Farmers Weekly Awards 2024: Young Farmer of the Year

Ellie Lovell is the Farmers Weekly Awards 2024 Young Farmer of the Year.

When she was told that she needed to gain business and life experience after studying before she could return to the family’s dairy farm in Bromyard, Herefordshire, Ellie Lovell took her father’s advice on the chin.

She used her knack for numbers and trained as a chartered accountant at a firm in Cheltenham, where she worked for six years before returning to Tack Farm in 2023 in the role of finance director.

See also: FW Awards: Meet the Young Farmer of the Year finalists

Since then, the 28-year-old has reorganised the farm’s finances, and put controls in place to monitor costs and keep a tight rein on budgeting.

Her role has also evolved and expanded into the parlour, where she now oversees the 15 full-time staff, human resources, health and safety compliance, and the organisation of the herd and running of the parlour.

Herd health

The flying herd of 800 cattle are milked three times a day through a 50-point rotary parlour.

With such a large herd, Ellie is keen to monitor welfare, and has subsequently obtained her Register of Mobility Scorers accreditation so that she can personally mobility score the whole herd every two weeks.

This consistency means she is able to closely monitor all aspects of herd health and identify potential issues before they arise.

Breakfast meetings

Ellie also manages herd health through identifying staff strengths and weaknesses, and providing training and development opportunities where particular interests arise.

She has facilitated AI training for employees with an interest in fertility, enabling them to take part in courses.

One area that Ellie felt needed attention was knowledge of mastitis – both spotting and treating it. In September last year, the rate of mastitis was at just under 0.5 cases a cow a year.

Ellie identified that the majority of cases occurred during lactation, and that this could be improved with correct training.

From this, team “breakfast meetings” were born as an opportunity to discuss a range of topics and provide training.

The first two focused on mastitis, with the farm vet in attendance to train the team on the science, methods and theory of prevention and treatment.

These meetings and the training that takes place in them have had a direct effect on herd health, with mastitis rates significantly reduced from 36 cases a month to 16.

Sustainability

The farm operates on an Arla Morrisons 360 contract and, with the introduction of the points-based sustainability incentive model (SIM), Ellie has been keen to sharpen the farm’s prospects.

Along with needing to improve “animal robustness”, she recognised that the farm was not scoring as well as it could on soya use, achieving just four out of 11 available points.

After speaking with the farm’s nutritionist, it was decided to go completely soya-free and use rape meal as a replacement.

So far, Ellie says this has had little to no impact on cow health and milk yield but, crucially, has brought the herd’s points high enough to enjoy a premium on the milk price.

The next step is to transition towards 100% renewable energy, which will give the farm an additional five SIM points and add 0.15 euro cents/kg of fat and protein-corrected milk.