18 November 2019
Three prestigious Farming Connect awards were announced at last week’s Lantra Wales Land-based Awards ceremony, which celebrated its 25th anniversary at a special event held at the Metropole Hotel, Llandrindod Wales.
Attended by more than 120 guests including award nominees, industry stakeholders and representatives from the skills and training sectors, the three Farming Connect awards were for Life-Long Learner of the Year (Over 40); Young Learner of the Year (Under 40) and the Farm Innovator Award.
Pembrokeshire sheep farmer and Harper Adams graduate Steve Lewis, who runs a 30 acre council-owned smallholding near Haverfordwest, was announced winner of the Farming Connect ‘Over 40’ award.
Steve, who has built up his own flock of 100 commercial ewes and pedigree Texels, had utilised the skills and knowledge that he developed from attending Farming Connect’s ‘Business planning and development’ and ‘Marketing your business’ training to establish his successful new online delivery-based business, selling boxes of his quality ‘gate to plate’ lamb, hogget and mutton directly to his expanding customer base.
Steve was nominated by his Farming Connect training provider, Kelly Monroe, one of Really Pro’s specialist farm business trainers and he credits training with helping him transform his business vision into reality. According to Kelly, Steve is a committed learner and has fully utilised the training, which was tailored to his requirements in terms of content and delivery, to drive the business venture forward.
The runner-up for this category was Carmarthenshire beef and sheep farmer Mark Thomas. Mark had undertaken a series of Farming Connect training courses at Coleg Sir Gâr to better his knowledge and to keep up to date with new ideas which he puts into practice daily on the family hill farm. Mark was nominated by Mary Richards, Coleg Sir Gâr.
The Farming Connect Young Learner ‘Under 40’ was awarded to Gwen Price who has set her sights on developing the family farm in in Llangadog, Carmarthenshire. Having completed a range of Farming Connect business training courses provided by Simply the Best Training Consultancy, Gwen is now able to undertake all the administrative and accounting work on the farm. She is currently studying for her Masters’ degree in agriculture at Coleg Sir Gar, has a full-time job and when time permits, she is heavily involved with farming too.
Julie Thomas, a director of Simply the Best Training Consultancy, who nominated Gwen, says that she has a natural thirst for learning and assimilates ideas and concepts that she puts to good use very quickly.
Susan James, a beef and arable farmer from Narberth, Pembrokeshire was announced runner-up for the Farming Connect Young Learner of the Year award. Susan was nominated by Susie Morgan, her local Farming Connect development officer in recognition of her dedication to develop her own knowledge and skills and to putting this to good use within her own family farm.
Bio-chemist Cheryl Reeves, who farms a beef enterprise near Bangor on Dee, won the Farming Connect Farm Innovator Award. Having a natural inclination towards learning Cheryl was determined to hone her business skills, and took advantage of a number of training courses.
Also nominated by training provider Julie Thomas, Mrs Thomas said that Cheryl was a keen student who was already applying her new skills and knowledge in a very innovative way as part of her plan to diversify the current business and increase farm profitability.
Winner of the Farming Connect ‘over 40’ award, Steve Lewis was also announced as runner-up in the Innovator of the Year category, in recognition of his achievements in developing his sustainable new ‘boxed’ lamb products business.
Kevin Thomas, Director of Lantra Wales, congratulated all this year’s nominees, who he said at all demonstrated focus, ambition and a commitment to lifelong learning.
“Each one of them has clearly put a huge amount of effort into both personal and business development, which will stand them in good stead as we prepare for what still seems a somewhat uncertain future for our industry.
“In recent years, we have seen a steady increase in the number of applications for training courses, which demonstrates the industry’s willingness to adapt and prepare the future.”