Upland sheep man with wealth of experience confirmed as new Cumbria NFU County Chairman

Upland sheep farmer David Raine
Upland sheep farmer David Raine

Upland sheep farmer David Raine has been confirmed as the new NFU Cumbria County Chairman for 2016 and 2017. He will officially take over from Richard Geldard of Low Foulshaw Farm in Kendal at the NFU’s Cumbria County Branch Annual Dinner which takes place on Monday 25 January at the Westmorland Hotel, Tebay.

David farms at Old Parks, Kirkoswald near Penrith with wife Anne and son Michael, the eldest of four children. The farm is between 400ft and 600ft above sea level with 410 acres of typical Eden Valley pasture land, alongside 830 acres of out and out rough grazing hill land near Hartside summit on the Penrith to Alston road. Old Parks has 1,000 breeding ewes, predominantly Swaledales, with mules and Blue Faced Leicesters, alongside 220 cattle based on a suckler herd of 70 Limousin cross cows. David’s commercial sheep and cattle are sold through Penrith and District Farmers Mart, with breeding sheep also sold through H&H.

David said: “The main output of the farm is mule gimmer lambs and wethers. We finish the cattle and grow 100 acres of winter and spring barley, fodder beet and swedes to feed the cattle and sheep. We source protein and some sheep feeds but the core ethos of the business is to produce the majority of the feed we need on farm.”

Educated in agriculture at Newcastle University, David will bring a vast amount of experience to his new NFU Cumbria County Chairman role. He was on the county’s NFU Executive Committee from 1993 to 2003, was the organisation’s Cumbria livestock spokesman in 1993 and 1994, and in 2012 joined the NFU’s national livestock board – a role which will finish in March of this year.

His roles outside of the NFU have benefitted the livestock sector in the UK greatly. He was chairman of the National Sheep Association (NSA) between 1996 and 2000, being asked to do the role again in 2006.

David held influential positions on the livestock sector’s levy boards. He sat on the Meat and Livestock Commission (MLC) sheep advisory panel between 1994 and 1998 and chaired its Sheep Strategy Council between 1998 and 2002, and was a member of the Eblex Executive Board until 2012. He is still the NSA representative on the Assured Food Standards (AFS) beef and lamb advisory board.

Talking about the future of the NFU in the county, David added: “Making sure that issues important to NFU Cumbria members are brought to the attention of the wider organisation will be an integral part of my chairmanship. There is a huge level of expertise within the NFU at a national level that does an awful lot of good work – much of which does not get seen. The NFU team at regional and county level are committed to ensuring that members are given every opportunity to feed ideas and concerns into the organisation so that it can continue to deliver a professional and relevant service.”

The Raine family has a long and illustrious NFU history. David’s father, Joe, was council delegate and chair of the NFU national livestock board in the 1980s. This has clearly influenced David who took the conscious decision to follow his father – albeit on a slightly different route.