Speakers

Clare Wise

Clare has worked from gate to plate with a career spanning the meat industry, livestock marketing and public sector. Most recently Clare was responsible for building the RMIF farmer club network. Clare now retains a keen interest in politics and runs her own Communications and Event Management company alongside the mixed family farm.

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Tim Farron MP

Tim first joined the Liberal Party aged 16 whilst still at school. Having gained a place at Newcastle University to read politics in 1988, Tim went on to become the first Liberal Democrat President of Newcastle University Union in 1991-92. In 1990 he also served as the sole Liberal Democrat on the National Union of Students National Executive. During this time, Tim gained a national profile for standing up against extremism and intolerance in the hard-left and Labour dominated NUS.

Following the completion of his degree, Tim followed a career in the Higher Education sector. Indeed, before winning the Westmorland and Lonsdale seat in May 2005, he worked as a senior manager at St Martin's College at Ambleside, Lancaster and Carlisle.

Having worked in higher education for thirteen years before his election to Parliament, and as a local parent who has served as a school governor of the Dallam School in Milnthorpe, Tim is deeply committed to high quality education for all. Yet, Tim's interest in the public services extends beyond that. Tim is deeply involved in campaigns to prevent health cuts in South Lakeland - having encouraged 27,000 local people to sign his petition and is working alongside sub-post masters to prevent branch closures in his constituency. Tim is also a leading national advocate for farming and rural communities and, in particular, for the need for more genuinely affordable homes for local people in order to keep those communities viable. In May 2005, Tim secured the Westmorland and Lonsdale seat in Westminster for the Liberal Democrats. He defeated the Conservative candidate and ended a 95 year rule of the seat by the Tories.

Following this win, Tim has been extremely busy in Parliament and, especially, within his constituency. In 2005 he was appointed the Liberal Democrat Youth spokesman, and in March 2006 became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Party leader Ming Campbell. Following the election of Nick Clegg as Party Leader in December 2007, Tim was promoted to the Lib Dem Shadow Cabinet and is now the Shadow Minister for the Countryside and Rural Affairs.

Tim lives in Milnthorpe, south Cumbria, with his wife Rosie, his daughters Isabella and Gracie and his sons Jude and Laurie. In his limited spare time, Tim enjoys following the (mis)fortunes of Blackburn Rovers, playing football, walking in the Lake District, listening to various kinds of music and spending time with family and friends.

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Reaseheath College

Presentation (1.05MB)

Iain Clarke

From a non farming background Iain has spent his life working in the Agricultural industry. Working part time on a small farm, studying at Reaseheath College and farming in his own right on a 200 acre farm in Aberdeenshire. The farm was completely Organic and registered with the soil association with direct selling being a major component of the farm business.

Since 2003 Iain has been a lecturer in Agriculture at Reaseheath College and since August 2007 has been Curriculum leader. Iain has also built up a direct sales business, and built a small farm on a greenfield site since January 2005, which now supplies 300 households per week with quality local produce and offers 2 full time equivalent labour units.

Iain is a keen supporter of the Organic movement and devoted to the prosperous future of British Agriculture.

David Johnson

Having qualified as a chartered surveyor with Cheshire based auctioneers Wright Manley I became a dairy farmer in 1996. In 2001 the farm became a LEAF (Linking the Environment and Farming) demonstration farm promoting conventional agriculture to the general public. Milk from the farm is now processed by my own processing and marketing business and sold direct to all the major retailers in the UK. In addition to the farming activities I also teach dairy herd management and business at Reaseheath College, Nantwich.

Charlotte and Ben Hollins: Fordhall Farm

Charlotte Hollins, Project Director, Fordhall Community Land Initiative

Charlotte Hollins was brought up on Fordhall Farm in North Shropshire. Her father had farmed Fordhall organically for the majority of his life, and Charlotte continued this learning through her studies at University.

In 2003 she graduated with a first class honours degree reading Environmental Management with Mathematics and returned to Fordhall. The family had been fighting to remain at the farm for over 15years and when Charlotte returned home they were faced with certain eviction.

However, with her brother Ben, many volunteers and enormous amount of determination and energy, they have been able to turn Fordhall around. After proving that they were serious about rebuilding the farm, they were offered first refusal on the 128acre farm for £800,000.

