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I’m sat in front of the keyboard to write my first blog and my mind is suddenly blank (cue a chorus of “no change there then”…), so maybe if I introduce myself, give you a bit of background and go from there?

My name is Chris, I’m 35, married and live on the family farm in central Warwickshire. The farm is mixed, 100 acres of grass and 30 of arable. The grass is used for small bale hay production (for the horse market), and for grazing horses as part of the equine side of the business. The arable is in rotation, winter wheat this year, and is basically contract farmed, with some involvement from us.

We moved to the current farm in July 2009, from a much smaller holding in South Northamptonshire, and set up the various businesses that we now run under the “Mill Farm Ashorne” heading.

Prior to the move my background had been engineering and motorsport, but I had always come back to farming when I could, between race meetings for example.

With a larger acreage to consider, we wanted to cut our dependency on contractors for things like haymaking so decided to invest in our own kit. It seemed that the best way to justify the equipment was to buy bigger and use the extra capacity to help neighbours / local farms. From this we almost stumbled into becoming contractors, but it quickly became apparent that we needed to be different to the other contractors in order to compete. Our experience had always been with grassland so a move into grassland services was logical, but avoiding the usual “foraging / baling / wrapping” that other firms carry out. We now offer a range of specialist services, including over-seeding, Quadsaw branch / hedge cutting, and Sward Lifting, and the business is growing at a steady rate year on year.

To say it’s been a steep learning curve would be an understatement, and that learning continues on a daily basis. Every friend, customer, competitor, pub acquaintance, machinery dealer, man in the street, and all of their dogs have an opinion, and I’ve found that the best advice comes from all of them. Not all the time of course, and recognising the best advice is the real trick, but either way you won’t learn if you don’t listen…

If you have a moment please have a look at my website www.millfarmashorne.com