The prestigious Scottish Dairy Farm of the Year title is once again up for grabs – and this time, organisers are calling for nominations from the farming public.
The long-running award, part of a stable of farm of the year titles organised by AgriScot and presented at the annual farm business event, has previously seen all milk-recorded dairy farms automatically entered.
For 2018 the AgriScot directors have taken the decision to bring the Scottish Dairy Farm of the Year title in line with their other awards and open it up for public nomination.
AgriScot Chairman, Robert Neill, commented:
“We are delighted that the Scottish Dairy Farm of the Year award will now follow the same steps as our other awards, i.e. it will be open for entry to every dairy farm in Scotland.”
“This is a great opportunity to highlight dairy farms in Scotland with potentially award-winning stories to tell.”
“Everyone now has the chance to nominate worthy dairy farms. I believe this is an exciting opportunity for advisors, suppliers and others in the industry to put forward their customers and clients, and of course dairy farmers are welcome to nominate their own farm – an award like this is a great way to give recognition for a hard-working team or family.”
“We would like to hear from and about dairy farms who may be doing something a bit different in terms of innovation, diversification or in their efforts to promote and sustain their business or the industry as a whole.”
Convenor for the new format dairy award, Gilmour Lawrie, a dairy farmer from Ayrshire, former Gold Cup finalist and long serving member of the AgriScot Board of Directors, commented:
“AgriScot is now a major event in the farming calendar, with huge relevance to every sector in agriculture. Our beef, sheep and arable farm of the year awards have helped to further the overall ethos of AgriScot, i.e. to showcase and highlight innovation and best practice.”
“Everyone involved in AgriScot is proud of how our previous dairy farm of the year award recipients have all lived up to this ethos. Our next step is to open the award up to other potential worthy winners out there, who can also provide a model of best practice but may have been overlooked in the past.”
“In the new format, there are countless reasons why a dairy farm could be nominated. I can think of examples such as an innovative diversification project, a first-class grassland management plan, an outstanding team of staff – I hope we will see examples of these, and many more reasons, as the nominations come in.”
“I am delighted that Ice Robotics have again agreed to sponsor the award and that George Templeton of Knowe Farm and Robert Neill will be joining me on the assessment panel. We are all very excited about championing the Scottish Dairy industry.”
Nominations, from anyone, and entries from farmers are welcome, please email info@agriscot.co.uk for more information.
