Farming Partners, based near Dumfries in south west Scotland, has grown from a 300-cow herd to nine dairy farms in Scotland and Ireland, and now one in New Zealand. It also has a youngstock rearing unit serving three of the herds.
The business was set up in 2011 by Brendan and Maureen Muldowney in partnership with Richard Beattie and his family. The Muldowneys had careers in banking and Richard also has a strong business background, but they all came from farming families, and they have used these assets to drive both the Farming Partners business and the people in it.
“The concept is based on the share milking model in New Zealand, and we saw a real opportunity to do something similar here in the UK,” explains Brendan. “It gives our team the drive to quickly reach management level if they want to and to grow their own business within a business.”
Farming Partners connects farm owners who don’t want to run the farm day to day with driven young people eager to build their careers in farming but lacking the capital or family farm to do so independently.
It provides the people, expertise and the cows; the landowner provides the land and infrastructure, and the profit is shared accordingly. When someone reaches farm manager level they can buy equity in the herd.
Brendan’s background in banking means he can support the farm managers with advice and insights on budgeting and how to get finance to build up their own stake in the herd. The farm manager then receives a profit proportional to the number of cows they own, which is another incentive to make their business run well.
All the dairy farms, which range in size from 330 to 700 cows, are on spring-calving, grass-based systems which produce milk with high protein and fat solids. The nine units are run by 30 full-time staff and 12-15 temporary staff employed for calving.
Ted Dempsey has just taken over the latest addition to the Farming Partners portfolio as farm manager after five seasons with the business. It started with a 12-week placement for calving with Farming Partners while studying at University College Dublin. He was planning to head to New Zealand after college, as he knew there was not room for him on his own family farm in County Wexford, but an opportunity came up on Farming Partners’ youngstock unit.
“I thought I’d make some money and then go abroad, but one opportunity led to another and I never got any further,” he explains. “After two years I wanted to go back to dairy from the youngstock rearing, so I went to manage the 400-cow herd at Shawsholm Farm. I used savings from my salary and borrowed money to buy 40 cows in the herd, and a year later another 40 cows. I’d like to continue to grow my equity within the business and achieve a level of financial freedom through dairy farming, doing what I love.”
As he moves to manage the newest addition to Farming Partners, a 600- cow herd on what was a beef unit and has been converted to dairy, he looks forward to investing further.
“The support network of Farming Partners has been amazing, and they have such a focus on people,” he says. “Both the skills I’ve gained and the opportunities are so different, and it’s exciting to be part of an ambitious and growing business. Farming Partners removes the glass ceiling: I can see where the opportunity is to grow and develop, and to have skin in the game.”
The arrangement suits many landowners who are working elsewhere or semi retiring and need a good skilled team with the expertise to run a profitable farming business, without having to be involved in the daily work.
Dumfriesshire farmer John Mackie joined Farming Partners in January 2022 as a landowner partner. “I was looking at retirement and succession planning, and this offered an ideal solution to continue farming, profitably, by bringing in a professional team of farmers to run the dairy unit,” he says. “I stopped dairying in 2007, and contract reared heifers for 15 years; I was keen to return to producing milk but didn’t have the resource to do it on my own. The partnership has been ideal for keeping the farm functioning and profitable, and the young team has brought great energy to the business.”
The farm is now a 500-cow unit over 160ha, with four members of staff - a manager, second-incommand and two further staff. John has a monthly meeting with Farming Partners to update on the business and the financials. The organisation won’t take on every farm; they need to suit the spring block-calving system for profitable, simple, milk production. And for Ted, the training and development culture makes it more than ‘just a job’. “Unless you develop and grow, it becomes like any other labour. Farming Partners is constantly growing and is a hungry beast so you’re not going to stand still,” he says. Being part of a collective is also great for sharing experiences and ‘housekeeping’, allowing each farm to work independently, but not alone.
Maureen, who is the ‘people’ part of the business, has seen the benefits of ongoing training, as well as encouraging on-farm mentoring to strengthen the business and retain people.
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The scale of the business allows them to have a structured bank of training to constantly develop hard skills, from quad bike training and foot trimming to developing the softer skillsets for people and people management, communication and human resources. The business also has links with various experienced business consultants, on which farm managers can lean for advice as and when needed.
“Our people are our focus, and the main driver to add more farms is to support our current team looking for the next step,” says Maureen. “But it doesn’t matter what level you want to reach – management is not for everyone – and we’ll support our team to develop so they and the business are both in a strong place and making money.”
