Farmer wins 100,000 litres of milk quota from IGENITY at Holstein Show

Dairy farmer Valerie Norman of Dorset won 100,000 litres of milk quota at this month's National Holstein Show in a competition run by IGENITY®, the event's main sponsor.

Mrs Norman manages the Cider House Herd of 160 dairy cows at Greenacres Farm in Sherbourne. She has been in business with her husband David Norman for the last 33 years selling the milk for cheese making.

The farm's quota stands at 1.4 million litres with an aim over the next year to purchase another 200,000 litres, so that they can increase cow numbers and milk yield.

"I am over the moon and can't believe that I have won the quota; it fits in well with all of our plans to progress the business. We wanted to expand to 1.6 million litres of quota and this has taken us half way there," says overjoyed Mrs Norman.

IGENITY is a revolutionary new DNA profiling service designed to give farmers, breeders and their advisors a new way to select and manage individual cattle and help optimise their herds' production potential. An IGENITY profile provides them with precise information on the genetic merit of their cattle which enables them to make more accurate breeding decisions.

To put themselves in the running to win the quota, visitors to the IGENITY stand simply answered a set of questions on gene markers and came up with a caption on the potential benefits of the IGENITY genetic profiling service. The quota certificate was presented to Mrs Norman in the arena by Nigel Otter, head of IGENITY in Europe. Runners up, Mr Richard Oakes and Mr John Maddrell each received a Sony digital camera.