STORIES WE LOVE
The plan is what got them their first farm
By Sam Marwood
Story from FarmingUK, 16 July 2026
Every now and then I find a story that shows exactly what we're about at Cultivate Farms: real people finding a way to keep a farm working and bring someone new onto it. I share them here because seeing it done by others makes it real. Here's one I love.
From FarmingUK, 16 July 2026: "Young couple bring cattle back to farm after 22 years", by the FarmingUK Team. Read the full story at farminguk.com.
Why I love it
A couple in their late twenties and early thirties were both raised in farming families and always meant to stay in it. Then the family farm was sold and the way in they'd counted on was gone. They say they never considered not farming, they just had to find another way in.
They found an eighty acre place in Shropshire that had been a dairy and hadn't carried cattle since 2004, and bought it as first time farm buyers. What got them there was the paperwork. Before they settled, they worked with advisers on a three year business plan. The figures had to show the beef herd could stand on its own feet, and they added another income the place could earn, so the lenders could see they were thinking past one enterprise. They went to several before one backed them.
Why it matters for towns like ours
Aspiring farmers often treat the plan as a formality you do once you've found a farm. For this couple the plan was the thing that made the purchase possible. The numbers had to work on paper before anybody would put money behind them, and showing a second string of income is what settled it. They've since brought cattle back onto the place for the first time in more than twenty years, and they're building towards a herd of two hundred.
One step you could take
Build the money side of your plan before you go near a lender: three years of figures the herd or the crop can genuinely carry, plus one other income the place could earn. Then take it to more than one of them. Read the money side of your farm plan in our You Can Own a Farm guide.
I share these stories because each one shows it can be done, by ordinary farming families, in places like yours. If you know a story like this, or you're living one, I'd love to hear it.