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Opinion: "Paul Slater reminded me how underrated commercial farming is as a career"

Writing from his family鈥檚 farm in Cumbria, Farmers Guardian online content specialist Tom Ryder reflects on why commercial sheep farming deserves greater recognition and what young farmers can learn from the Whiteley Hey flock

Tom Ryder
clock 鈥� 2 min read
Opinion: "Paul Slater reminded me how underrated commercial farming is as a career"

Other than a couple of free-range lambs who seem to think every fenced field is nothing more than an escape room, this week on the farm has been fairly steady.

And that is OK. Not every week is going to be full of exciting anecdotes. That is the reality of farming.

But one thing which has excited me this week is the release of the latest episode of For Flock's Sake.

Ellie Layton and I sat down with Paul and Claire Slater from Cheshire. The two are commercial sheep farmers behind one of the country's leading flocks, the Whiteley Hey flock.

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Commercial farming deserves more recognition

Young people wanting to enter livestock farming often assume success looks like bagging a bucket full of rosettes, having a famous prefix and selling pedigree stock for record prices.

But sometimes I think commercial farming does not get enough credit.

I think some of the best stockpeople in the UK are our commercial farmers, and Paul Slater is a tremendous example of that.

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What commercial success looks like

Paul makes decisions on thousands of sheep, breeding for profitability and constantly keeping one eye on margins. It is a level of stockmanship which requires him to get far more right than he gets wrong, proven by the fact he sells hundreds of breeding tups every year with a consistency and type throughout.

His outlook is also that he does not need the spotlight to succeed, and that showing, for example, has never been something which has massively appealed to him.

One of the best things he said was that he is more than happy to sell stock to other people who then go on to win the shows with them or with that breeding line.

If you are thinking about a career in sheep farming, do not overlook commercial flocks.

There is a huge amount to learn from the people who quietly produce breeding stock without necessarily standing in the spotlight.

If you manage to do it to the level, and for as long, as the Whiteley Hey flock has, the recognition tends to follow anyway.

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