Scottish Dairy Farm of the Year

The Firm of Andrew Harvey Are Judged Top Dairy Farm at AgriScot 2012

The 2012 AgriScot Scottish Dairy Farm of the Year sponsored by World Wide Sires has been won by the Firm of Andrew Harvey, Drum Farm, Beeswing, Dumfries.    Mother Margaret and sons Stuart and John milk 274 Holstein cows and all take separate responsibilities in the day to day management to ensure maximum efficiency.

In recent years high investment has been made in new buildings which ensure great ventilation and cow comfort.  Calves under Margaret’s control are given VIP treatment from day one with their weight and size carefully monitored to ensure they in turn calve at just over two years of age.  As the milk goes for cheese making careful sire selection is based on good conformation ensuring a long life in the herd but with high yields and quality with average 305 day lactations nearing 12000 litres at 4.07% butterfat.  Calving index and somatic cell counts are also outstanding for a herd of this size and production.

Heather Wildman, Senior Extension Officer for DairyCo who was this years assessor of the awards said   ‘I was really impressed with all of the top four farms who were all highly efficient with fantastic animal welfare and it was a very tight call to make but the Drum farm team have superb management ability, great animal welfare, have reinvested in carefully thought out expansion and are producing the results to satisfy market demand.’

Every dairy farm in Scotland from Shetland to the Solway is automatically entered for these awards as their performance data is examined by computer which highlights the ones that are above average for their breed in age at first calving, calving index, yield, quality, somatic cell count and lifetime in the herd.   The statistics of these farms are then placed before the official assessor without any names or addresses who selects the top twenty and then the top four without seeing any identification.  Once the top four are known they receive an inspection visit from the assessor to decide the overall winner.

The top four this year were:-