Kenilworth Show
The month of June started off with the annual Kenilworth Show which was a rather wet day compared to last year's blazing hot day. Nevertheless the marquee was busy all day with members coming and going all day.
We hosted a meeting with Sir Jeremy Wright, MP for Kenilworth and Southam, where members were able to talk about local matters that need his help.
Once again, I believe the show for us was a great success which is all down to the team at the local office which made it all happen: from the marquee, table decorations and the team rotating throughout the whole day to keep the supply of teas, coffees and biscuits going and, of course, engaging with members. Thank you to you all.
Ragley Hall farm walk
We held a farm walk which was kindly hosted by The Ragley Hall Estate where Andrew Keyte, the farm manager, gave us a very insightful trailered tour talking about the system rotations and the commercial flock they run alongside the events that run throughout the year on the estate grounds.
This was very well attended, and it was great to see some new faces to me at this event.
A massive thank you to Andrew for sharing his vast knowledge which created engaging questions and discussions.
SFI update
We held another SFI update meeting in the north of the county, kindly hosted by Helen Fisher and her family, so thank you to Helen for providing a fab room to hold a meeting on a very hot evening.
NFU Senior Adviser (Support Schemes) Richard Wordsworth went through many of the updates and explained where we are with the timetable set out by government to give members the chance to be ready for any new applications.
The evening created many questions from members and Richard did a great job of navigating us through a lot of information. The meeting was well attended and again I met some new faces to me which is always pleasing.
MP meeting
Another MP meeting was held with Matt Western, MP for Leamington and Warwick, kindly hosted by Michael Sharlott on his family’s dairy farm.
This was a great opportunity to walk around the farm and talk about the current state of the dairy sector and the challenges facing Michael and his family business with cost of production currently far higher than the returns currently being experienced.
Matt took great interest in the subjects being discussed, which included: fertiliser cost and the potential tax coming down the line for farmers, water cost (which was a follow-up to the previous meeting), council small holdings and how difficult it is to get into these for young startup businesses, bTB and SFI26.
The meeting was engaging and a real benefit to the MP to physically see the challenges and talk about business and how farmers try to cope.
We are trying to do all our meetings with MPs out on the farm as this helps get the messages we are talking about across in a far more engaging manner which, in turn, helps the MPs when they are back in Westminster questioning or writing to ministers from the relevant departments.
We will continue to meet MPs across the county throughout the summer recess.
Warwickshire Conference
We held our first Warwickshire Conference in the latter part of June with subject of livestock.
Speakers ranged from David Barton, the NFU Livestock Board chair, Polly Lawman, NFU policy adviser for water, Jonathan Eckley, AHDB director of international trade development, Peter Lord, Dyson Farms' southwest farm manager, Jonathan Statham, chair of Defra's animal health pathway, and Steven Feenan from Kepak (who kindly sponsored our lunch for the event).
This was the first of a set of conferences we are looking to host annually moving through the different sectors year on year to cover subjects for all our members.
We were extremely privileged to have such a line-up of speakers who gave us a wide-ranging look beyond the farm gate from their insight to the livestock sector.
Until next time, stay safe!
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