On Your Farm - 20/12/2009

Adam Henson visits Hunmanby Grange Farm on the Yorkshire Wolds, a 600-acre arable farm with 2,000 hens producing freedom foods accredited eggs. In 2002, owners Tom and Gill Mellor decided that, with the drop in cereal prices, the farm wouldn't survive as a family business without diversification. Using water from their own bore-hole and barley from the farm, they started a brewery which now produces up to 13,000 award-winning pints of ale a year sold throughout the region. It is a story about seeing the writing on the wall and then doing something unique to their location to survive and prosper. Both the hen farming and brewery employ local people, as does the farm. The programme highlights the choices many farmers face today to ensure the survival and future prosperity of a family farm.