As young entrants to the industry and with no capital, they had to look for alternatives. This came in the form of community ownership. Charlotte has led the national campaign to raise the purchase money through non-profit making chares. Their story captured the nation and on June 30th this year they announced that over 7500 people had helped to raise the money this is an inspirational story of how vision and determination can make the impossible, possible.

Fordhall Farm has now been placed into community ownership for perpetuity. It encourages involvement at all levels and aims to reduce the huge disconnection between people, their food and the landscape, as well as providing accessible and affordable land to incoming farmers, such as the Hollins’.

Ben Hollins, Farm Manager, Fordhall Farm Shropshire

Ben Hollins was brought up on Fordhall Farm with his sister Charlotte. After school he went to study Agriculture at Reaseheath College and later at Harper Adams University College. After taking on the tenancy in 2004 with a handful of livestock and little working capital, Ben now runs Fordhall Farm as an organic pasture farm with free range pigs. He sells all his produce through his farm shop and local farmers markets. He has recently set up his own butchery and online shop and is looking to expand the business year on year.

Andy Gibbon

Andy is currently running a 400 acre beef and sheep unit in Cheshire. He gained a N.D.A as Reaseheath College in 1996. His belief is that the red meat industry needs to co-operate more on both a local and national level to become a stronger marketing force.

Tim Dobson

Nuffield Scholar, Tim Dobson and his wife, Marnie run a tenant dairy farm at Tarporley, Cheshire.

They also run store pigs, beef and have a herd of meat goats, which they butcher and market nationally through their company, Chestnut Meats. Tim is also a Director of Deeside Dairy Farmers and sits on the Council of the RABDF.

Ed Dale

Ed is 28 years old, married to Lucy, with a 19 month old son Henry. He is in partnership with his parents in a family dairy farm operating on three milking sites in Cheshire and Staffordshire held on various tenures including one contract agreement. Ed completed a Nuffield Farming Scholarship in 2003 looking at 'How to run a business effectively' and since then their business has seen significant growth moving from 200 to over 800 cows.

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Cumbria YFC

Presentation North Cumbria (1.51MB)

Presentation South Cumbria (488KB)

Will Case

Will is 28 years old, a former Cumbria YFC County Chairman and a former Newton Rigg student. He spent 6 months working on sheep farms in New Zealand in 2003. Currently Will works on the family farm near Ulverston in South Cumbria. Plumpton Cottage Farm is 250ha including 40ha of salt marsh. Stocking consists of 12,000 free range laying hens, 200 feeding cattle and 1000 mule and Texel crossed ewes.

James Nicholson

James is 25 years old and is currently Cumbria YFC County Vice-Chairman and a part-time student at Newton Rigg College to gain a HNC in Livestock Production. He works on family upland farm near Ulverston. Stocking consists of 1250 breeding ewes plus all replacements hogs. The flock is made up of Swaledales, Mules and Llyens, finishing all lambs which are not retained for breeding. James also runs 55 Limousin cross suckler cows, the calves are sold at 12 months as Stores, along with a small campsite plus holiday cottage.

Alec Smith

Alec is 28 years old, a former Cumbria YFC District Chairman. He is Farm Manager on a 1300 acre estate in the Winster Valley near Windermere. Stocking is 70 suckler cows, mostly pedigree Luings, 450 North country hill Cheviots bred pure or crossed with the Blue faced Leicester and 450 mules crossed with the Texel. With the exception of replacement females, all stock is finished on farm and as much as possible sold through a local pub and farm shop.

Neil Brough

Neil is 24 years old and is Chairman of the Northern District of Cumbria YFC. He works on his family farm where they milk 190 high yielding pedigree Holstein cows. They also lamb 270 sheep and have a small herd of Pedigree Belgian Blues. The farm grows 160 acres of cereals, which are all used on farm. The farm totals 560 acres, 440 of which are owned. Neil has a Higher National Diploma in Farm Management from UCLAN Newton Rigg. He then topped this up to a BSc in Agriculture at the Scottish Agricultural College, Edinburgh.

Graham Holiday

Graham is 25 years old and currently holds the position of Chairman of Cumbria YFC. He has worked for the NFU at Carlisle for three years. Previous to this he spent a year working for an agricultural construction firm. Graham attended Newcastle University where he achieved a BSc Hon’s in Agriculture, with rural resource management. His parents have a dairy farm just outside Carlisle.

