Houghton Lodge Farm-The Mystery Deepens
You may think Houghton-on-the-Hill and Stoughton unrelated to Evington but think again!
In this article we explore the decision not to renew the lease on Houghton Lodge Farm which seems odd given its success and place in the farming world. In this piece there is a short background to the farm and the consequences of stopping dairy production there. In the third article in this series the probable impact upon Evington will be considered.
Houghton Lodge Farm was redundant, empty and in a poor condition after a period of 15-years of sitting dormant. That changed in 2017, when a newly formed joint endeavour between Farmcare Trading Ltd and Evolution Farming took on the venture. Tom Rawson and Charlie Crotty, partners in Evolution Farming, led the resurgence with an ambitious plan for formation of a Strategic Dairy Farm as part of The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board’s (AHDB) new Farm Excellence Platform, which aims to join up the UK’s fragmented knowledge exchange landscape and harness the proven benefits of ‘farmer to farmer’ learning in order to accelerate the uptake and spread of information and data on what works best.
The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) is a statutory levy board, funded by farmers, growers and others in the supply chain to help the industry succeed in a rapidly changing world with the aim of creating a world-class food and farming industry, inspired by and competing with the best.
More than 120 farmers descended on Houghton Lodge Farm in Leicestershire on Wednesday 5th April 2017 for the launch. Farmcare Trading Ltd and Evolution farming would hold regular on-farm meetings and capture and share financial and physical data via a new dashboard on AHDB Dairy’s website[1].
Susannah Bolton, AHDB Knowledge Exchange Director said at the time: “We’re ambitious for farmers to succeed and our new Strategic Dairy Farm will provide greater access to the KPIs and business tools that enable them to benchmark and improve their overall performance.”
The project began a Spring block calving herd of 650 newly sourced, mostly crossbred cows, a new grazing infrastructure with 20,000 concrete sleepers for cow tracks and 40kilometres of fencing and a 273-hectare grazing platform (428 hectares in total). An innovative “Muck for straw” agreement helped reduce costs and recycle waste materials.
The journey at Houghton Lodge followed the establishment of the new dairy with both the physical and financial transparency completely available for others to learn from.[2]
By 2024 A young herd, managed by an equally youthful team, was thriving on a spring-block calving system. Houghton Lodge by then comprised 526 hectares and 1,000 head of Holstein Friesians, with a grazing platform of 400 hectares for the spring-calving herd sited around the dairy unit. The remaining 100 hectares were cut for silage and hay to support late-lactation and dry cows during a relatively short cowshed housing period, from approximately December to March.
This was a vast improvement upon the 550 cows and 270-hectare block that Ifan Roberts started with when he arrived at the unit in 2018, as herd manager for Evolution Farming.
Setting goals, hard work and a few good expansion opportunities saw the farm based dairy business double in size and operation since 2018. With a herd of young cows managed by a dairy team headed by Roberts, the focus being on rearing youngstock for multiple units alongside managing the ‘home’ herd.[3]
By 2025 the herd was maintained at roughly 900 head with 750 milking cows producing 31,000 litres of milk every two days. The young stock grazed on land just south of the A47 where the bid by Mulbery Homes is focussed.
Houghton Lodge Farm suppled milk to Arla and in addition are red tractor certified so any beef they sold is 100% British. Bidwell’s, who act as managing agents for Farmcare, carried out regular inspections of the farm and had few concerns. All in all Houghton Lodge Farm was a great success story for British Farming.
Jack Springthorpe, having moved up from herd person and second in charge has been the herd manager for a year, and is now being made redundant and effectively being evicted with his wife and children from the family home on the farm. Jack posted an emotional video message recently thanking people for their support as he has been relocating his livestock around the country.
The question then is, why are the landlords Farmcare Limited, taking such action that ends the life of this successful local farm and throws a hard-working family out of their home and makes five other people redundant?
The Mulbery Homes bid appears to be a starting point but given this would only account for part of the working farm, the mystery deepens. In the next article we explore possible reasons that may explain this and if borne out will have significant implications for Evington and nearby Stoughton.
[1] Chris Lyddon (2017) Strategic Dairy Farm launched, Farm Contractor & Large Scale Farmer, MA Agriculture Ltd.
[2] Izak Van Heerden, (2024) Senior knowledge exchange manager-Business insights and skills, Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board- Houghton Lodge – strategic dairy farm | AHDB
[3] (Karen Wright,(2024) Success built on youth and dairy experience, CowManagement, May 14, 2024
Updated: Jun 18, 2024)
