by the holding is derived from dam-collected rainwater in the summer rainy season (November to April) and stored in large gravity collection dams before being solar pumped up to tanks. 

Each dam and tank also has a bore hole and solar pump for additional capacity in the dry season.

There is a further 39,500 acres of leasehold land with established and profitable share farming operations.

© Brown and Co