APPLICATION OF TECHNOLOGY TO MILK PRODUCTION WYNNE JONES 1983 NUFFIELD SCHOLAR
I was awarded a Nuffield scholarship sponsored by the Trehane Trust in 1983. At the time I was Head of the Animal Production department at the Welsh Agricultural College in Aberystwyth. I chose to visit the USA as I wished to acquaint myself with the Land Grant Universities’ network where research, education and extension co- existed within the one organisation. I later added a few days to visit Canada as milk quotas had been introduced to Europe and I wished to witness their operation in another country. Importantly I wished to avail myself of an opportunity away from the day job to think through my own career aspirations. I regarded this element as the proverbial “biblical forty days in the wilderness” and was on reflection an important, enduring strand to my tour. The 1983 group was the first to visit Brussels as part of the initial briefing - now called the Pre CSC. This was an excellent innovation by the Nuffield Farming Scholarship Trust (NFST). We bonded well and continue to challenge and support each other, hence the self-anointed appellation “Dream Team”. I realised that I needed to be better informed of context, be less operational and more strategic in my thinking and general approach to issues if I was to make a meaningful contribution to the industry. For this reason, I had included four days of intensive briefing by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Washington at the start of my tour. I travelled extensively and did not meet up with any Nuffield scholars on tour, but, what is worthy of note is that the name ‘Trehane’ opened as many doors as ‘Nuffield’. ‘Who knows you’ and not ‘who you know’ was my obvious conclusion. I saw and experienced many things, too numerous to mention here, including the way the American dairy industry had an organisation dedicated to
political lobbying and responding immediately to any criticism in their press, also one that took me aback, was the number of derelict farms in upper New York State. No young people to buy out a retiring couple. Close the gate and leave! A Nuffield scholarship is very much an individual opportunity for personal development, and I returned from my tour with a much more positive attitude and ambition to fulfil my personal role for whichever organisation employed me. Above all I felt that education on a lifetime basis was the way to achieve a common goal of success and prosperity for our industry. This does not belittle so many things that I saw and experienced but in the final analysis it is people not processes or policies that make things happen. I completed and circulated the report and was pleased to receive many invitations to speak of my experiences. This could be regarded as the end of Part One as a ‘Nuffield Scholar’ and the commencement of Part Two as a ‘Nuffield graduate’. NUFFIELD GRADUATE The annual Nuffield conference and the Trehane Trusts annual dairy industry dinner was an excellent and immediate vehicle for me to
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