Name
Gillian Preece
Location
Shropshire
Key Specialism
Nutrient Management
Sector
Livestock
Why are you an effective Advisor?
Gillian Preece is a Senior Agricultural Consultant working for ADAS in Wales and the West Midlands. Gillian has the relevant professional qualifications and has extensive experience of land-based industries and the issues they face. She has 25 years’ experience providing advice across a range of business management, environmental and technical subject areas.
During her career so far, Gillian has worked on various projects focusing on environmental protection. She was an important part of the team delivering Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) advice through one-to-one visits and workshops/meetings during two expansions of the English NVZ area. She has delivered 50 group Nutrient Management Plans through Farming Connect providing nutrient advice to over 170 individual businesses. She provides Farm Infrastructure advice as part of Catchment Sensitive Farming and assists farmers to apply for Countryside Stewardship Application and Sustainable Farming Incentive along with other one-to-one commercial consultancy work.
Strategic farm business advice and risk management is a core feature of her commercial consultancy work. This includes regularly reviewing client’s current business performance (including benchmarking), assessing their objectives, evaluating current strengths and weaknesses, producing budgets and cashflows to assess the impact of any proposed changes and monitoring business performance. She has recently been delivering business reviews and other technical and farm business advice through the DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) Future Farm Resilience Fund.
Alongside working for ADAS, Gillian started farming with her husband 21 years ago on rented land. They built their business up and managed to buy their own farm in 2017. They currently contract farm 3000 New Zealand Romneys and have their own herd of Luing cows.
Qualifications/Achievements/Experience
- FACTS (Fertiliser Advisers Certification and Training Scheme) Qualified Adviser
- BASIS (British Agrochemical Standards Inspection Scheme) Soil and Water Certificate
- HNC Food Technology
- BSc Hons Animal Science (2:1)
- 25 years consultancy experience
Top Tip/Quote
“Don’t waste money on applying Nitrogen if your soil is too acidic or very low in other nutrients – regular soil testing is crucial”