Five farmers benefit from Travel scholarship

Five young farmers from across Wales have financially benefited from this year’s Gareth Raw Rees Memorial Travel Scholarship. A total of ’1,750 has been awarded by the Management Committee to scholars wishing to broaden their knowledge of agriculture.

This year’s awards will be presented by the Chairman of the NFU Mutual Board of Directors and Chairman of the NFU Mutual Charitable Trust, Sir Don Curry, at the Royal Welsh Show, on Tuesday 19 July 2010 at 11.00am.

Dylan Bowen, the main winner, from Pantybwlch, near Newcastle Emlyn in Carmarthenshire, will receive ’800 to help him travel to Canada. Dylan will use the money to help fund a two week trip to Ontario arranged through the Wales YFC Discovery Programme. He will also extend the trip for a further week to visit farms in the Manitoba area.

Dylan graduated from Coleg Sir Gar in 2008 after gaining a NVQ Level 3 and HNC in Mechanical Engineering and now works full time as an Agricultural Engineer in the family business. Commenting on his impending visit to Canada, Dylan said, ’I am really looking forward to learn at first-hand how farmers in Canada cope with their long and severely cold winter weather conditions and I’m interested to learn how they’ve adapted to be able to continue farming productively in the face of these difficulties.

’We’ve already seen how weather patterns are changing in Wales and our farmers have experienced great problems throughout the previous two winters and I’m keen to find out more about how we can become more resilient in Wales to combat these difficulties. I’m also eager to learn more about different cattle handling systems that are used on Canadian farms and how we could adapt these for use in Wales, particularly with the growing need for our farmers to use such handling facilities due to increased TB testing.

There are four further recipients from the scholarship this year who are each receiving a financial contribution to help with their travels.

Arwel Jenkins, from Llanybydder in Carmarthenshire is currently working as an Engineer for an Agricultural Machinery Dealership. Arwel receives ’300 towards a trip to Australia and New Zealand. He plans to work for agricultural contractors throughout the Australian harvesting season from mid-October to January before moving onto New Zealand to gain further agricultural experience.

Primary school teacher Arwel Evans, also receives ’300 from the scholarship towards a trip to Kenya, which has been arranged through the Wales YFC Discovery Programme. Arwel’s travels will take him away from the family farm near Brynberian in North Pembrokeshire to broaden his knowledge of agriculture in a developing country and to see first-hand how Kenyan farmers cope with the challenges of feeding its people.

Richard Wilding, from Norton, near Presteigne in Powys currently works in Flood Risk Management for the Environment Agency and will receive ’250 from the scholarship to help fund a trip to Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Richard will use his travels to learn more about beef and lamb production techniques that he intends to adopt in future on the family farm.

Newly qualified secondary school teacher Mark Powell, from Erwood, near Builth Wells, receives ’100 from the scholarship. Mark will also be travelling to rural Kenya this summer on a trip arranged by the Wales YFC Discovery Programme.

The scholarship, which is administered by NFU Cymru was set up in memory of the late Gareth Raw Rees who, for many years, was a delegate on the NFU London Council and Chairman of the NFU Cymru Education Committee. Gareth believed fervently that travel was an important form of education for young people.