Having found their niche, new entrant couple Tom and Faye Phillips are going from strength to strength. Hayley Chapman finds out more.
There is nothing better than seeing a first-generation farmer break into agriculture and succeed, even more so when their farming business expands and diversifies, giving others an opportunity to experience and work in the industry too.
Tom Phillips knew he wanted to farm from a very young age, but there was not a farm in the family, so he was going to have to find his own way in.
After a few years at Harper Adams, with an agriculture and mechanisation degree under his belt, he started out contracting before he managed to secure his first 121-hectare (300-acre) tenancy in 2011.
Together with his wife Faye, he is now farming 20ha (500 acres) of arable and 8ha (200 acres) of grassland in Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire, with a thriving pick-your-own (PYO) diversification.
Alongside two Farm Business Tenancies and a contract farming agreement, they have a number of grazing licences, on which they run a breeding sheep enterprise.
This year, they lambed 200 ewes, predominantly North Country Mules with a few Zwartbles in the mix, put to a Charollais tup. All lambs are sold deadweight through a local collection centre.
Across the two main blocks of arable land, which are 10 minutes apart by road, they harvested oilseed rape, spring barley, winter wheat and winter beans this year.
Tom says: It is heavy ground and it had been robbed [of nutrients] before we took it on it has taken a long time to build soil fertility."
He is hungry for more arable land and keen to expand the flock, but with land hard to come by, the couple knew they had to try something else to make the system work.
We explained to our landlord that we needed to diversify to pay the bills and they have been very supportive, says Tom.
The PYO idea was inspired by a university friend of Toms in another part of the country, who suggested they give pumpkins a go.
So, in 2018 they planted 500 pumpkin plants and in the autumn they flung open the farm gates and sold every single pumpkin from their trailer.
Lillingstone PYO was founded and after a second sellout year on the pumpkins, they introduced a maize maze to the farm in their third year.
In year four of the diversification, they went all in with PYO strawberries, sunflowers, cut flowers and Christmas trees.
Faye remembers that year as tough going, particularly as they do not live on-site and there were no buildings suitable for the PYO to run from, so they took trailers and gazebos there every morning.
It was back-breaking it was like setting up and packing down from a village fete every day, and there werent many of us, she says.
They have now committed 6ha (15 acres) to the PYO business, including a play patch for children and converting a barn for undercover seating and a shop area.
Social media has been a huge driver of footfall and Covid-19 helped visitor numbers because families were keen for a day out in the fresh air.
The pandemic also made the concept of booking tickets in advance mainstream, which is very useful to Lillingstone, because they have an idea of their busiest times.
We will try and keep the booking system unless it becomes a competitive disadvantage, because it helps us spread people out and give them a better experience, says Tom.
The only time we do not have bookings is for strawberries because we do not want people booking if we do not have enough fruit - you end up with disappointed children.
Navigating a completely new sector has not been without its challenges, especially with different agronomy for soft fruit compared to combinable crops, and the great British weather.
There have been unexpected numbers of cars on a very wet field, panicked calls to the agronomist at midnight about failing sunflowers and the UKs hottest day on record.
Planning rotations that work for the crops but also keep everything close to the car park has also been difficult at times.
Building a strong network of staff, helpers and other businesses has been key to making it all work.
Tom says: I am not very creative, so we have been lucky to get a lot of help from friends of ours who run a landscaping business.
They help us plan and manage the maize maze and the cut flower garden and we have borrowed equipment from them like lighter, compact tractors.
My Dad used to run a motor garage, so he is very helpful when it comes to running a business. He is very good at paperwork, which I can tend to leave in favour of spraying or weaning lambs.
They have also filled their skills gap by getting help from friends with branding, photography and marketing all pivotal to an attraction for the general public.
Rather than doing everything in house, especially because sourcing labour can be tricky and such a massive cost, they have chosen to collaborate with other local businesses to expand their offering to customers.
A local cafe provides refreshments from a converted horse trailer and another nearby farm-based business brings Shetland ponies to the farm for children to ride.
Collaboration is something Tom has always done on his farming journey, sharing labour and machinery to keep costs down.
The couple have a young son, Ruben, with another baby on the way, and Faye also teaches part-time in the local city Milton Keynes, where she grew up.
The PYO work often means working evenings and weekends and roping in friends and family, but they clearly have a good work ethic in their blood.
Tom describes his parents, who are very hands on with the business, as grafters and Fayes grandfather, who lived until nearly 100, said the secret to a long life was to keep busy.
Faye says: I think a lot of people would think what we did in the first few years [took a lot] of effort, but we are passionate about farming and want to make it work.
Learning to let go has been hard for Tom who has now had to delegate some of the arable work to a self-employed farmworker in order to free up time for the PYO.
Tom says: We have got quite a few self-employed people we can call on to help, which is good. We have got one really good guy who does all the spraying and my dad does the baling now.
Our kit is quite well suited to our acreage, so that we can get on. We have not got weeks of drilling we have a four-metre Vaderstadt, so if we want to get on, we can crack on.
The plan is to grow in line with customer demand. They would like to expand on the fruit picking by adding more varieties and expanding to larger acreage, but without getting too big too fast and losing the personal touch.
We need to expand the PYO from a profit point of view. I do not want it to become like a theme park though, I want it to stay personal and educational, says Tom, who tries to meet and greet on the gate as much as possible.
Faye, who has taught at primary schools for more than 10 years, is passionate about educating children when they come to Lillingstone.
In addition to bringing people on-farm for the PYO, as part of their Mid-Tier agreement, they have now signed up for educational access visits.
Working in a city and as a mum, I can really see the difference between farm life and the life of city children.
We recently did some training at school and learned that a lot of children only have one to two hours outside each day, she says.
The team does talks about agriculture on their tractor and trailer rides, has educational boards around the livestock pens and nature trails and hosts an Easter event to bring people onto the farm at lambing time.
We are now seeing repeat customers who come to each event and see the whole cycle on the farm and that is a good opportunity to explain what we do, says Tom.
We want to keep improving things, so people can come back year after year and not get bored.
Farm facts
- 211 hectares (520 acres) on Farm Business Tenancies and contract farmed, with additional land on grazing licences.
- 182ha (450 acres) of combinable crops.
- 200-head commercial flock mainly North Country Mules with some Zwartbles ewes.
- Mid-Tier Countryside Stewardship agreement.
- 6ha (15 acres) dedicated to diversification Lillingstone Pick Your Own.
- Diversification business brings public on-farm for lambing, strawberry picking, maize maze, sunflowers, pumpkins and Christmas trees.
