Producing milk sustainably with grazed grass and forage is central to the farming system at a Carmarthenshire dairy farm.

Total production of the spring-calving herd at Llwynmendy Farm, Llandeilo, is 6,400 litres a cow, and 68 per cent comes from forage.

The Harrieses took on the farm in 2016 when Rachel’s father, Meirion, stepped back from farming. Prior to that, Rheinallt had leased a farm at Trelech in partnership with another farmer.

Llwynmendy Farm had been run as a dairy and sheep farm but there had been little reseeding for several years so it offered the Harries’ an opportunity to create a grassland system that suited the needs of their 165-cow herd.

Since 2017, 73 per cent of the 40 hectare (ha) grazing platform has been reseeded, mostly with late heading high sugar diploid varieties.

Strong emphasis is placed on growing good-quality silage – the aim is to take four cuts of silage a year with the first crop harvested in the first week of May.

The multi-cut approach has benefitted silage quality and ultimately milk yield.

“It has been a big factor in the yield increasing in the autumn when the milk price is higher,’’ says Rheinallt.

The 2021 first cut analysed at 12.1 per cent ME, 13 per cent protein, 38 per cent dry matter (DM) and a D value of 75.

Rheinallt hopes that by improving the quality of silage and grazed grass, annual concentrate use can be reduced from 1.4 tonnes a cow to 1.2 tonnes.

Key to achieving this is growing and using more grass, by improving soil biology.

The Harries’ are keen to explore more sustainable methods of farming, and in 2021 they reduced nitrogen inputs from 210kg/ha to 180kg/ha without compromising growth on the grazing platform. This year the target is 170kg/ha.

“It is one of the measures we will have to comply with through the NVZ regulations so we thought we would aim to achieve it before we had to,’’ Rheinallt reasons.

“We hope we can meet the needs of the environment and still grow 12tDM/ha.’’

Great grassland management is at the heart of the system.

Rheinallt operates a rotational grazing system with the grazing round length varying from 18-21 days and with a final grazing round of 60-plus days.

The mixed herd of mostly New Zealand Friesians with 20 per cent Jersey-crosses and Holsteins was established from scratch which meant buying cows and heifers from multiple sources to get the required numbers.

This however contributed to a high level of Johne’s in the herd.

The Harries’ have a programme in place to eradicate the disease, marking animals that test positive with red tags and inseminating those to a beef sire, calving them separately from the rest of the herd and not feeding their colostrum or milk to calves.

As Rheinallt looks to the future, he predicts that the phasing out of the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) could provide greater opportunities for new entrants, after a short unsettled period.

But, as many businesses depend on this payment, he suggests that if the government and the public want farmers to farm in a certain way, that has to be paid for.

“We are quite heavily stocked so it will be difficult for us to lose land for public goods but the environment is such a big deal going forward that we have to embrace sustainable agriculture and everything that goes with that.’’

He has already dropped soya from purchased feed.

A wild flower mix has been planted on 0.7ha that is not easily accessible to cows, to provide habitat for wildlife, bees in particular.

The system has been honed since 2016 and since then Rheinallt hasn’t lost any of his early enthusiasm for farming. But neither is he someone to idealise farming.

“It is very easy for people to be romantic about farming but they don’t understand the economics and the pressure we are under from governments, the public and campaign groups.’’

Rheinallt and Rachel have three young children, Noah, Morgan and Faith, and will never pressure any of them to farm.

“Farming takes over your life so you have to enjoy it to do it. The children must work out for themselves if that is the future that they want,’’ says Rheinallt.