| Livestock
National Dairy Event 2017 launched
The Livestock Event is reverting to its roots in 2017.
O rganiser, the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers is returning the event to its traditional time slot with next year’ s event scheduled for 6 September at The NEC, accompanied by a name change to the National Dairy Event.
“ The event originally rescheduled from September to July in 2013, renamed Livestock Event and widened its remit to cover other livestock enterprises, similar to the very successful Eurotier held in Germany,” RABDF chairman, Mike King told a media briefing in London today, 28 June.“ It was anticipated that farmers would benefit from hearing about developments in other sectors and that the July date would be better for beef and sheep producers rather than just dairy.
“ However, annual tracking of producers, visitors and exhibitors clearly indicates that while the changes have gained support over time, a specialist event in September remains the preferred option.
“ The move to hold the event over one day rather than the usual two is simply down to cost; the single-day format will allow exhibitors who are reducing marketing costs in line with the fall
in demand for farm inputs, to save on hotel, stand, catering and personnel expenses.
“ RABDF is acutely aware these changes will position the event in the calendar close to Holstein UK’ s UK Dairy Day. RABDF and Holstein UK acknowledge that consolidation in the industry is already affecting both their events, and they have been discussing how to resolve this for the past year. Negotiations are ongoing, however with the 2016 event imminent, RABDF has been placed in the position of having to start discussions about next year’ s arrangements with exhibitors.
“ RABDF is hopeful that it will reach agreement with Holstein UK over a possible joint future event, however in the meantime, it has no wish to conflict with UK Dairy Day more than necessary, consequently it will not include any cattle showing at the 2017 event.”
He added:“ We look forward to delivering an event in 14 months time that will continue to offer dairy farmers support, knowledge and information to help them progress their business’ future.”
How the West was won –
In 1966, the same year as England’ s World Cup win, Harry West
H arry came from humble beginnings- born in Rowtonstall in Lancashire on 2nd April 1925, Harry was the eldest of 4 children. His father Jobe was a traveller who travelled throughout England and Wales selling carpets.
Harry explained that he is lucky to be here, because as a toddler his father was looking after him at night while his mother was away having his brother John. Unfortunately, Jobe fell asleep with the candle burning and was awakened by his fellow travellers shouting that his caravan was on fire. They both got out in time but Harry still carries a scar from a burn to his arm. Harry was later told of the generosity of the fellow travellers who clubbed together to buy them a new caravan, as everything they had was lost in the fire.
When Harry was 5, his parents settled at Cumberbatch House, Lower Heath with 6 ½ acres of woodland, and with only a short walk to the school, it was ideal. After leaving school Harry served his country in the Royal Navy for four years, where he took part in the D day landings. As an Able Seaman, he later had two tours to Australia on board the aircraft carrier HMS Formidable until he was eventually demobbed. On his return from military service he began work at Cattle and Bowl Company, later to become the multinational Rubery Owen. It was there Harry gained valuable experience and good engineering knowledge. This prompted him to realise he could be doing the same thing for himself and so became his own boss.
In order to fulfil his ambition, he needed somewhere with enough space to accommodate his engineering activities. With this in mind, he uprooted his family and 2 small children from their much loved, newly built council house in Prees, to a bus he renovated himself on his father’ s property at Lower Heath. Harry remembers that his neighbours thought he was crazy to do so at the time.
1966 was a good time to start a new business as there was plenty of work around. Initially Harry specialised in light fabrication work, such as repairs to machinery for the local farming community. From his modest workshop at Lower Heath, he went on to produce over 18,000 roll bars for a variety of tractors. As the premises grew and the workforce increased, he began to manufacture industrial and agricultural buildings, also taking on contracting work from Fullwood, Bland Milking Systems at Ellesmere, McConnell’ s Machinery at Ludlow, GKN at Telford and bottle banks for the local council.
In 1979, the company started to provide its own purpose made agricultural machinery. This started with a Grain and Silage Trailer range, followed by the silver award winning Hi-Feeder.
1981 saw the introduction of the first Dual Spreader which gained the gold medal award and remains the market leading manure spreader to this day. The highly popular Comet Straw Chopper was to follow and in recent years the revolutionary Contra Flow Diet Feeder and large capacity Rear
36 | Farming Monthly | July 2016 www. farmingmonthly. co. uk