April and May are a busy time a the NFU, as well as on farm. April and May are busy times getting prepped for the upcoming shows and engagement opportunities.
RCAT Rural Crime Training Days
April saw the start of a series of training days hosted by RCAT in an effort to upskill response officers on the topic of rural crime, something we see a lot of here in Cambridgeshire. As part of these training days, I have been giving a presentation on the impact of rural crime on farming businesses and rural communities. The 5 events planned will continue throughout May and into June, training around 60 officers each day.
Water and Abstraction
April has been an extremely dry month as you will be aware of. If we don’t get some rain soon, we may see a similar situation to last summer drought conditions. Following on from some engagement work with the EA last year, County Chair Alison Morris and NFU Water Resource Specialist Mark Betson now regularly meet with the EA and South Level to improve communications with abstractors. In light of this, a new WhatsApp group is being set up purely to aid comms between the EA and South Level abstractors. Please contact Alison Morris if you would like to be added to this group.
Upcoming events
In May the County Committee will be meeting again on the 21st to discuss upcoming events and significant topics within the industry. If you would like any of you concerns, queries, or questions raised, please get in touch with the county chair, your branch chair, local office, or myself.
We will also be in attendance to the Cambridgeshire County Show on the 30th alongside NFU Mutual. Please make sure to grab a ticket and swing by our stand for a catch up and to ask any questions you may have.
For the start of June, we have a planned a Young Members event for NFU members aged 35 and under to attend the HSBC offices in Canary Wharf, London. HSBC have kindly offered to host our young members and discuss –
- How the next generation of farmers can get involved in farm finance discussions
- What a bank looks for in a great farm business or diversification project
- The skills needed to ‘take over the reins’ from the previous generation.
Please get in touch for more details.
Funding from the Ramblers
The Ramblers have received a £1k donation to improve accessibility for walkers by replacing a stile with a gap or a gate on a public right of way in Cambridgeshire.
If you have a project in mind on your land that would benefit from this donation, please contact Helen Bates, [email protected], with details of the location, a photograph of the stile or stiles that need replacing, information on what you hope to replace the stiles or stiles with, an estimate of the cost, and how this improvement will benefit walkers.
As always, please do keep an eye out for branch newsletters for the latest information or speak to me or the GS with any questions/queries. I look forward to seeing many of you soon.