Gareth Taylor, Kircubbin writes:

I was brought up on a dairy farm on the Ards peninsula and for as long as I can remember I wanted to be a farmer.  Like many farms, as I was growing up, there were always changes and one of my earliest memories is of a new parlour being installed in 1984 when I was eight. At that time we ran a beef unit in addition to the 120 dairy cows.

After completing my GCSEs I enrolled in the National Certificate in Agriculture at Greenmount College and subsequently enrolled on the College Diploma.  Both courses enhanced and developed my knowledge of agriculture and added to the practical skills I had learned at home on our farm.  During my time at Greenmount we were taken on many farm visits including one to Scotland. This in particular demonstrated to me a new scale of farming and presented many new ideas.

On the completion of my studies in 1995 I returned home and gradually started to increase the dairy cow numbers and decrease the size and volume of the beef unit.  In 2006 I started Glastry Farm Ice Cream as a means of adding value to the milk I already produced. I started with six varieties including Vanilla, Honeycomb and Chocolate and now this has increased to 16, including Berry Berry, Lavender & Honey and Raspberry & Ginger.   

The Ice Cream has proved to be very successful and the farm now supplies  local restaurants, the Centra chain, Musgrave and Hendersons Food Service.

Today I farm 350 acres and the dairy unit has been increased to 250 cows. I  recently built a new slurry store and used the New Entrants Scheme to help build a shed over the tank to house the increased cow numbers.

I am still as enthusiastic about farming as I was when I was eight and would encourage young people thinking of a career in agriculture to consider a course at Greenmount. The knowledge and skills I gained there certainly helped me focus on the direction in which I wanted to take the farm business.  

Gareth in the new cow shed funded by Farm Nutrient management and the New Entrants Scheme

Gareth outside the production unit for Glastry Farm Ice Cream