The Liveseys run a farm on a wide array of tenancy arrangements with some land owned, long-term leases and annual lets. Their ability to adapt their business to the different tenure options available is a testament to many modern farmers who need to be flexible when it comes to accessing land to farm. However there is a challenge getting enough land tied down for a long enough period to make their future secure. Landlords hesitancy to let land for significant periods of time is exacerbating the situation. Pre-emptive fear of the repercussions of land reform is the causing fewer long-term lets coming on the market according to the Liveseys.

The right to buy rule has ‘shut down’ land availability according to young farmer Iain Livesey who farms with his parents Rob and Kath in the Borders. With just four years left to go on a 15-year lease, his prospects in farming are unclear.

“I want to farm, always have done,” he said. “It’s what I’ve studied and put most of my life’s work into so far. In a few years ‘time we may not have land to farm at all.”

In fact, the Liveseys are strong believers in the tenancy system and would be willing to sign an agreement with their landlord to say that they would not buy the land from them if it meant they could stay on the land long term.

“The tenancy system in the past has allowed people with wealth to allow people with guts and determination and skill to make the best of their asset,” said Rob. “If you’re a tenant farmer and you believe in the tenant system your farm should remain in the tenanted system.

“A lot of the most vocal people in the land reform debate were tenants that now own land they have bought from the landlord that was bullied into selling to them. This has scared landlords into renting out more land making it much tougher for rest of us.”

He predicts a difficult future for tenant farms, despite the fact that the land reform was well-intended.

But it’s not just the right to buy rule that has reduced land availability. The rise in renewable energy popularity in the shape of anaerobic digesters (AD) adds to the demand for land.

“There is a short-term threat here with access to straw and land,” Rob said. “If an AD plant is getting a renewable energy subsidy from the government it shouldn’t also be getting farm support. It’s getting double subsidy. At the current level of tariff it clearly isn’t needed.

“They should be getting more of the payment from the market. It’s out of kilter just now, the feed-in tariffs are overly generous.”

Record prices

The Liveseys are proud to have been the first monitor farm in Scotland, back in the early noughties. They are currently breeding pedigree Saler cattle, bulling 100 females this year to calve in April. They sell as many breeding cattle as possible and select for the best maternal traits available. In fact, this year they won the overall breed champion with an in-calf heifer at the Yorkshire show.

“We got the top price of £11,000 in Castle Douglas last year but it was beaten by February 2017,” Rob said. They sell eight to 10 bulls per year at over £4,000.

The calves are left on their mothers as long as possible. Using no creep, the liveweight gain this year for bulls is 1.4kg/day, steers at 1.2kg/day and heifers at 1.1kg/day.

“The cattle are housed in November and we wean them in early December on a total mixed ration,” said Iain. “We want the cattle to grow 0.75kg/day in winter. About 90% of the heifers are over 400kg by mating in mid-June and they calve at two years of age. The heifers calve in six weeks and the rest of the cows are bulled for nine weeks.”

Land use

However getting the best possible use out of the land at calving time is hampered by greening rules, they said.

“We have 12 hectares of greening in the form of grass fallow that we can’t use at lambing time,” said Rob. The farm lambs 1,000 Scotch mules in April.

“The land that we have all the overheads on, we have no income off and no use of it for six months of the year. That means that we then have to go and rent some additional land to cover us for all the grass we’d like to have in the spring.”

The Liveseys called for a more meaningful and integrated system that would work better on Scottish farms.

“If the government was to look at it and say ‘instead of me having 30 hectares of ecological focus areas, why don’t they ask us to do 3ha of woodland’,” Rob asks. “Nothing really grows in Scotland until mid-March. At least if we could winter some sheep on that land we would have some use for it. I can understand the merit of not having stock on it during the growing period so that the birds can nest within it, but for three months of that time it’s doing absolutely nothing at all.”

They are currently introducing Aberfield cross ewes to Firth farm in order to improve the carcase. As many lambs as possible are finished on grass, while the tail-end of 400 lambs go to a nearby dairy farm. Firth farm grows 50 hectares of cereals, barley and wheat which is urea-treated for feeding to sheep and cattle. They also buy in 4t of soya for the ewes. Protein in the form of dark grains is fed with urea wheat and barley to the calves in November and December but no grains are fed from approximately one month before they are turned out of the sheds.

They also buy in 60 Saler Luing crosses from Mull each year, selling the bullocks as strong stores and the heifers for breeding.

Firth farm has got Johnes 1 status, but in terms of welfare the potential re-introduction of Lynx to the area is a worry for the Liveseys.

“There’s a huge belt of land in the north of England and south of Scotland in to Dumfries and Galloway which they [Lynx] could live in and not be seen until they come out to feed on sheep,” Rob said. “It seems completely immoral that livelihoods of farmers should be put under threat by these kind of daft ideas for no benefit whatsoever only to harm those struggling to make a living. Farms right in to the hills are under a lot of pressure economically and to add this threat on to the worries they already have seems completely unjustified.”