Key Role In U.K. Farm Enterprise

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31304, 25 February 1967, Page 8

Key Role In U.K. Farm Enterprise

In 1942 the New Zealand Government sent six men to Britain on loan to help the Ministry of Agriculture with its war-time agricultural production effort. Among these was one, Mr A. A. Copland, a Canterbury farmer’s son and graduate of Lincoln College, who has since played a key role in the management of a number of properties in Britain formerly owned by the late Lord Beaverbrook.

The story of Mr A. A. Copland in the last 25 years reads almost like a modern fairy tale, with the exception that it is no fairy story. The son of the late Mr Alexander Copland, of Brookfield, St. Andrews, South Canterbury, Mr Copland comes from a family of notable stockmasters and proficient farmers.

The original Coplands—one his grandfather and the other a twin brother of his grandfather—came off hard country north of Aberdeen in Scotland and their farming descendants are now spread over the South Island from Canterbury to Southland.

Mr Copland himself is an old boy of Timaru Boys’ High School, and went to Canterbury College and then Lincoln College. His studies at Lincoln were interrupted by the death of his father and the need to return home, but he completed his master of agricultural science degree with first class honours in economics while an officer of the Department of Agriculture stationed at Temuka. There from about 1939 to 1941 he acted as a liaison officer between the engineers of the Public Works Department and farmers at a time when the irrigation schemes were being initiated in MidCanterbury and on the Levels.

Mr Copland does not know with any certainty just how Lord Beaverbrook, then Minister of Aircraft Production in the British Government, came to hear about him. When he arrived in England he was not completely happy in his new role with the British Ministry of Agriculture.

He did not find that it allowed him to use the initiative and personal judgment that he had been trained to apply to farming problems and farming advice. But for all of that he acknowledges that it was a wonderful experience and enabled him to see how the British farm advisory services worked and to assess their strengths and weaknesses. Farm Visit The real story of Mr Copland, however, starts about the end of 1943 when he received a telephone call asking him to go to see Lord Beaverbrook at a farm in Somerset, called Cricket Malherbie, on a Sunday afternoon. Mr Copland remembers the occasion well. As well as Lord Beaverbrook there were also there Sir William Rootes, the motor magnate, and Mr A. B. Alexander, later to become Viscount Alexander. There was talk on the lawn for two hours and then Lord Beaverbrook invited Mr Copland to go inside for a drink. Lord Beaverbrook asked him whether he would come to work for him. Mr Copland agreed subject to his release by the New Zealand Government—he had almost on the spur of the moment to decide whether he would join Beaverbrook with all the uncertainties that this was bound to involve or remain with the Ministry.

Beaverbrook sent off a cable to Mr Eraser, who was the New Zealand Prime Minister at the time, and duly Beaverbrook notified Mr Copland of his release on leave of absence for five years and within 48 hours the New Zealander had made the first purchase of a farm for Beaverbrook—it was a derelict farm in Somerset called Stowey Court. Actually the farm where Copland and Beaverbrook first met on the Sunday afternoon was Beaverbrook’s first purchase and that day Beaverbrook was seeing it for the first time—it had been purchased without him actu-

ally having seen It. Why did Lord Beaverbrook want to go into farming? Mr Copland says that he was a farmer at heart His grandfather had been a crofter and he was deeply Interested in British agriculture and had a deep understanding of it. But further more he wanted to find out for himself about farming. He wanted to know what money invested in farming would return and whether it was a worthwhile investment Mr Copland’s job was to report to him and keep him informed on these matters. “I would go so far as to say that he and his newspapers were the best friends that the British farmer aqd farm worker have ever had,” said Mr Copland. The young New Zealander freely admitted to Beaverbrook on joining him that he had little knowledge of British agriculture and of land values and inquired whom he might wish to advise them. Beaverbrook replied that together they might make mistakes but they must not make them a second time.

