News & Events
The focus of the group is to encourage the progression of farming practices that make you more profitable and efficient in the way that you operate.
There are geographic groups, with each group containing 14-20 members, and there will be 6-8 workshop meetings throughout each winter. The workshops will start at 11.30, hopefully, giving you plenty of time to finish your morning duties before arriving for the workshop. A hot lunch will be provided and will give further opportunity for discussion.
I would hope that every farm will take a turn at hosting a workshop, so that we have plenty of new venues to keep going to. Each meeting will be co-hosted by that farms vet and myself. At times a further industry professional will join us if that is likely to contribute additional discussion and transfer of knowledge.
If you would like to involve your herdsperson or further family members or workers, please don’t hesitate to ask and we will do our best to make sure that the size of the groups does not get so big, that it prevents some people from gaining the most from the experience.
The workshops will cover specific topics on each farm, they will not involve a whole farm over view i.e. if the subject is calf rearing the we will concentrate on that area on the farm where the calves are reared.
At the end of each year we will try to hold an evening farm walk and barbeque for all of the groups to come together, whilst also those that have attended all bar one of the workshops will receive a Harpers Milk Academy Fleece and certificate to denote their attendance.
If there are enough farmers wanting the course to be properly accredited then we will look further into this aspect. It is possible that we could link in with City in Guilds or NVQ, or just certificate it ourselves by getting the vet practices in the area to help us in getting it accepted as a useful certificate of competence across the South West.
Pete Davis
Ruminant Nutritionist
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