A Welsh beef finisher is demonstrating that making structured progress towards net zero is achievable in an intensive farming system.

Dylan Jones, who farms on Anglesey in partnership with his father, Wyn, has introduced a series of changes that have increased meat production, shaved an average of 31 days from the finishing period, made the business entirely self-sufficient in feed and significantly reduced chemical nitrogen (N) usage.

These measures in combination has enabled Castellior to achieve a carbon footprint of 3.9kg CO2 per kilogram (kg) beef liveweight (LW) compared to the national average in Wales of 11-16 Co2/kg LW.

Achieving this has involved a complete revamp of the system the Jones’ had in place in 2016.

At that point they were finishing 700 cattle a year, lambing 900 Suffolk mules and growing 51ha (125 acres) of barley, buying in the remainder of the feed for the total mixed ration (TMR).

Fast forward eight years and the breeding ewes have been sold to free up land to increase barley acreage to 134ha, 1,500 cattle are finished annually and short term grass leys are reseeded with red clover, making the business much less reliant on bagged N.

That journey started with a comment made by a group of farmers visiting Castellior, questioning whether such an intensive system could ever reach net zero.

“It was the prompt I needed for making changes because I could see that the public’s expectations on environmental standards in food production were changing, it was something I knew I had to tackle,’’ Dylan recalls.

Funding available in his role as a Farming Connect focus farm for a carbon audit was his starting point.

 “I knew that the system we had in place was a long way from hitting net zero,’’ says Dylan.

But he had a clear vision of how he could achieve that, with the sale of the breeding ewes the first step. “If I was going to make the farm self-sufficient in feed I had to forfeit the sheep.’’

Sheep have not been removed from the farm entirely though as some are needed as a winter grazing tool.

Up to 600 ewe lambs are therefore bought annually in the autumn and sold as yearlings the following spring.

The sale of the breeding flock left a gap in the annual output of 1,500 fat lambs so cattle numbers were increased, not only to generate income but to provide a mass of manure to replace purchased N.

Dairy cross stores are bought at 18-24 months from auctions and from private sales across north Wales, with 1,500 a year finished.

“By selling the sheep and increasing cattle numbers we have doubled our output of meat per hectare and therefore our efficiency,’’ says Dylan.

Days-to-slaughter have reduced from 130 days to 99 days with an average daily liveweight gain (DLWG) of 1.7kg targeted.

This has been achieved through a number of measures, including the weekly weighing of 150 cattle and the use of technology to monitor growth.

Dylan supplies his buyer, ABP, with 120-150 cattle a month at a liveweight of 620-630kg to produce a 310-320kg carcass.

As well as genetics and cattle health, the quality of feed that goes into the TMR is critical to performance.

As well as growing 134ha of barley and 10ha of peas, Dylan has switched from a seven-year grass reseeding rotation to two or three years, growing vigorous red clover, Westerwolds and hybrids.

“If I could choose one plant to credit for where we are today with our carbon footprint - it is red clover, it is an absolutely monster of a crop that that helps us work towards our goals and it has allowed us to half our N use,’’ he says.

Silaging is multi-cut with five cuts a year every six to eight weeks, the first in mid-March. Thanks to red clover’s N fixing properties the first three crops are grown without chemical N; 120kg/ha is applied to the leys for the fourth and fifth cuts.

In 2023, first cut grass silage analysed at 10.7ME MJ/kg and a crude protein of 14.9%.

All work is done in-house with no contractors used across the business.  “We need the best forage possible so I like having control over that,’’ says Dylan.

The system Dylan has now is very different from the one he had in place in 2016. “Making that phone call to Farming Connect was a key moment, I threw myself in at the deep end when I made that call so I had to start swimming. I have a lot to thank Farming Connect for.’’

He is now involved in the Our Farms Network in the current Farming Connect programme to showcase how his system has developed further since that initial project work.