International visitors at Royal Welsh Show
The Royal Welsh Agricultural Society welcomed nearly 700 visitors from 40 countries during the four-day show in July. They came from Timbuktu to Texas and from Australia to Argentina to register at the showground’s International Pavilion, learn about farming in Wales, promote trade and develop closer ties with the RWAS.
Ireland led the visitors this year with 130, followed by Holland, with 110, and New Zealand 108. Australia (69), the USA (34) and Belgium (34), were also strongly represented at the show said the society’s Chief Steward at the International Pavilion, Ernie Beaumont.
A group of farmers from Texas were interested in importing British Blue cattle for ranches located east of Houston while a cattle breeder from Uganda was networking breeders in the UK particularly of Simmental, Charolais and Limousins with a view to potential future exports.
A Tuareg tribal chief from Timbuktu was one of the most distinctive visitors, there to promote worldwide Fair Trade links in the UK, and conspicuous on the showground in his brightly coloured robes.
Some visitors from abroad had special missions to undertake at the show. A mother and daughter from Adelaide were tracing farms in Wales that supplied the original blood lines for their Welsh Section B and Section C ponies imported into Australia in the 1920s. Another visitor, a 90 year-old lady from Patagonia was searching for family members related to her father who emigrated from North Wales to Argentina in 1910. She was accompanied by her nieces who spoke Spanish and Welsh but very little English.
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