Sir John Marsh heads the field in RASE Awards for 2011
One of agricultures outstanding economists for the past thirty years, Professor Sir John Marsh, has been given the Royal Agricultural Society of Englands National Agricultural Award for 2011.
Sir John heads an impressive list of award winners which this year contains two landowning families, a TV presenter and a scientist who has led the way in plant genomics research.
The National Agricultural Award recognises a career that has spanned more than 50 active years, during which Sir John has had a huge impact on the agricultural industry. He took up his first post as a Research Economist at University of Reading in 1956 and became successively Lecturer and Reader in Agricultural Economics. He did stints on the Agricultural Wages Board, the Potato Marketing Board and a number of Government and industry Task Forces and Advisory Committees.
His work and impact on the industry was rewarded in June 1993 when he became CBE. He was Knighted in the Queens Birthday Honours in 1999.
The RASE citation notes that the award is in recognition of Sir Johns many and varied contributions to agricultural economics, agricultural education and to our industry in general as well as his expertise and wise counsel in advising Government and other industry institutions.
Farmer, television presenter and writer, Adam Henson, has been given the RASEs Outstanding Communicator Award 2011. Adam runs the Cotswold Farm Park, started by his father in the 1970s which attracts over 70,000 visitors a year. Adam and Duncan Andrews took on the lease of Bemborough Farm from Adams father, and the pair now jointly run the 650 hectare estate, growing wheat, spring barley and oilseed rape, alongside a flock of 350 commercial ewes.
Adam gained a HND in agriculture at Seale Hayne Agricultural College. He broke into television work in 2001 when he was successful in gaining a presentation position on the BBCs Countryfile. Since then he has worked on a number of programmes including the ground-breaking Lambing Live.
The Excellence in Practical Farming & Business Award 2011 was awarded to J.F.Temple and Son Ltd. The business is run by Dr Stephen Temple, an agricultural graduate of Reading University with a masters degree in agricultural engineering from Newcastle, and his wife Dr Catherine Temple, a qualified pharmacist. The judges were impressed by both the quality of farming and the high level of innovation which ran side by side in the Temples business. Farm enterprises include a 100-cow dairy herd producing milk for cheese making, contracting, haulage, an electronics business and a recently installed Anaerobic Digester which produces 3MWh of electricity daily to the national grid as well as meeting all the on-farm power requirements. They are now planning further diversifications to use up the surplus heat.
The Bledisloe Gold Medal for Landowners is awarded to Emma Holman-Wests Alscot Estate. The 4000-acre estate to the south of Stratford-Upon-Avon has been in the West family for over 200 years. Through Emmas leadership and innovation, the estate has adapted and changed to suit 21st century needs and those of the local community.
The estate has ten agricultural tenants in a variety of agreements including around 200 acres of vegetables for which two reservoirs have been built. There are 300 acres of woodland under active management. The estate has a commercial portfolio with around 80 business premises, employing over 700 people on site ranging from serviced office space and conferencing facilities through to warehousing. There are 120 residential properties ranging from small cottages to large 7 bedroom houses. A new village Hall was remodelled by the estate with the aid of a Millennium Grant and features trusses made from oak trees grown on the estate. The village post office, subsidised by the estate, is open twice a week to assist the local community. The estate runs an award winning pub, The Bell at Alderminster. Also on the estate is Alscot Timber and Woodworking Supplies, making windows, doors and other wooden building products which has a show piece workshop and retail outlet.
Alscot is rolling out high speed broadband to the local area bringing vast improvement and efficiency to estate based companies and local residents. Photovoltaic Cells have been installed on a commercial development already and a wind-turbine project is in the planning stages.
The societys Research Medal has been awarded to Professor Keith Edwards of the University of Bristol in recognition of his work using genomics-based technologies to identify, map, isolate, manipulate and express different genetic variants in wheat quality and performance. Keith was one of the team which released the first sequence coverage of the wheat genome in 2010, a significant building block in efforts to develop new types of wheat, better able to cope with drought, salinity or able to deliver higher yields.
The National Agricultural Award, formerly the Massey Ferguson National Agricultural Award was established in 1964. In 1994 The RASE took over the award when it became the National Agricultural Award. Most recent winners have included HRH the Prince of Wales and Emeritus Professor Allan E Buckwell FRASE, FRAgS. The objective of the award is to recognise outstanding contributions to the advancement of agriculture in the UK.
The Excellence in Practical Farming & Business Award is open to farmers and farm managers who are setting a lead for other farmers on either a regional or national level
The RASE Research Medal was introduced to acknowledge research work of outstanding merit, carried out in the United Kingdom, which has proved, or is likely to be, of benefit to agriculture