Farms sowing new business seeds

The village of Ahoghill in Co Antrim may be one of the few places on the island still without a cash point, but just a few miles down the road is something that money cannot buy – and that’s passion.

It is something Nigel Logan, his wife, Lindsey, and his brother Alastair know all about because it is the reason why their third-generation Hillstown family farm is flourishing and helping to create jobs and opportunities for their friends and neighbours.

Latest figures show that farm incomes slumped in the North again last year. An unwelcome pattern appears to be developing which, says Ian Marshall, president of the Ulster Farmers’ Union, highlights why so many farmers are facing a “challenging cash flow situation” and why so many family farms are under threat.

Official statistics from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development show the total income from farming fell last year by 16 per cent, from £336 million in 2013 to £283 million.

Many farming families have had to find work off the farm to supplement their traditional incomes – or diversify, like the Logans. “Farm-preneurs” – as they have been coined – are a growing breed in the North, establishing all kinds of new businesses on what was originally the family farm, from farm shops to the likes of Harnett’s Oils in Waringston and the Armagh Cider Company outside Craigavon.

The Logans have a thriving free range, rare breed, ale-fed beef farm. But they have also diversified to establish an award-winning farm shop which attracts well over 1,000 shoppers a month and a caf

e.

Wagyu beef

A few years ago they started

brewing beer

at the 150-acre enterprise to support a new project to produce the Northern Ireland equivalent of the Japanese Wagyu beef. Although their rare breed herd continues to enjoy the beer, the Logans quickly realised that it was “too good just for the cattle”.

“We began to think about what else we could do with it because we are always looking at new opportunities and we came up with the idea of expanding the micro brewery on the farm. We’ve brought three of our beers to the market already and we’ve just launched our latest one, the Goat’s Butt.

“From the feedback, we think the area could hold major potential for us. Our beers are currently being stocked in 15 shops and we hope to expand that this year. It is definitely one of the biggest growth areas for us now,” says Logan.

One of the spin-offs of the success that Hillstown Farm is enjoying is the knock-on effect it has had in its local community. Jobs are not easy to come by in Ahoghill, and they will be even less so when the Gallaher cigarette factory closes up for good in nearby Ballymena. But because of their determination to keep their family farm going, the Logans have created up to 20 part-time and full-time jobs across their farm business.

They have also developed a supplier network of people who bake for them and produce other products that they sell in their shop.

Revenue stream

It is not going to make anyone a small fortune but it is helping to create an important revenue stream for some people who might otherwise not have a chance to earn money in the area.

Logan believes that more farmers should look at what they have and see how they can make farming work better for them.

“I think you have to face facts that you can’t earn a living the way your father or your grandfather did before you. We set out to do what we did well – to produce the best beef – and although we have diversified, we haven’t changed. We still do everything we do the best we can.

“Farmers have a lot of different skills. It is their natural instinct to be very versatile and many are turning their hands now to doing other things alongside farming. Whether it is engineering or farm shops it is all important, because it is keeping farming alive,” Logan says.