Mr Copland saw that what would be best for Beaverbrook and also himself, as his whole future would be wound up with the success or failure of this enterprise, was that Beaverbrook’s farming propositions should be run on thoroughly commercial lines. This was in contrast to the position in many cases at the time when, under the taxation system then operating, many wealthy people spent a great deal of money very foolishly at the expense of the taxpayer. And so the build-up of Beaverbrook properties went on. At one stage there were 15 farms in the chain. Now there are 12 and a forestry unit. Three farms in Cornwall were sold simply because of the difficulty of reaching them in the summer with the great volume of traffic on the roads. The enterprise today goes under the name of Cricket Malherbie, Ltd. It is a private company which is tenant of the land which is now owned by Sir Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook’s son and now chairman of Beaverbrook’s newspaper interests. Of the 2500 acres they hold some 2200 acres are effective farming acres. Every morning now 850 cows are milked on

these properties. In the next year the number will reach 1000. Some 400 acres of mainly wheat and barley are grown, all of which is consumed on the farms as feed, and a lot more feed has to be brought in as well. There are some 400 head of dry stock on the properties and upwards of 5000 pigs are fattened every year. There is also a fair acreage in potatoes. The enterprise has one of the first Charolais herds in the United Kingdom and some years ago they were the first to bring in Polled Devon cattle from the United States. Now the trend of operations of Cricket Malherbie, Ltd., has taken a rather unusual course for a farming enterprise. “We are farmers and we are trying to do the farming job as well as we can but we have integrated our business so as to sell the produce of our farms to the housewife — we are trying to get as near as possible to the housewife,” says Mr Copland.

Here the story again returns to Lord Beaverbrook. Beaverbrook and his New Zealand farming adviser were talking. It was about 15 years ago. Mr Copland was saying that many people felt that they would always be faced with scarcities of foodstuffs but the New Zealander suggested that rather they were on the verge of an era of surplus—he knew that from the application of improved farming in New Zealand a tremendously increased volume of foodstuffs would be coming from this country and that as well a revolution was taking place in British farming.

“Best Security”

Beaverbrook looked at Copland and asked him what he was going to do about it. Copland said he was concerned about it but he did not know just how to deal with it Beaverbrook tapped him on his leg and commented: “I will tell you what Is the best security we have got in the world. That is the British housewife.” Copland took the cue. He interpreted Beaverbrook’s words as a message to “get out and sell.” Straight away he ordered a milk float and some hand bottling machines and sent the float into Illminster and sold 2} gallons of whole milk to the housewives. Today they have 60 to 70 milk selling rounds. At the same time he also looked at the manufacturing side and they started Into what is known as farmhouse cheese making.

Today Cricket Malherbie retail 6000 gallons of milk every morning. Much of this has to be bought in. They also make another 5000 gallons of milk Into cheese every morning at their three farmhouse cheese making plants. On the milk selling rounds cheese, butter, eggs and fruit juices are also sold. Turnover is now running at £1.3 million per year and just on 200 persons are employed.

And the end is not yet in sight Mr Copland has in mind establishing a farm shop with an acre of parking space on Stowey Court. If the authorities will permit him there will be a petrol bowser or two also. The aim will be a continuation of the theme of selling farm fresh produce direct to the consumer.

As a former New Zealander Mr Copland thinks that this all may have a moral for the New Zealand farmer too. He says: “I think that the New Zealand farmer is immensely capable as a producer. No one can touch him at his own job, but I think that he seems to forget the selling side. I am nbt saying, by this, that the marketing boards are not doing a good job. But I think that the man who will become most important in the future is the salesman. You have got to go out and sell your wonderful New Zealand produce. I am not going to tell you what to do but I do know that you have got to sell it and that you have got tremendous problems coming up. This is the lesson that I have applied to our business. It is not easy to sell anything as we have got a great many competitors. It is the salesman that I go for. He is the man that I would give preference to and rewards, provided of course that he can earn them.” In show competition the produce and stock from the farms have an enviable record. Farm cheddar has won every major championship in the United Kingdom. They have won the championship for farmhouse Cheddar at the London daily show for the last two years in succession. On one occasion they also took the championship for the best cheese of any type. When they were breeding Devon cattle they won championships three times at the Royal show and with a Devon for the first time they won the baby steer Championship for all breeds at the Birmingham fat stock show. On several occasions they have also topped the United Kingdom for the highest three-year average milk production with Ayrshire cows. Stock has been sent overseas, including a Guernsey bull and two heifers to New Zealand.