Jeremy wins farm employee of year

A farm worker from Stackpole, Pembrokeshire with multi-tasking skills that range from ploughing to feathering turkeys for Christmas, is the NFU Cymru/NatWest Farm Employee of the Year.

Jeremy Phillips, who works for Edward Morris of Loveston Farm, Merrion, Pembroke, received a memorial statuette and a prize of £500 for being what NFU Cymru deputy president Ed Bailey called an outstanding winner.

Jeremy joined the farm after attending Usk Agricultural College 26 years ago, and can turn his hand to anything from ploughing to combining, and from lambing to feathering turkeys. The 400-acre farm accommodates a commercial flock of 230 ewes and 100 mainly Charolais cattle, and produces 100 acres of winter and spring barley, 50 acres of oilseed rape and 135 acres of wheat.

"I've always wanted to work in farming," said Jeremy, who lives on the six-acre family smallholding at Stackpole with his wife Joanne and their children Elys, aged 10 and Evan, five.

"If my grandfather was baling hay I would go there straight from school to drive the tractor.