New Associates of Royal Agricultural Societies in Wales
The chairman of the Countryside Council for Wales, John Lloyd Jones of Tywyn, Gwynedd, has been made an Associate of the Royal Agricultural Societies following more than 20 years service to agriculture and the environment.
Mr Jones, a former chairman of NFU Wales, has chaired a succession of agricultural, forestry and land use organisations since 1988 when he was elected to represent Merioneth branch of the NFU at the union’s London headquarters. He was for 10 years a member of the Snowdonia National Park Authority and was chairman of the Forestry Commission’s Welsh Advisory Committee from 1994-2000 and also of Coed Cymru for two years.
In the 1990s he represented the NFU and served in a personal capacity on the National Trust’s Welsh Committee, the Welsh Environment Protection Committee, the Land Use Environment Committee for England and Wales, and was the UK farmers’ representative on the EU Commission’s Agricultural Advisory Committee on the Environment. He was also involved in setting up the Welsh Food Strategy, chairing its Lamb and Beef working group and, with Farming Connect, Tir Gofal and the Farming for the Future report with its emphasis on the importance of the Welsh family farm.
During recent years he has been involved with the land use research agenda having been a member of the assessment-visiting group to IGER and the Macauly Land Institute in Scotland. For the past five years he has been a member of DEFRA’s Rural Economy and Land Use Advisory Committee and is chairman of its Food Chain Forum.
Mr Jones, farms at Hendy, Tywyn, and has established a tourism business with a farmhouse B&B, five holiday cottages and a small caravan park. He is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales, Bangor, and was awarded the OBE for his work in agriculture and the environment.
Another prominent figure in Welsh affairs, John T Davies of Eglwyswrw, Crymych, a farmer and leader of both Pembrokeshire County Council and the Welsh Local Government Association, has also been made an Associate of the Royal Agricultural Societies.
Mr Davies, a tireless supporter of agriculture and the rural economy, successfully campaigned as a local government spokesman for education and schools in Wales, for the reintroduction of free school milk for five to seven year-olds and for the provision of flavoured milk rather than fizzy drinks on school menus.
Mr Davies, who champions the local procurement of food served in schools to reduce “food miles” and support the local economy, is a regular contributor to current affairs programmes on radio and TV in Wales and has recently been active in the drive to introduce an action pilot area in Wales to eradicate bovine TB. He is also an enthusiastic promoter of the YFC movement and of Farmers Markets in Wales. Recently, he helped to broker a top slice funding arrangement between the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society and local government in Wales whereby a sum will be set aside annually from the Local Government settlement for the society and the Royal Welsh Show.
Edwin Edward Hughes of Cornist Ganol Farm, Flint, has also become an Associate of the Royal Agricultural Societies. He is a director of the Wynnstay Group plc and helped to oversee the progression of the business from a farmers cooperative to a public limited company.
He is currently vice-chairman of the company and believes farmers should have a strong voice and financial involvement in the supply chain.
Mr Hughes is chairman of Flintshire magistrates and was recently invited to join a panel chaired by a circuit judge to develop the protocol for the use of the Welsh language in magistrate’s courts in Wales which is now operational.
A keen collector of vintage tractors – he has 11 specimens three of which are pre-1930 models – Mr Hughes, together with other enthusiasts, set up the Flintshire Vintage and Classic Tractor Society which now has more than 140 members.
A noted judge of dairy cattle at local and national shows, D.E. Meurig James of Whitland, Carmarthen, is the fourth Welshman to be awarded Associateship of the Royal Agricultural Societies.
Mr James is Breed Development and Type Classification Manager for Holstein UK, uniquely the only company in the country that officially type classifies dairy cows. Type classification involves scoring animals on various traits to identify their strengths and weaknesses which can then be rectified in the breeding programme to improve the quality of a herd.
As type classification manager, he is responsible for a team of 12 classifiers covering England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, who score around 120,000 animals a year. In 16 years in the job he has personally scored nearly 200,000 cows.
In his spare time Mr James, who is a former chairman of the Wales Federation of Young Farmers Clubs, trains young farmers and breeders in linear assessment and dairy stock judging. For many years he has been a commentator at local shows and is now a member of the cattle commentary team at the Royal Welsh Show, the Winter Fair and the Welsh Dairy Show. He will also commentate at this year’s South West Dairy Show.
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