The Future of the U35’s
We thought it was about time we updated the full club membership on what is happening with the U35’s. They are the clubs future members, committee members and potential club Chairman in waiting and many are currently busy building their careers in the industry.
As with many aspects of club life, there have been some challenges over the last 18 months for obvious reasons and now seemed to be a good time to make some positive changes and developments to update this section of the club membership.
The General Committee invited the U35’s Committee to their dinner in November, an ideal opportunity to mingle, put faces to names and to embrace the clubs future. They have also been invited to the January Committee dinner which by the time you read this, will have taken place.
Their AGM will now be held in November and their financial year aligned to match that of the main club; 1st January – 31st December. The Terms of Reference have been updated to reflect the current day and lifestyles. In many cases gone are the days when you reach 30, immediately marry and have children…….now a career can come first and children well, maybe later.
The U30’s have for some time wanted to become the U35’s. Whilst an U30’s rate and an U35’s rate already exists, the physical link is lost from the 30 to 35 age group, a time when they are busy forging careers with no time to use the club as a full member but keen to maintain links so they can in the future. This also aligns their section of the membership with many other London Clubs, who are by the way rather jealous of the number of young members our club has, as at Dec 2021, 528 U35’s.
This proposal was recently discussed at length and brought to the General Committee where it was approved. It of course requires a club rule change and so a trial period has been agreed for 6 months starting on 1st January 2022 and will be brought to the AGM in July for the vote.
Alice Hind became Chairman on 1st January 2022 and Emily Pile, Vice Chairman. Other current Committee Members are Eleanor Kay, Georgina Knock, James Fuller, Laura Hancox, Rose Franklin, Andrew Court, Lord William Yarmouth, Geoffrey Bastard (co-opted via Jill Willows Fund.)
Member Experience Manager, Craig, will be assisting with their social events throughout the year and
Alice has started an exciting programme to re-launch this part of the clubs membership and to further enhance their effectiveness as an important part of the clubs future.
Club Executive Team
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Under 30s Scholar reviews Oxford
15 Feb 2019
Farmers Club Under 30s Oxford Farming Conference Scholar Anna Bowen takes a considered look at some of the core messages at this year’s event, including food packaging/labelling, the future of land tenure, how to promote ag more effectively, farming post-Brexit, Rotterdam’s floating dairy, the circular economy and venison diversification.
Earlier this year I was very lucky to attend the Oxford Farming Conference as a Scholar sponsored by the Farmers Club, writes Anna Bowen, a member of the Farmers Club Under 30s.
Day to day I work for AHDB Dairy, managing a herd health project in South West Wales which is funded by the Rural Development Programme (not the statutory levy). I also work freelance as a farm consultant, journalist, and private tutor, and spend a lot of time doing practical work on the spring calving dairy farm where my boyfriend is contract farming, or sorting out management accounts for my father and brother’s high yielding Holstein system.
I graduated in 2014 from the Royal Agricultural College with a First Class Honours degree in International Equine and Agricultural Management, and then completed an MSc in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security.
Having read lots about previous conference I was really looking forward to experiencing my first OFC, especially as the list of speakers looked so interesting.
The Scholars – a mix of university students and recent graduates – came from a range of sectors from all over the country. After a brief introduction, during which we were shown how to download the conference app (which proved very useful for interactive polls and sharing information), we were assigned our first task.
The group was asked to think about the concept of “local vs global” and we were split into smaller teams and sent out into the city of Oxford to find lunch sourced from specific locations e.g. “Oxfordshire” or “England” or asked to find food free from plastic packaging.
This really highlighted the difficulties of labelling food; is a pie “local” if its filling is from game shot within the county, but the pastry has been made with ingredients purchased from a generic national wholesaler?
Plastic-free was very interesting, as that group spoke to shopkeepers and café owners who said that their customers had no interest in environmentally sustainable produce. However, pretty much every coffee shop I walked past was selling reusable hot drink cups!
The afternoon saw delegates arrive as the first of the fringe meetings started. I attended the NFU meeting on the future of land tenure. The panel contained tenant and contract farmers as well as Malcolm Burns from the Crown Estate. The NFU vice-president Stuart Roberts gave some advice on working with landlords and the panel speculated about how tenancies would develop. The take home message was to prepare to be unprepared, and to maintain excellent communication between parties.
The conference itself was intense, with early starts for the breakfast talks and few breaks. As Scholars we were seated in a side room with the Emerging Leaders group. This was supposed to make asking questions less intimidating, but the main perk was actually having greater leg space and a table to write notes.
My favourite talk of the conference was Julie Borlaug’s Frank Parkinson Lecture, which was about innovation and disruptive communication in agriculture. Her advice was to steer away from buzzwords like “sustainability” and “transparency.” She suggested that the industry should look to tell a story and should avoid stereotypical stock images of generic tractors etc.
As someone who uses social media she also mentioned her policy of not responding to trolls or unkind comments, other than to state facts; she thought it was important not to start debates. Well-meaning people in the industry get into heated arguments on social media every day and I can definitely see her point; not all of these discussions actually help our cause.
A case study of how she has developed the website and marketing for the company she works for was particularly interesting, as it had been done to be as non-traditionally ag as possible, without falling into the trap of trying too hard to be relevant or modern.
A politics session featuring Michael Gove and Minette Batters was eagerly anticipated. With so much uncertainty about the UK’s post-Brexit future it was unsurprising that no clear answers came from the panel. Gove spoke about the dangers of a no-deal situation and gave an overview of the proposed Farm Bill and how he saw that fitting in with a fourth agricultural revolution. Batters spoke of the consequences of turning off the “tap of food production.”
