A MAN whose mould-breaking dairy farm was an inspiration for a storyline in The Archers is hanging up his hat because of a lack of government support.

James Hague, whose Daisy’s Farm Fresh Milk was delivered to more than 1,800 homes, including customers in Hook and Hartley Wintney, until the end of last week, could no longer stay in business.

Mr Hague said he became frustrated by the attitude of the government and the banks towards farming.

Now he is planning to quit Britain for New Zealand, adding: “We’re looking forward to that because we’re in search of England and we think we’re going to find it there.

“We’ve taken the decision to close the dairy. In the end, we just got beaten,” he said.

The farmer, of Lyde Green Farm, Rotherwick, won UKTV’s Local Food Hero award in 2007. He beat off stiff competition from across the UK to secure the £40,000 prize.

The farm’s story was dramatised in the radio serial The Archers, thanks to Mr Hague’s pal, farming journalist Graham Harvey, who is the programme’s agricultural story editor.

The £40,000 cash injection from his local food hero award helped, but Mr Hague said without government support, and the backing of a bank, the farm did not have a chance.

Grants from the England Rural Development Programme, designed to help farmers diversify, dried up before he could take advantage of them, and the banks refused to give him temporary loans.

Banks even refused to help him set up a direct debit system with his customers.

“It was like Blackpool in November. Everything was closed,” Mr Hague said.

Originally from Yorkshire, Mr Hague has worked on farms all his life. His grandfather had a successful dairy farm at Farnley, on the edge of the Pennines.

After moving south to work for various farm research firms, Mr Hague found that he missed working on the land.

So when an opportunity presented itself for Mr Hague and his wife Helen to start up their own dairy farm in 2005, they grabbed it.

Mr Hague, 38, knew it would be difficult, but with a lifetime of farming knowledge under his belt, he set out to do what he could to make it a success.

“They say the best way to make a small fortune in farming is to start with a large one, which is true, but I didn’t have that, so I had to do something different,” he said.

“We couldn’t survive just producing milk and taking the milk price being offered by the big dairy distributors.”

He decided that if he could sell the milk directly to consumers, he would be able to make a profit.

He also knew that his milk would be better than anything people could buy in the shops.

“I truly believe that local food production is the major way forward,” he said. “The end produce is so much healthier. What we need is to have farming which is sensible. And it needs to be research-based.”

People in nearby villages were quick to order his milk and within the first few months he had hundreds of customers.

The rapid success meant he had to quickly expand to meet demand, but he did not have the funds to invest in the new equipment he needed.

“As it grew faster and faster, we needed new capital,” he said. “The banks were extremely unhelpful. They didn’t allow us to do direct debit, they wouldn’t let us do factoring. We found that cash flow was a real problem.

“Meanwhile, we had 1,500 extremely happy customers who had been paying for our product.”

Mr Hague then approached venture capitalists, but they would not commit to the investment.

With four children to support, three girls and a boy, Mr Hague had to make a tough decision.

He said he could not continue without a system in place. He said: “We decided we’re going to sell all the cows up and we’re going to New Zealand.

“We’re looking forward to that because we’re in search of England and we think we’re going to find it there.”

But what Mr Hague did not anticipate was the outpouring of emotion when he made the announcement. He received a huge number of emails and letters from his distraught customers.

He said: “We’ve had a response that we didn’t expect to have. We’ve had a tremendous amount of empathy, and even love, for what we were doing and there’s real sadness that it’s gone.”

Mr Hague, speaking at the AGM of Hart and Rushmoor branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said there was a small chance that the farm could keep going. He is exploring setting up a farmers’ co-operative, but he will first need other dairy farms to get on board.