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Our farm is one of the smallest in the Falklands, and is no longer viable. Indeed, wool income across the Islands has dropped to around a third of the 1988 levels, which is frightening set against a background of rising costs. The Falkland Islands Government (FIG) is assisting farmers with one or two grants,  the only one that helped us this season being the payment of wool freight as far as Stanley for on-shipping to England...  but cannot continue indefinitely to hold up a sagging industry.

While a few farmers are interpreting the writing on the wall as a sign to quit, perhaps sensibly, the rest of us are trying everything we can think of to stay on our farms. Some are sending more and more beef into town, either overland (on the East) or by sea. Nowadays it is quite normal to see large rather ominous black-plastic-wrapped packages being loaded on the local planes too...

Some Mutton carcasses also travel by air but more normally lambs.

The new abattoir at Sand Bay on East Falkland is operating seasonally and appears to be succeeding, but requires huge subsidies from Government.  Currently I understand there is meat unsold in the chillers, but hopefully that is a temporary thing.

For those with a ready market nearby, i.e. mainly on East Falkland, oven-ready Upland geese are literally fair game. Pigs have proved worthwhile for some, others are considering mushroom units or poultry-rearing schemes; yet others sell knitwear, butter, cream, eggs, home baked goods - in fact anything that might find a cash sale. 

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Our neighbours six miles away at Shallow Harbour have (among other enterprises) a thriving tree nursery and now send young trees all over the Falklands to provide shelter belts for livestock and enhance settlements. They sell beef (on the hoof and off),  hay and oats when available and vegetables, but their main diversification is an import business bringing in a variety of useful things for sale through their shop in Stanley as well as the store in Fox Bay.

Self-catering accommodation is a financial lifeline for those with a spare cottage or cabin to offer to military or local visitors, and grants are available to improve them where need be. Vehicles needed to ferry visitors around can also be purchased with generous assistance. The Islands are a marvellous place for a relaxed holiday, and Camp people are well-known for their hospitality - whether the guest is a paying one or not. (Over the years we have had over a thousand non-paying military visitors here for R & R, and we are not by any means unique.  We've had to stop that, for various reasons...)

 As to our own (paying) diversifications - we have PowerSense - the supply and installation of alternative energy systems - to thank for our survival on the farm, but are now also developing DHF Falklands.  (See also Black Sheep Designs.)   DHF Falklands was and still is to some extent  funded by income from PowerSense,  We have expanded our coloured sheep flock to meet the demand for their wool and I keep extremely busy dyeing our own yarns, tops etc.  We tried our own little shop in town for a year, called Funky Fibres, but had to close due to high costs of staffing and utilities, rent etc.

We do however have major plans for the future, based on a grant awarded by the FCO's Economic Diversity Programme.  In 2005 we applied for funding for a purpose-built craft workshop cum classroom, to be known as the DHF WoolCraft Centre, and this is now nearly complete thanks to a great deal of hard work by Clive who literally built from scratch.

Close to our house here on the farm, the new building which is about 1300 sq. ft  has a dedicated wet room for dyeing and feltmaking, space for our carding, needlefelting and felt rolling machines, and will allow quite large groups of students the space to work. (They will visit us for craft days, from the military base by helicopter, and we hope they will want to return and will also patronise the small shop within the centre.)

We currently have more tops being processed in England, and will get more yarns spun from them to be dyed here on the farm for sale to tourists in town as well as to our students here, we hope... 

Our logo - the green sheep with DHF stencilled on him, representing our wool bale mark  represents our attitude to farming and the quality of our wool - appears on all our packaging.  We have great hopes of him... 

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