Like so much around the topic the take away message seemed to be that nobody knows what will happen, and everyone working in the industry needs to be prepared for that uncertainty.
I would think that building resilient farming businesses, monitoring costs, benchmarking, record keeping, and maintaining the highest levels of animal health and welfare would all be key for being ready to face the challenges (and indeed opportunities) that may arise over the next few years.
Interestingly a poll of the OFC audience showed that, given a second referendum, 59% said they would vote to stay in the EU, 31% would support Theresa May’s deal, and 10% would opt for a no-deal. Other polls at the conference showed the majority of delegates had voted remain in the 2016 referendum, and although most people thought Brexit would be bad news for farming in the short-term, most saw long-term benefits.
Minke van Wingerden’s talk on setting up the floating dairy farm in Rotterdam was one of the most relevant to me, given my interest in the industry. The use of waste products from the city as feed, and the utilisation of water in the face of rising sea levels and anticipated coastal flooding, was revolutionary.
I really like the circular economy that the concept fosters, as well as the educational opportunities of a city farm. The fact that the cows would have outdoor space (a field on the land accessed via a bridge) as a loafing area was also great. While I can’t see floating farms displacing family farms and businesses in my client base any time soon, innovations like this show what is possible within our industry, and I’m looking forward to seeing how this idea develops over the next decade or so.
Given that so many of the concepts addressed at the conference are either policies that may or may not come to pass, or new developments that will take a while (if ever) to pass down to the majority of primary producers, it was good to hear Matt Smith speak about his farm diversification. As a world record setting shearer and a Farmers Weekly Sheep Farmer of the Year he is definitely within the upper echelons of the industry, but the venison unit that he and his wife Pippa have set up on what was her family farm is within achievable reach of other proactive farmers.
Of the venison eaten in the UK only around 5% is farmed, the remainder is either wild venison from Scotland or imported from Matt’s native New Zealand. Seeing a gap in the market the Smiths had capitalised on venison’s status as a healthy meat and its growing demand and had invested in the infrastructure to rear deer.
Matt was honest about the support of their bank and how they were now building an on- site abattoir with the help of a LEADER grant. Farming deer has some very specific challenges; most of the genetics available are for attributes that appeal to trophy hunters (big antlers) rather than meat and temperament, few drugs are licensed so they have to be used off- label, and as venison is classified as a game meat they have to slaughter animals (currently an eight-hour round trip away) under times covered by the game licence rather than when animals are ready. It was an inspiring session showing what can be achieved by looking at supply and demand, using initiative, and working to make an idea reality.
My goal for 2020 is to apply for a Nuffield Scholarship, looking at an aspect of dairy health. I hoped that the OFC would give me the opportunity to meet people who had already completed theirs, and to develop ideas on what I want to learn and where I want to do that.
While none of the sessions were directly related to my planned project, the breadth of speakers and their experiences definitely helped broaden my mind and encourage me to see agriculture from a more global perspective. I hope that the creativity and courage I saw from speakers working on diverse ideas and businesses will help me with seeking out innovation and resilience from across the international farming industry.
My sincere thanks to the Farmer’s Club for offering me this opportunity, and I wish the best of luck to the 2020 Scholar!
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The Prince’s Countryside Fund announces new pilot scheme to mentor next generation of farmers
28 Feb 2018
The Prince’s Countryside Fund, with Bishop Burton College, has launched a pilot scheme providing mentoring to participants in the college’s popular Farm Business Management Programme.
Recognising the importance and benefits of peer-to-peer learning, the Fund is pairing delegates from the course with farmers who supply to Jordan’s Cereals, long term supporters of The Prince’s Countryside Fund. This activity forms part of the Jordan’s Farm Partnership.
Since 2015 Bishop Burton College has received two grants from the Fund, to support a residential programme providing training in effective farm management practices. The course is open to new entrants working in agriculture across the UK and is delivered at Bishop Burton College’s Riseholme Showground campus.
The delegates complete a two-week residential course and are actively working in a management role on a family farm or commercial enterprise. Following completion of the course there is an opportunity for delegates to receive accreditation from the Royal Agricultural University for an assignment.
The Jordan’s Farm Partnership is a unique collaboration of Jordan’s farmers, the Wildlife Trusts, LEAF and The Prince’s Countryside Fund, working together to bring an innovative blend of expertise to benefit the British countryside.
The mentoring will take place over the next 12 months and focus on the development needs of the delegates – this could range from managing cash flow and budgeting, to people management, best farm practice, setting business objectives and strategic planning.
Claire Saunders, Director of The Prince’s Countryside Fund said: “We are delighted to be able to offer delegates enrolled on Bishop Burton College’s Farm Business Management Programme the chance to learn from experienced farmers who are supplying to one of our corporate partners – Jordan’s Cereals.
“I hope that this pilot programme will prove beneficial to all those involved and pave the way for future opportunities to collaborate and support the next generation of farmers through our networks.”
Chief Executive and Principal of Bishop Burton College, Bill Meredith, believes the mentoring programme will have major benefits to the industry as a whole:
“This mentorship programme will provide unparalleled access to industry experts for the next generation of farmer, helping them to not only be guided on how best to employ their newfound management skills, but also benefit from their mentor’s years of experience.
“What I am so excited about is that these young farmers are an incredibly forward-thinking generation and so by pairing them up with seasoned pros, the sector will benefit as a whole; not only helping to cultivate a strong future workforce, but it may also act as a catalyst for those already working in the sector to explore new and innovative approaches to farming.”
To find out more about the Farm Business Management Programme please contact: Business Development Manager and Co-Course Director Rhonda Thompson:Rhonda.Thompson@bishopburton.ac.uk
To find out more about The Prince’s Countryside Fund please visit www.princescountrysidefund.org.uk