Brecon farmer is new Royal Welsh President
Powys farmer John Rhys Davies of Pentre, Merthyr Cynog, Brecon, has been elected president of the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society for 2012 when Brecknock will be the feature county at the Royal Welsh Show.
Mr Davies, 45, a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Societies, is a former chairman of Wales Young Farmers Clubs and a past chairman of the Brecon & Radnor branch of the National Farmers Union. He has also served on a number of government advisory committees including the Young Entrants Task and Finish group. He has travelled extensively as an MLC Cymru New Zealand Scholar and visited the USA to study the beef supply chain from production to plate.
Mr Davies’s family farm carries 100 suckler cows and 1000 ewes and he also runs a contracting business specialising in grass silage and wholecrop which harvested around 3000 acres last year. The farm has hosted a number of events for agricultural organisations and next June, John and wife Menna and family, look forward to welcoming people to Pentre for a major national grassland event focusing on how farmers in the western half of Britain, and Wales in particular, can meet the challenges of food production and climate change.
Mr Davies was elected to the Royal Welsh presidency by the RWAS Council at Builth Wells. He told members that when the society, now approaching its 108th year, was formed there were one and three-quarter billion people living on the planet.
Now there were over seven billion, serving to highlight how agriculture has had to develop to meet the needs of a vastly growing population.
“So far we have coped with feeding that growing population although sometimes we can’t get it to where it’s most needed. Now sustainable intensification is the new doctrine and our challenge in a nutshell is how to feed a fast growing world population without depleting the planet’s resources for our children,” he said.
“By working with other organisations, the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society will continue to fulfil a vital role in improving the way farmers in Wales play their part in meeting this challenge,” he added.
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