Events get underway - now have your say!

THE first of many Northwest Livestock Programme demonstration events have been seen in Cumbria in recent months.

 

At the beginning of the year, the Fellside Dairy Group in West Cumbria organised three events with the support of Cumbria Farmer Network and the Northwest Livestock Programme.

 

The meetings were attended by 10 to 30 farmers each evening and covered practical advice on how to improve herd fertility, the use of forage crops suitable for local conditions and the possibilities for producing electricity using anaerobic digestion of slurry and forage crops.

 

A new Cumbria Farmer Network group started at Croglin, on the east fellside, last spring. They had a talk about improving soil management and followed this up with a demonstration in July on improving older pastures by aerating and over-seeding, using two different types of drill and two different types of seed mixture.

 

The group plan to return to the demonstration fields in October to assess the results, and will bring in further specialists to advise on improving home grown feed in cost-effective ways.

 

Demonstrations

Grassland improvement was a topic that the Copeland Group in West Cumbria were also interested in and they held a similar soil and grassland improvement demonstration at Workington in March.

 

This, like the Croglin event, attracted over 50 farmers. A programme of demonstrations across Cumbria is to be formulated over the coming months after the monitor farm open days, where farmers will be able to have their say on the type of events they want to attend.

 

Support available for new farmer groups on issues affecting your business

 

Cumbria Farmer Network co-ordinators are speaking to farmers about starting new groups to look at the issues covered by the Livestock Programme, and are keen to hear about the areas you or your existing farmer group are interested in. Contact the CFN office on 01768 868 615.

 

Thanks go to representatives of Rickerbys, Carrs, Pigneys, Ritchies, and David Hall for demonstrating equipment at the above events. Also to Chris Harrison of Lakeland Veterinary Centre, Mike Burns of Wilde Agriculture, Helen Mathieu of  British Seed Houses, James Bretherton of  Agscope, Gunter Woltron and Rob Skinnner of Core NW anaerobic digesters, for speaking at events and providing funds to match the RDPE Livestock Programme.

 

The match funding donated by the Cumberland Building Society and the above speakers and demonstrators has made the events very useful for the farmers attending and is much appreciated. Cumbria Farmer Network is constantly looking for ways to improve the events and to provide sponsorship as match funding, to enable us to draw down the grant-funding.

Add a Comment

If you would like to leave a comment, please login or register for an account.