Farm of the week: Young man chooses the outdoor life for future

Long hours, hard work, volatile markets, high overheads, the Great British weather – it is little wonder that farming is struggling to attract youngsters who have become increasingly disconnected from both food production and the great outdoors in recent years.

However, one young man in North Yorkshire is very much standing out from the crowd. Gareth Barlow, 20, bought his first sheep at the age of 16 and now tends a flock which he keeps on a number of fields in around his hometown of Bulmer, on the Castle Howard Estate.

Most teenagers have to be dragged away from their games consoles and televisions.

However at the age of 16, Mr Barlow decided to sell his PlayStation and instead invested his money in sheep.

Quickly picking up the skills and expertise needed he now has a decent-sized flock of Hebridean Sheep from which he supplies lamb to a growing customer base.

Among those he supplies are a Michelin starred chef and Mr Barlow is intent on developing his client list even further.

What makes his story even more remarkable is that neither of his parents are from farming backgrounds, with his father working in information technology and his mother in marketing.

His love of farming stems back to his very early childhood when he would embark on family holidays in Kirkby Lonsdale where friends of theirs own a farm.

The upland farm, home to a sizeable flock of sheep, allowed Mr Barlow his first experience of sitting on a tractor and tending animals. It hooked him forever.

"I always wanted to get back there after we got home," he said.

"People would say that there is no money in it or no future but once you have decided that is what you want to do there is no real going back.

"I have no real farming background, no link to farming at all apart from a few friends at school who lived on farms."

As a child he would read the farming press rather than comics like his friends.

Mr Barlow studied at St Peter's School in York until 2008. After achieving good grades he won a place to study zoology at Durham University. Like so many youngster of his generation with academic skills he decided to take up higher education and selected his course on the rationale that the study of animals would keep him within touching distance of his true calling of being a farmer.

However, after being stuck in lecture halls and labs he soon began to realise that the course of study was not to his taste and that he was moving away from his true vocation.

After his first year he informed his tutors that he would be leaving and returned to his parents' home in North Yorkshire.

Far from being a stereotypical university drop out though, he immediately set to work on establishing himself as a farmer,

Convinced he need to get more practical hands-on experience he took a job as a part-time trainee butcher at the nearby Castle Howard farm shop.

It was from here that he began to develop contacts and relationships that would provide for his entry into farming.

Determined to make a start in the industry he wrote to farmers all over the country, including the Prince of Wales, asking for a chance to work on his Duchy of Cornwall farm. Displaying the tenacity and indefatigability that all farmers need, he kept writing to him until he received a response asking him to come and work for a few weeks. Such was the quality of his work that the prince's farm manager asked him to return the following summer, for two months-worth of paid work.

Needing fields to house the flock he persuaded a family in his village to let him use a disused paddock of theirs. His mother and father picked up their pitchforks and joined their son in clearing the site to remove the foliage to leave a decent grass field for his flock.

The expertise he had gleaned from all of his experiences and talks with farmers around the country however could not prepare him for his first experience of lambing.

Having to call out the vet meant that the young teenager found himself more than 200 out of pocket after one of the births ran into difficulty.

Displaying a work ethic beyond that of the average 20-year-old, he gets up each day before 6am to check on his flock before heading into work at the butchery. After finishing, he again checks on his flock.

Any cash he gets from the business goes into buying new stock. He has aspirations of getting his own plot of land but at he moment is concentrating on establishing his flock.

He busies himself by selling his high quality lamb from both the Castle Howard farm shop and to a number of customers, including Andrew Pern at the Star Inn at Harome.

The meat comes from a flock of Hebridean sheep he runs, having developed a strong bond with the breed.

He said: "I saw some at the Great Yorkshire Show. In the back of my mind they must have made a lasting impression as I went on to keep them. They are a very hardy and resilient breed.

"I go to people to whom I think I can sell – I would not charge around all day to make a loss."

Displaying keen business sense as well as a deep love of agriculture, Mr Barlow is also acutely aware of the shortage of people his own age involved in farming.

Out of a sense of duty he recently attended an event at the Great Yorkshire Showground designed to entice people into farming as a career and spent the day going through the depth and breadth of opportunities that farming can present.

"Society as a whole needs to support anyone who wants to become a farmer," he said. "Our population is growing and they will need food."