Current tenants Jason and Katherine Salisbury left the island earlier this summer after five years looking after Sark’s only herd. Efforts to find new tenants proved unsuccessful, and the milking herd was moved to Guernsey, leaving Sark with no milk of its own.
Now, siblings Cerys and Harry Knight, aged 16 and 15, have stepped up to try and take on the role and are trying to crowdfund to raise £1,500 to buy their first dairy cow.
‘Not only will this help set us up in business, but it will also mean the Sark Dairy is reopened, the land is managed, and we can help promote Sark as a tourist destination,’ said Cerys.
‘This has been our dream since we were tiny. Although we are young, we are dedicated, hard-working, and enthusiastic.’
Harry and Cerys currently already own two calves of their own, Norris and Uno, and look after nine from the dairy trust, as well as six that belong to someone else.
But all those are beef cows.
‘We’ve got a Crowdfunder going at the moment to raise some money to get more milking cows to start a herd,’ said Harry.
‘We want to start with two or three. So we have a constant rotation of one or two milking to one in calf and then slowly build it up as we can.’
Cerys said they have always loved animals.
‘We’ve got almost our own little farm at home at the moment,’ she said.
‘I started going up to see some lambs up at Dave Scott’s, the main sheep farmer in the island, and then I started taking my brother up there, and he’s been teaching us everything he knows.
‘Now every year at lambing we do shifts, and we helped look after the dairy farm when the last farmers were on holiday.’
The Sailsburys were the first tenants of the Sark Community Dairy Charitable Trust, which was set up in 2019 with the aim of providing the infrastructure of a dairy to be leased to a farmer who would supply the herd and run a dairy business.
Cerys and Harry are from a long line of Sarkees, and Cerys may also be able to claim to be the last person to be born in Sark, or at least within its territory, after being born on the Flying Christine.
Sark has suffered from young people leaving due to a lack of affordable accommodation and opportunities.
Harry and Cerys are currently the only 15- and 16-year-old residents on the island.
‘I think the person closest to my age is actually 18,’ said Cerys.
‘Most of my childhood friends are now in England or Guernsey.’
Cerys added that without the dairy, she feared the island would hold little future for them.
‘Harry’s probably got a better chance at a future here because of the stuff he’s interested in,’ she said. ‘I think for me, unless I just do restaurant work, there’s not much to stay for.’
However, Harry added that if they could get the funding they needed, the future could be bright for them and Sark.
‘We could have a good herd within five years,’ he said.
‘And be producing great local produce, milk, cream and ice cream, as well as doing tours with schools and tourists.’
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