My Grandfather didn’t impart much advice to me growing up on the farm, but one thing he was adamant about was: “Boy, if you carry on with these Herefords you’ll go bust”. Those pearls of wisdom were uttered in 2003. Almost 20 years on and underpinned by other stellar native breed cattle, the Farmer Tom brand is going strong.
Grandad had been instrumental in bringing the Charolais cattle into Herefordshire and he was a strong advocate of the strength and size of the European cattle as was typical of his post war generation. You couldn’t argue with the on-trend of those breeds, but they didn’t have the character, efficiency and, crucially, the flavour of the Hereford breed. We were at opposite ends of the farming philosophy. If grandad could see me now, saving nettles in designated areas to pick for chefs, he would be absolutely dumbfounded.
My father went into intensive chickens in the late 1980s. That was enough for me, when the university time was right, to break away to London and study acting and script writing. However stints working in television and writing for theatre could not sate a nagging call for the wild. I am at least a fifth generation farmer. It is in my blood.
In the early noughties my father cleared out the continentals and replaced them with the slower growing, lower input Herefords. It culminated with me working in a gastro pub in NW London and engaging the head chef in conversation about the field-to-plate philosophy. He simply said: “I am struggling to find good meat in London.Bring me a cow”. So I did. A steer to be precise. 260 kg of, catastrophically unlabelled beef. After much head scratching and a lot of pies, the meat supply business was born. I returned to farm my relative’s holding on the Radnor Forest in 2003 and instantly added the heavenly Welsh hill lambs to my portfolio. The London hospitality industry couldn’t believe it. Dry-aged, grass-fed, native beef and sweet unctuous lamb scooped out of the clouds. They were stolen by the story.
My wife Monica, our two children Oak (eight) and Iona (five) and I, now live in the farmhouse that I grew up in. My small herd is peppered with Gloucester, Shetland, Hereford, and I believe the blessed of the flavoursome beef, Dexter cattle. I believe that the very best age for optimum beef is six years. The old saying was “two years to grow strong, two years to pull the plough and then two years to finish”. It is the same principle now, although I don’t plough and definitely wouldn’t do it with cattle if I did. Once a week I drive down to London to supply meat direct the restaurants, and I am looking at extending the business into butchery.
Aside from my own acreage, I work with the Herefordshire Wildlife Trust. It is an extremely fulfilling partnership. The older cows are suited to, in places, the rougher grass and different variations of vegetation. It is exciting to turn up to a new site with the indiscriminate hoovers and set them to work pulling back years of growth, enabling the wildlife to fold in behind and thrive. The grazing of livestock can support hundreds of species in one area, so it isn’t all doom and gloom about livestock farming in the current climate. They have a vital part to play. This spring I was asked to peel back a 20 acre wetland that was predominantly meadowsweet and reeds. “Send for the Ryelands”, we thought, which cleared the lot. The Ryeland breed originate in Leominster and are so favoured by my chefs because they have a deep flavour and good fat cover, a satisfying by product of countryside restoration.
Beef and lamb have been the business’ historical success, but it is pork which is currently the best top seller. Fat is generally not favoured, but I cannot sell a lean pig. Therefore, I use Berkshires, Saddlebacks, Welsh, Oxford Sandy Blacks, basically all of the pigs on the Rare Breed Survival Trust watch list. There is a depressing running theme there. Hundreds of tonnes of pork is being consumed annually, while these majestic traditional breeds are at real risk of extinction and yet I cannot sell enough of them. What a truly bizarre situation.
I air-dry the pork carcasses for a minimum of three weeks, finding it completely transformational. You can knock on the carcass like a door, it’s rock hard and the best crackling ensues. Any pork carcass is at least 50% better for the process, never mind it already being off the slow grown, diversely fed, native breeds. I slaughter them between 7 and 10 months of age. It is a long term investment that pays rewards.
The local pig sale at Hereford market closed during the pandemic and unfortunately previous paltry returns for the auction have not seen it revived. With pig feed at £450 a tonne and well under £2 a kilo returns on the carcass, you can understand why farmers have washed their hands of the practice. If I would like to buy from a pig auction, I now have a four hour round trip to north Shropshire, South Wales or the Cotswolds. A long way to go just to discover 200 Dutch pigs.
Luckily I have a solid through line with pig purveyor Dan Weale in mid Wales and have recently stepped up home production, building to sties out of reclaimed bricks. We knocked two rooms off the house to build them. Now that is a commitment!
I am now on the brink of another litter with plenty of weaners around the farm. We now have so many pigs that I half expect to pull back the covers and find one on the pillow. We spent two hours chasing a runt around the garden yesterday. My wife and children loved it. I’ll admit that I wasn’t as enthused.
I am a reluctant social media user, but I understand its connective powers. With such a growing knowledge gap between the consumers and their food, social media can be an effective bridge and for that it is vital.
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