Two farmers from the north-east have been appointed columnists of Press and Journal Farming.
Craig Grant from Kindrought, Strichen, and Ben Lowe of Pitmillan, Ellon, will be providing columns on a monthly basis, discussing their farming enterprises and opinions in current trends.
Alongside wife Claire, Craig runs a largescale enterprise across 800 acres of owned and rented land, with 500 acres in cereals and 300 acres in grass.
Fifteen full-time and part-time staff are employed in the business.
Craig grew up at Little Skillymarno and went on to become an engineer with Score Group at Peterhead, working all over the world on oil rigs, pumping stations and gas terminals.
After returning home to work on the family farm in 2008, he set up his own business and built his first poultry shed that following year.
The poultry enterprise has now grown to 160,000 laying hens of which 96,000 are colony laid and 64,000 free range.
All the hen feed is home-mixed, producing around 160 tonnes per week and eggs are sold through Farmlay Eggs, appearing on Aldi and Lidl shelves.
Around 1,000 lambs are bought in for finishing each year, with 350 ewes with lambs at foot purchased last year.
Ewes were either sold for further breeding or culled, with all lambs finished on farm.
The business also includes a bulling heifer enterprise, whereby 250 heifers are bought in from the best of commercial herds, before being sold privately off farm to producers throughout Scotland.
Craig also does contracting work for local farmers, mainly sowing and spraying, and he is a director of ACT Scotland.
Ben was brought up at North Berwick in East Lothian but moved to the north-east eight years ago where he now farms with his fiance Harriet Ross, who is a farmer’s daughter.
Although he didn’t live on a farm, Ben took great interest in the industry as a youngster with his grandfather being a farm manager.
He worked on farms from the age of 14 and went on to obtain an honours degree in agriculture at SRUC Edinburgh, while also building up a flock of 150 ewes.
After studying, Ben completed a traineeship scheme as an agronomist with Agrovista and now works as an agent for the company, working with farmers all over the country.
The young couple took over the reins of Harriet’s family arable farm at Kingcraig after her father retired and then they took on the lease of Newseat of Dumbreck, near Ellon.
In 2021, they purchased a pig unit privately from a retiring farmer who still keeps in touch with Ben and Harriet, offering advice.
The enterprise is home to 450 sows, producing 300 piglets per week which are taken right through to finishing at 120kg.
The duo farms 970 acres, growing cereals and producing straw for the pigs.
They employ six members of staff, most of who worked on the farms when Ben and Harriet took over.