If you are a pig keeper, beekeeper, horticulturalist or run any other niche smallholding enterprise, you should visit Farming Connect at this year’s RWAS Countryside & Smallholder Festival (Llanelwedd, May 18&19).
Whether you are well established or just starting out, Farming Connect can provide you with the right level of support, guidance and training to help you develop your enterprise, so make sure you visit them at this year’s spring festival.
Farming Connect will be hosting a series of half-hour drop in sessions at Speaker’s Corner in the South Glamorgan Hall throughout the two-day festival on topics ranging from soil health to sheep parasites and from share-farming to advice to ‘newbie’ smallholders who want tips on earning a livelihood from ten acres!
Pig keepers will want to head straight to the Pig Section. Farming Connect, in collaboration with Hybu Cig Cymru and Menter Moch Cymru (an initiative funded by the Welsh Government Rural Communities – Rural Development Programme 2014-20) has invited four highly regarded pig experts to give a series of daily presentations and practical demonstrations.
Targeted at a wide spectrum of pig keepers from those new to the sector to more experienced stock keepers, this is your chance to find out what to look out for when purchasing weaners; how to keep your pigs healthy; land management and marketing. Each day an award-winning pig producer will share their personal experiences of starting out and how they’ve got to where they are today.
Find out how pork-producers Ruth and Andrew Davies from Cwm Farm Charcuterie near Pontardawe, who bought their smallholding in 2010, and who began with just two in-pig gilts and now have a growing herd of Saddleback and Old Gloucestershire Spot pigs, are renowned for their award-winning range of spicy salami and cured meats. Kyle Holford, a Great Taste Winner from Forest Coalpit Farm in the Brecon Beacons, who sells his speciality pork from cross-bred Duroc and Large Black pigs directly to top London chefs and butchers, will also be sharing his top tips on successful pig rearing.
Farming Connect’s skills application window is open until 5pm on 28 June, so if you are interested in undertaking training to help improve your skills and knowledge, call in to the Lantra Building (Avenue K) to find out what you can learn to make your business more sustainable and productive.
Business improvement and technical training is subsidised by up to 80% and machinery and equipment-related training is subsidised by up to 40%. In addition, new training on animal health and welfare, IT skills and all e-Learning modules are fully funded.
Lantra will also be promoting important messages on behalf of the Wales Farm Safety Partnership. Visitors will be encouraged to pick up free information leaflets including “working together to make farming safer – top tips on farm safety” and HSEs “What a good farm looks like”, and also encouraged to apply for farm safety-related training.
With a team of Farming Connect staff on hand at each of the three locations to promote all the elements of the Farming Connect programme, it’s too good an opportunity to miss – pop in and talk to them, find out how you can tap into all the support and services available – and if you’re not already registered, or completed your Personal Development Plan – which could unlock the key to your future success - they’ll sort that out too!
In addition to Farming Connect staff members from the Farm Liaison Team will also be on hand to provide free advice on Welsh Government policies and grants.
Farming Connect, which is delivered by Menter a Busnes and Lantra Wales, is funded by the Welsh Government Rural Communities - Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, which is funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Welsh Government.
For times/locations and more information on speakers, topics and training opportunities throughout the two-day festival, visit www.gov.wales/farmingconnect or call the Farming Connect Service Centre on 08456 000 813.