Carn Edward Farms

A change in farm policy begins to pay dividends

Article originally from the Farmers Guardian 18 May 2007

Flower power is giving a helping hand to the marketing of home–produced beef and lamb from a West Wales hill farm. BARRY ALSTON reports.

A LABOUR of love that turned into a highly successful diversification enterprise on a traditional North Pembrokeshire hill farm has now spawned the makings of another very promising commercial business venture – and a change in farming policy.

All year round thousands of visitors make their way up the zig–zagging hairpin track to see the spectacular gardens that have been created by the Vaughan family at Penlan Uchaf, mid way along the picturesque Gwaun Valley between Fishguard and Maenclochog.

Spring sees the landscaped hillside smothered in colour from a host of multi–variety daffodil and tulip bulbs, summer splendour is provided by thousands of shrubs and perennial plants, before giving way to the tints of autumn and winter.

Scattered throughout the garden's three acres there are areas to rest, relax and take in the beauty of not only the immediate surroundings but the panoramic views of the Preseli Hill the national park hillside location provides.

Many of the 10,000 or so visitors a year take advantage of the tea rooms, too, with its range of home made cakes, sandwiches and hot and cold drinks.

Of late, though, that is not all that is on offer. They can now take away fresh or frozen, much sought–after Longhorn beef and Lleyn lamb as well. So skilfully have the gardens been laid out, in fact, that it can be difficult to fully realise that Penlan Uchaf is a working farm – but that it certainly is.

The well–screened farm buildings are at the heart of the jointed and boxed beef and lamb marketing venture that has evolved gradually on what today is a three–holding, 500–acre family farming operation.

All there was at Penlan Uchaf when Dilwyn and Suzanne Vaughan took over the then 67–acre hillside holding back in 1972 was a stone–built cowshed.

The surrounding land had not been farmed for over 80 years, there were no hedgerows and the only access was by way of a very steep climb on foot.

After overcoming planning difficulties, the first task was to convert the near–derelict shippon into a house and then over the following 20 years put up cattle and sheep housing, while at the same time transforming a wilderness into a gem of a garden.

Farming activities revolved around commercial suckler cows and sheep, with numbers gradually increasing as the two adjoining farms came into the business.

They are now home to sons Robert, who runs the farming enterprise, and Richard, who is a national park ranger.

The decision to open the gardens to the public was taken in the mid 1980s following the provision of a far better access road than the original horse track and slowly but surely the visitors started to roll in.

Any thoughts of marrying the attraction with selling home–produced meat did not, however, materialise until the dark days of foot–and–mouth disease in 2001.

"With returns from conventional stock marketing showing little signs of getting better we realised that a different approach was needed," says Robert Vaughan. "We already had a considerable customer potential regularly visiting the gardens – but we also needed a marketing handle to differentiate our meat from the other burgeoning direct–to–consumer initiatives.

"So rather than rely on a 'liquorice allsorts' mixture of breeds we decided to concentrate on just two traditional native breeds and looked at several before opting for the Longhorn and the Lleyn. There is no doubt that the sight of the Longhorns grazing the fields alongside the road also serves as an added visitor attraction.

"We were fortunate, too, in hearing that an already established breeder not so far away was wanting to sell his pedigree [Grove House] Longhorns as an entire herd. We went to see them, liked what we saw and bought the lot – 12 cows, 12 calves and a bull."

Together with some other private purchases and the results of their own breeding, the Vaughans now have 62 cows – their intention being to build up to around the 80–mark and selling at least one beast per week direct to customers.

"We are already well on the way towards achieving that goal for just as numbers have risen so the demand for our meat has also been growing steadily," says Mr Vaughan.

Our customer base ranges from local people to tourists who take it home with them – and there is increasing nationwide interest via the Internet. We also created considerable interest locally by staging an historical cattle drive last autumn – not only raising awareness of our beef but a sizeable donation for the local hospital as well.

"The intention is to put on a repeat performance in September by walking a dozen or so Longhorns to Haverfordwest, this time in aid of the local school."

All the stock is slaughtered, hung, matured and processed locally before being pre–packed, but the Vaughan's intention in the not–too–distant future is to have their own purpose–built on–farm facilities.

"Packs typically comprise joints, steaks, mince and stewing beef, but can be varied on request and delivered nationally by overnight first class courier service," explains Mr Vaughan. "At the outset we had only intended to sell the beef direct – but then people started asking for our lamb as well".

"The aim now is to market as much of our own stock direct to the consumer as possible and we are well on the way to achieving that with the cattle – but with 600 pedigree Lleyn ewes and 400 Welsh Mountains it could take a little longer with the lamb."