FW Awards 2009 winner: Livestock Adviser of the Year – Rob Mintern
- Sponsored by Silotite
- WINNER: Rob Mintern, Kingshay, Somerset
Rob’s passion for the dairy industry is clear the moment he walks through the door, and there is no doubt his enthusiasm has gone a long way towards making him a hugely influential force among farmers and advisers alike.
Most impressive is his ability to communicate with farmers at their level and put ideas across in a practical and concise way.
On a day to day basis, Rob offers phone support to farmers on a range of topics.
He is also involved in running workshops, farmer meetings and writing twice monthly farming notes on various topics for Kingshay members.
He also designs and runs a variety of training workshops catered for farmers, vets, reps and college students – all the time thinking of how to make the information as practical as possible.
His work philosophy is based around understanding and reacting to what cows are telling you and improving cow comfort and welfare. All of which will ultimately have huge benefits to the bottom line.
Most significantly, Rob has used his practical and technical experience to develop a total on-farm assessment, aimed at identifying pressure points affecting production.
“HowsMyHerd is the only whole farm assessment available. The assessment aims to highlight and prioritise key areas for attention on farm,” explains Rob.
The assessment is completely measurable and evidence based, but designed so findings are as practical as possible.
The task of telling farmers where the weaknesses are on their farm is a potentially challenging one, but by producing a practical and farmer friendly report after the visit, he is doing just that.
“Each report is fully annotated with photographs from each farm, making it a lot easier for farmers to identify the problems I have highlighted,” he says.
The report highlights areas for attention, putting an actual financial cost alongside the issue and, more importantly, shows how problems can be rectified.
In a climate where dairy farmers are struggling to find resources to invest, the service shows you do not necessarily have to make huge investments to make a considerable difference on farm.
And the 60 farms that have undergone the assessment so far are no doubt saying just that. And moving forward, the aim is to train more consultants to carry out the assessment and take the service to the global market.
BUSINESS FACTS
- Technical specialist for Kingshay
- Delivering and developing HowsMyHerd
- Offering technical and practical advice
- Focusing on providing low cost solutions to high cost problems
- Understanding cow behaviour
WHAT MAKES HIM A WINNER?
- Hugely passionate and driven
- Able to put information across to farmers in a practical way
- Designed and developed whole farm assessment – HowsMyHerd
SPONSOR’S VIEW
- Rob’s key strength is his ability to use his hands-on experience to put technical information across to farmers in a practical way. Rob’s enthusiasm is infectious. He obviously has a huge amount of knowledge covering a wide range of areas within dairying. Kate Davies, bpi.agri
INDEPENDENT JUDGE
- Rob has spent a lot of time developing the HowsMyHerd service. It is a great achievement to get such information across to farmers. By recognising the effect of small changes on farm he is making a huge difference. Lyndon Edwards