Agriculture

Adrian Ashley was just 17 when he had to face the biggest crisis of his life. It was February 2002 and his father had just died, leaving the family dairy farm at Lower Tunley, near Bath, without a master.
Adrian, now 22, takes up the story: "My brother James and I had both worked with dad on the farm, but when dad died James was fully occupied with the contracting side of the business. Either I had to carry on running the farm or it would go."
The challenge was immense, but over the last four and a half years Adrian has succeeded not only in keeping the farm going, but also in increasing its size and output as well as planning a longer term growth strategy.
"The hardest part in the early days was getting people to take me seriously," said Adrian. "Nobody could believe that a 17-year-old would want to start a life in dairy farming, less still make a go of it."
But succeed he has, expanding the farm to today's 300 acres with 130 cows – a real credit to the
business started by his great grandfather who came to the farm in the 1890s.
In the summer of 2005 Adrian realised that the farm could only continue to expand if the facilities were upgraded. In the early 1990s his father had installed a second-hand milking parlour supplied by
T H White when the farm only had 70 cows; it had served well, but was badly in need of replacement.
Adrian called in Nigel Ellis of T H White who looked at the farm's requirements and made a recommendation for a fully-specified 20x20 DTL DeLaval parlour. "I decided to take the plunge and put in the new parlour," he said. "It was a huge investment but I knew I had to get on or get out." Control, planning and design was taken care of by T H White, which was also able to provide a temporary milking parlour for the projected four-month installation period. Adrian and James undertook demolition of the old parlour and put in the groundwork for the new parlour themselves, before the T H White team moved in to complete the installation. Everything was ready for the herd to move back in on 26 June.
"The new parlour has cut our milking time by half and we can now think about increasing the herd to about 180 cows – all Fresians," Adrian added. He expects his new parlour will have a life of about 20-30 years, which should help in providing a continuing income for himself, James, and eventually their four-year-old brother Liam. "T H White was fantastic – their team made it all easy," said Adrian.
How to take on a dairy farm - aged 17!