Cream o' Galloway is a 340 hectare farm, with diversified farm-based businesses of ice cream manufacture and tourism, on the edge of a National Scenic Area in South West Scotland. 30 hectares are newly planted woodlands with public access (native trails, cycle tracks and dog walking), and the rest is rugged, rocky and scrubby, carrying 85 Ayrshire dairy cows, 35 beef cows and 500 breeding ewes. The farm and allied businesses employ 28 full time and 35 seasonal staff. Cream O' Galloway ice cream can be found in independent shops throughout the UK and supermarkets in Scotland. They welcome about 70,000 visitors to the farm each year, including 2,500 school children in organised groups.

David and Wilma have won many awards including BBC Radio 4's 'Farmer of the Year' 2006, and a Green Tourism Gold Award (2006).

• Can you give a short history of how you got to where you are now, including why and when you 'went organic'?
  David: We started the business in 1993 – we took the decision only six months after we first met! Wilma attended a two day course on ice cream making (having previously worked in IT in Glasgow). We went 'live' at the Royal Highland Show in 1994 and opened the farm to the public two weeks later – it was frantic!
  
  Wilma: I had bought organic food for years. David had always had a notion to try organics but considered it not to be financially viable until 1999, when he took the plunge after much pressure from females in the family - his mother is a keen organic gardener, and one of his sisters and her husband ran an organic herb nursery. So there was pressure from all sides.
  
  We gradually built the business over 12 years – growing 'organically' and re-investing every penny (and more) in improving our product delivery.

• Can you describe a typical day in your life?
  David: If not relief milking at 5am, I'll get up at 6am and attend to stock from 6.30–7.30, then meet the staff and discuss the day's programme. After dealing with immediate problems, I'll return for coffee at 9.30 when I can make phone calls for supplies, and if it's wet I'll do business paperwork like VAT, stock records, and supply forecasts. I'm currently designing a tearoom extension for our visitor centre.
  
  Let's not forget our farm-based local community wind turbine and ground source heating system, and solar panel installations, plus active involvement with Caledonian Organics, who market our red meat cooperatively. All these projects involve lots of research and liaising with suppliers and regulatory bodies. If it's a dry day, then it is time to concentrate on stock work and property maintenance. I'm afraid we're both workaholics, so will still be debating some work issue before switching off the bedside light!
  
  Wilma: I usually surface about half an hour after David and I'm at the office around 8am. My role is much more office bound than David's. He is the imaginative visionary, whilst I'm the one that tries to keep everything on an even keel - making sure the finances stack up, organising the day to day running of the business, and making sure that our staff are involved in new developments. For me part of the attraction of starting our own business was that we would be the making decisions at breakfast and implementing them before morning coffee. However as our staff numbers and management team have grown, the decision-making progress has had to change. I need to keep a tight rein on David to curb his unilateral tendencies!
  
  We try to make sure we have lunch together so that we can discuss and agree any major outstanding issues. The next time we see each other is for dinner. We always cook from scratch and we banned ready meals years ago. Cooking helps me unwind (or that might be the glass of wine I have along with it!) We sometimes have Woofers or foreign students living with us and many an evening can be spent on topical debate with them – it is always good to view things through someone else's eyes. Like most in farming, we'll be in bed by 10 – apart from pub quiz nights on Wednesdays – but that makes for a pretty grumpy Thursday!

• Organic principles – why do they matter?
  Wilma: Whilst we are by no means fundamentalists – we have businesses to run and they must be profitable (at least to some extent) – we have come to believe that we have a duty of care for our community, our animals and our environment. We believe that organic principles deliver these outcomes more certainly than any other at the present time.

• What does the Soil Association mean to you?
  David: We consider the Soil Association vital in terms of setting and maintaining standards, communicating those standards to our customers and defending us from governmental and commercial detractors.
  
  We also see the need for Soil Association initiated research into farming systems, the public benefits of organic food, and food production and the potential public cost of non-organic food and food production systems, and communicating these to the public and government.

• What is your greatest achievement?
  Wilma: To be content with life.

• How do you plan to progress in the future? What is your vision?
  David: Consolidation and continued gradual expansion. To reduce our ecological footprint further, develop our animal welfare and generate quality jobs.

• If you were starting all over again, what would you do differently?
  Wilma: We tried to tackle the multiple market with limited success, but major capital cost. In hindsight we should have focussed on local food and tourism. Tourism in particular has kept us alive financially.

• What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
  David: To do what you believe is right – without upsetting too many people en route.

• Who or what is your biggest inspiration?
  Wilma: Before we diversified we visited the Roskilly's farm in Cornwall and found them inspirational. I'm sure we wouldn't be doing what we are now, if we hadn't met them 15 years ago.

• How can the organic market be improved?
  David: Once the organic market has grown to be able to justify significant dedicated organic raw material suppliers and organic product processors, then we can begin to drive the high food chain costs out of the organic system.
  
  Our experience of substantial producer co-operation, in the form of OMSCo, has reinforced our opinion that if we as producers are to survive the vicious downward price pressures from global markets we must stick together. Together we have a chance of combating the negotiating power of the multiples, and promoting the benefits of our products to our customers. Separately, we will suffer the fate of the conventional UK white meat and milk sectors, and soon, we suspect, the red meat sector.
  
  Rising energy costs, and public concerns over pesticide and antibiotic residues, the animal welfare and environmental impact of industrial (chemical-based) farming, means organic farming will reach a tipping point – if we can drive cost out of the organic food chain. This has already happened in baby foods. At this stage we will be ready for 'Organic Plus'. There will be a small but significant market for food produced to even higher standards, and there will be a few farmers willing to go the next mile to produce it. We can't afford to rest on our laurels. If we don't do it someone else will.
  
  We also need to be raising awareness of the links between chemical, oil-based farming and climate change. If we can raise awareness of the environmental and long-term economic benefits of organic farming as well as the health benefits, then the market for organic food will grow significantly.

• What's the main benefit of being organic for you?
  Wilma: A real sense of satisfaction.

• What other organic ventures do you admire and why?
  David and Wilma: Roskilly's – already mentioned, Low Sizergh Barn in Cumbria, Ian Miller at Jamesfield in Perthshire, because they have all had a real go and risked everything. Patrick Holden – because of his conviction and passion.

• Supermarkets – good or bad?
  David: Supermarkets are good at what they are supposed to do: they deliver perceived quality and variety cheaply while growing their profitability and satisfying their shareholders. It's such a pity that UK farmers and local shopkeepers ultimately pay the price of that increased profitability.

• What is the biggest threat to what you do?
  Wilma: Organic cheats and GMs.

• Is the customer always right?
  David: Given the full facts, the customer is always right.