Producing food means planning for the things you can control and being ready for plenty you can’t. Harriet and Ben Lowe run a pig and arable business shaped by the seasons, weather and markets.
Since establishing HB Farms in 2019, Harriet and Ben have run their farm with 450 sows and 1,200 acres of crops, supported by seven full-time employees. The Lowe’s run a circular operation, with their own grain grown to feed the pigs, renewable energy from neighbouring solar panels and pig manure which returns nutrients to the land that grows their grain.
“We’re able to produce good food on good land and anything that is below standard, we give it back to nature,” Ben says. The system is something they pride themselves on, alongside high animal welfare and quality food production. However, competition from imports produced to lower standards has created an uneven playing field, undermining the work that goes into their own produce.
If Scotland loses viable farms, greater reliance on imports would not be the only consequence. It would also lose some of its capacity to produce food in the first place.
Beyond food, Ben says Scotland would lose much more. “The people.”
Amongst challenging conditions within the pig sector at current, Harriet says that the resilience within the industry often goes unseen. The pair see that resilience in the people around them, like their tractor driver Craig who can work seven days a week to make the most of limited weather windows for harvest. Or their pig manager Alistair who has worked at the farm for 29 years.
For Harriet and Ben, protecting the productive capacity requires the same long-term thinking that farming demands. With their return on investment often being one percent, Ben says they “have to be in it for the long run”. Their message to politicians is to visit them on farm and adopt that same long-term thinking.
“Policies come and go but farming is always steadfast. We’re so heavily dictated by what policy and government says. It’s really crucial that they look into the future, not just five ten years,” Harriet says.