Promoting Stewardship

Alisdair Naulls, Agrii Consultancy Services

Jim Paice with a winning team member from the Gillingham & Shaftesbury YFC

A competition to promote good environmental practice run by the National Federation of Young Farmers Clubs and the Campaign for the Farmed Environment (CFE), sponsored by Agrii, was launched by Farming Minister Jim Paice in December 2011 for young farmers to demonstrate that they understand the challenges of delivering environmental measures on farm within a commercially viable framework.

To enter the competition entrants had to create an Agri-environment scheme for an arable/mixed farm that is not currently in a scheme or supporting the CFE. Working with the farmer, all entrants had to put together a written report explaining how  supporting the CFE will benefit the farm business. Six finalists were chosen with the winner being members of Gillingham and Shaftesbury Young Farmers’ Club (YFC).

Adrian Matthews, head of Agrii Consultancy Services and Laura Francis from Agrii Consultancy Services and CFE Co-ordinator agreed, “We are proud to have supported this Young Farmers competition. The standard of entries and depth of knowledge of the relationship between farming and the environment demonstrates both areas are in very good hands.”