Welsh Region

It’s been an exciting an eventful year with Nuffield Cymru. It was great to have the Royal Welsh Agricultural Show held for the first time since 2019. Nuffield Cymru organised a reception and refreshments at the NFU stand on the Wednesday morning of the show. It was good to meet with Scholars after a lengthy spell with no face to face meetings and it was fantastic to see prospective scholars coming along to enquire more about the scholarship. We look forward to working again with NFU to make this an annual reception destination at the show.

In late-September 2022, Nuffield Cymru collaborated with the Nuffield Beef and Sheep group in organising 2 days of farm tours across Montgomeryshire, Mid Wales. This turned into a successful few day seeing many familiar and new faces. We visited John and Sarah Yeomans at Llwyn y Brain, John was named Grassland Manager of the Year in 2022 at the inaugural National Arable & Grassland Awards and we saw during our visit the grassland trails they are conducting as well as the conservation work that is still undergoing at Llwyn y Brain. The second farm we visited was Marc Jones at Trefnant Hall. Marc, a beef and sheep farmer rearing and finishing autumn born dairy bred angus calves to finish at 20-24 months off grass and wintered on fodder beet, whilst also running Romney x ewes. Farming on a steep, dry, south facing farm, Marc shared the challenges he was facing with the dry summer. On the second day we visited Rhydian Glyn at Rhiwgriafol, a new entrant to the industry, started farming 9 years ago and built up an astound reputation as a quality stockman with a recorded flock of improved Welsh mountain ewes alongside rearing dairy youngstock either on contract or to be sold on.

The last farm we visited was the Tudor family at Llysun in Llanerfyl. The Tudor family converted to dairy and started milking in the spring of 2020. Everyone in the farming and Nuffield community were greatly saddened to hear of the loss of Richard in a tragic accident shortly after this, however it was fantastic to see during the visit how son Morgan, the family and his team had driven the farm forward and making a huge success of the new dairy venture. The destination of the Annual Nuffield Farming Conference for 2022 is of course Cardiff. As a Nuffield Cymru committee, we look forward to welcoming you all to Wales and we are excited to show you what our small nation has to offer!! Edrychwn ymlaen at eich croesawu chi gyd ir gynhadledd yng Nghaerdydd yn Mis Tachwedd! Diolch yn fawr

Iwan Vaughan