By the time this newsletter lands in your inbox, we will have held our first virtual conference. The Women in Dairy Conference on Wednesday (30 Sept) was a massive success attracting over 100 delegates, which is in line with the face to face event we have held in the past.
We had a great line-up of speakers and it was fantastic to enjoy some social time in the evening with a glass of wine and the free cheese packs that were supplied by Quicke’s.
During the social event, we announced our Dairy Industry Woman of the Year, which this year went to Karen Halton from Cheshire. She was described by the judges as an all-round industry ambassador giving a lot to the sector.
Karen is a partner in Halton Farms with her husband Tom. Together they rent 550 acres in Congleton and milk their 530 three-way cross all-year-round calving herd three times a day. They also have a raw milk vending machine and, just this year, decided to expand the operation by pasteurising milk and selling it directly to customers.
Not only is Karen an ambassador she is also an early adopter who brings new skills into the industry and is happy to challenge, question and lead change. It was not an easy decision for the judges with three outstanding finalists, but she certainly is a very worthy winner. Well done Karen!
We also wish to congratulate Professor Mike Coffey, who earlier this month was presented with the Princess Royal Award by Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal.
Mike is the team leader of the Animal Breeding and Genomics team at SRUC and head of EGENES. He has spent almost 40 years working in the dairy breeding industry and has dedicated his working life to dairy cattle breeding and specifically, identifying breeding goals that are important to the entire supply chain including most recently the implementation of genomic selection. This was another worthy win. Well done Mike!
We now look ahead to our next virtual conference with our Business and Policy Conference in November. Spread over three days, the bitesize sessions will offer an insight into future farming policy, trade as well as offering views on where next with the dairy sector.
We have some government ministers confirmed in the line-up including Victoria Prentis, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at DEFRA, and Tim Mordan, Deputy Director at DEFRA. We also have the new AHDB chair Nicholas Saphir speaking. Sessions will be free, so do keep posted on how you can sign up at www.RABDF.co.uk.
We had some disappointing news this week that from January next year the new immigration policy will restrict access for farms to recruit foreign dairy workers. We had hoped, after submitting evidence to the Migration Advisory Committee during their consultation earlier in the year, they may include dairy workers on the Shortage Occupation List, however, unfortunately, this is not the case.
We must now look at new ways we can bring recruits into the industry. Over the coming weeks and months, we will be looking at ways we can attract new talent and retain them within our sector. We will be kicking this off with a labour survey. There will be more news on that in The Milk Digest next month.
That’s all for now.
Stay safe,
Matt