Richard Potts

Richard is 25 years old and works as an Agricultural Consultant for Armstrong and Watsons at Carlisle. He attended Newcastle University where he achieved a BSc Hon’s in Agriculture, with rural resource management. After finishing University, Richard went travelling for a year to Africa, Australia and New Zealand. He also milks at a local dairy farm at weekends.

Neil Forrester

Neil is 28 years old and a former Chairman of Cumbria YFC. He has also chaired numerous sub committees within Cumbria YFC. Neil works on his family dairy farm in partnership with his father. They milk 100 high yielding Holstein dairy cattle on 120 acres close to the border with Scotland.

Helen Little

Helen is currently working as an Environmental Policy Advisor for the NFU. She is 28 years old and has a BSc Hon’s from Nottingham University in Animal Science. Helen has also worked as a Poultry Policy Advisor at the NFU. She grew up on her parent’s dairy farm, which her brother runs.

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Mark Atherton

Presentation (2.64MB)

Mark has held his current role as Head of Sustainable Development at the Northwest Regional Development Agency for five years. His main responsibilities are:

• to provide strategic leadership to the Agency’s work on sustainable development linked to the implementation and future development of the North West Regional Economic Strategy (RES) and
• to ensure that the Agency is able to meet its responsibilities for sustainable development

He has responsibility for leading on several RES Actions including those which deliver:

• the Business Resource Efficiency and Waste (BREW) Programme in the region;
• developing and implementing a regional Climate Change Action Plan
• embedding corporate responsibility in NW businesses
• maximising the economic benefits of the region’s rich environmental assets (Natural Economy)
• embedding sustainable development into the NWDA’s own policies and practices

Mark sits on the Board of Enworks, Mersey Basin Campaign, Northwest Biodiversity Forum and the NW River Basin District Liaison Board.

Mark was born and educated in Liverpool. He now lives in Preston with his wife (Monica) and their 3 year old daughter (Miya Ann). Mark holds a B.Sc. Honours degree in Combined Sciences (Ecology/Organic Chemistry) and a Master’s Degree in Applied Hydrobiology from Cardiff University together with several management qualifications. Mark’s career has mostly been spent in environmental science and management for the Environment Agency and its predecessor organisations. Mark has also been a part time lecturer for Myerscough College, teaching part of an HND course in Conservation and Countryside Management.

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David Hugill

Presentation (1.26MB)

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Trevor Wilson

Trevor started farming at Low Bankside back in 1985. He currently farms beef, sheep and 60 acres of mixed arable crops. He has 200 beef cattle and is also wintering 1,000 sheep for other farmers.

He studied agriculture at Newton Rigg College in 1980 and spent a couple of years prior to that working for well-known Cark dairy farmer, George Lewis.

Trevor has been active within the NFU since 1998 when he started attending Cartmel branch meetings. He was chairman of the branch from 1999 until 2000. He is very interested in the auction system and is a director of Lancaster and Kendal District Auctions.

Between 1998 and 2006 Trevor developed The Monsoon Sheepshower, gaining a Royal Agricultural Society of England Silver Medal in 2002. It is now the market leader in the U.K. and Ireland.

In 2002 he started a property development and letting business, the first was a fish and chip shop that his wife now runs. They have 20 properties, letting out a mix of commercial and residential.

Trevor was NFU Deputy Cumbria Chairman from 2004 to 2006, and is currently NFU County Chairman.

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Organisers

Sir Ben Gill CBE MA (Cantab)

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Mike Keeble

Mike Keeble is part of the committee which put together our programme for the Great North Meet.

Mike’s background is farm management and his family farm in Wensleydale, where they are tenants. They have maintained a herd of Limousin cattle since becoming one of the farms which introduced the breed to the UK in 1971. They also keep a sheep flock.

Up to 2001 Mike spent 15 years acting as a consultant to Strutt and Parker on their promotion and development side covering all their conferences and outside events. He is a well known journalist in all medias, with a regular column in Farmers Guardian and regional press as well as being on the editorial team of Johnstone Publishing’s Agriculture titles. He also fills around 40 days a year as a commentator at various shows.

Mike is currently responsible for the Red Meat Industry forum in the 3 Northern RDA's. He is a member of the Chancellors Agricultural Land Tribunal and an executive member of the Tenant Farmers Association Council representing them on the Ministers Advisory body ULMAP (Uplands). Mike is also an advisor to the EU funded Limestone Project.