Tom Rawson rounds off a busy month
It has certainly been a long, but eventful month; 24 days in New Zealand followed by a trip to Edinburgh to attend Agriscot and the Dairyco board meeting. I then headed straight to the Nuffield annual conference, back up to Scotland for some consultancy work, then finishing at the BBC Good Food Show in Birmingham.
My next big task is to stop myself winning the 2012 worst dad and husband of the year award.
The Nuffield conference was excellent, as always, with some interesting papers on everything from mob grazing of cattle on arable land (something we often do, but seldom on purpose) to agroforestry – planting lines of trees on your farm 48 metres apart. This year’s conference saw John Stones stand down as director of the trust after ten years. I would like to give a personal thank you to John for all he has done to help me over the years and I wish him well for the future.
During the past month or so I have been lucky enough to spend some time with Adam Henson from BBC Countryfile. Adam is an all-round top bloke and a huge ambassador for the industry. We need to churn out a steady stream of these guys, who are loved by farmers and the public alike.
The maize is now in on all farms, averaging a steady 10/t a acre. However, no wheat has been planted, so an increase in maize will be on the cards for 2013, unless it suddenly dries up between now and January.
Tom and Catherine Rawson are involved in three separate dairy farming businesses. The core activity is sharemilking about 1,000 cows on a low-input, forage-based system across three sites. Tom is also a partner in a dairy consultancy company.