Press
18 Dec 2008 Great North Meet focuses on strategies for sustainable future profit
The Great North Meet (GNM)’ the practical farmers’ conference targeted specifically for the north of England, returns to Northumberland in 2009. The GNM agenda will focus squarely on the change the region has lived through in the past decade and the way farm businesses must plan to attain robust profits in the next 10 years.
The north eastern counties of Northumberland and Durham were the most intensive area of beef and sheep production in Europe prior to foot and mouth in 2001. Now many of those herds and flocks, plus the dairy herds that were so numerous, have gone. Their role on the farm profit and loss accounts has been filled by tourism, on farm processing and farmers’ markets bolstered by the Single Farm Payment and agro-environment scheme cash.
As 2012 draws nearer, so too does the end of the Single Payments as we know them. Their value is bound to reduce. New income streams will be needed to keep farms viable in the next decade.
The Great North Meet – “Sweating the Assets - Driving Profit” – aims to stimulate new thinking and start debate about the future. Speakers will probe key issues about making the most of farm assets and pushing resources to the maximum because to sustain the business over the next few years farmers will have to do both. The future may look quite promising – in five years or so the world’s food problems will have hit home and food production will be on a rising plane – but first we have to get there and implicit in that is the management of huge structural change.
GNM co-organiser Sir Ben Gill will open the show with a review of the global scene. Colin McGregor, took over the daily management of the family arable farming business at the age of 21, Ralph Thompson established an agricultural contracting business and has used his personal assets to become an entrepreneur, Rod Smith from a farm across the water on Holy Island has capitalised on the tourists who swarm past his farm gate and Donald MacPherson, born in the Highlands, now farms by Berwick and retails his beef very effectively. Each of them will give a brief resume of why and how they have done what they have over the last few years. They anticipated change before most of us.
Hugh Fell comes from a family well known for their challenging approach to farming and as the Managing Partner of a company with more professional staff than any other similar business across the three counties in the North East, he has a unique view of farming and land management. He will suggest that it is the people within the industry and the strategies that they adopt that are the most important keys to success in the future.
Frances Rowe leads the rural team of the Rural Development Agency One NorthEast. She faces the challenge of assisting the entire rural community to face up to the inevitable changes it faces. Professor Stuart Lane, an expert on climate change, will be joined by Richard Garland, to discuss the impact that those changes will have on our farming and hence the strategies required if we are to remain sustainable.
Rupert Wailes-Fairburn is a weather insurance expert and will offer advice on how to deal with what could so easily be a punitive cost on our farms in the future. Lastly, Cambridgeshire farmer Tim Evans will describe how a diversification into biogas has proved successful on his unit.
The Royal Agricultural Society of England’s Great North Meet is sponsored by George F White, One NorthEast, Armstrong Watson, Dickinson Dees and Lycetts. A place at the conference includes tea/coffee on arrival, buffet lunch and a delegate pack. For more information or to book your place, please telephone our booking line, tel 02476 858303 (Mon-Fri, 9-5) or visit www.greatnorthmeet.co.uk
--ENDS—
Notes to Editors
- Since 1840, The Royal Agricultural Society of England
has played a leading role in the development of British agriculture and a
vibrant rural economy through the uptake of good science, the promotion of
best practice and a coordinated, impartial approach to wide-ranging rural
issues. Today the Society's work includes support for business and social
welfare in rural communities, education, and world famous shows and events.
- Press release issued by Julie Bublaitis, Marketing Assistant, Royal
Agricultural Society of England
Tel: 024 768 58217
Email: julieb@rase.org.uk
