Farmers Weekly Awards 2024: Dairy Farmer of the Year

Rheinallt and Rachel Harries are Farmers Weekly Awards 2024 Dairy Farmer of the Year.

Setting and achieving goals, plus a strong financial discipline, have helped Rheinallt and Rachel Harries to grow a profitable business.

As a first-generation dairy farmer, Rheinhallt’s foothold into dairying was via a tenancy with a like-minded friend in 2011, running a 110-cow split-block herd.

He sold his share when he married dairy farmer’s daughter Rachel so that they could fund their own 40ha tenancy.

See also: FW Awards 2024: Meet the Dairy Farmer of the Year finalists 

Early collaboration set the tone, and further relationship building has increased their land to 100ha.

Off-lying land is used for silage and youngstock grazing, allowing them to push cow numbers to 200, and they will calve 240 cows next year.

Good cost control has been essential to repay debt and deliver ahead of budgets, as the biggest challenge has been borrowing money as a tenant, says Rheinallt.

Profit has been invested in infrastructure and buying an 11ha smallholding, used for wintering youngstock plus a farmhouse holiday let.

Spending wisely

The couple have a knack of spending wisely, buying a bargain, and tapping into grant funding when appropriate. Capital work has been done out of cashflow, says Rheinallt.

He bought a second-hand 40:80 parlour in excellent condition and stored it until he could use it on his own farm.

This was put in as a 24:48 with drafting and handling facilities, saving more than £100,000 on a new parlour. Milking is two hours at peak production with one operator, he says.

Rheinallt is a keen member of two discussion groups: “It’s an incredibly important part of our management strategy.

Identifying areas of strength and weakness helps us make better, informed decisions,” he says.

A 50kW solar system on the shed roof heats water for the afternoon parlour wash and powers the slurry bubbler, saving 32% on imported electricity.

Roof rainwater is used in the foot-bath and for crop spraying. Rainwater captured from the floating slurry lagoon cover is UV filtered to wash the parlour.

The 9,000cu m lagoon has 12 months’ storage: “The farm is future-proofed and there is not the stress of having to get slurry out, or go on land when it’s a poor time,” says Rachel.

Measuring

The grazing platform yields 10.9-13.6t dry matter/ha. Rheinallt digs test holes in paddocks to check soil compaction, water logging and earthworm counts.

He uses the app what3words to identify the same spot each year to monitor changes.

Soya was dropped from the diet in 2019 and after six years the carbon footprint is 0.94kg carbon dioxide a standard litre.

Rachel tests all colostrum using a Brix refractometer and the first six feeds given to calves are above 22% in quality. Since feeding this grade, she reports no scouring.

Future plans

Planning some consolidation, but also thinking ahead, the couple are looking for a second dairy farm as a way to grow their business and help new entrants through managing and cow ownership.