Winners of goose entrant sponsorship

Norfolk farmers, Martin and Rosemary Jensen, are the 2007 winners of the John Adlard Memorial Sponsorship aimed at helping get new entrants to goose production off to a flying start. Their success was announced at the annual farm walk of British Goose Producers, hosted by Norfolk Geese which instigated the award last year in memory of the group's founder chairman John Adlard.

Arable farmers at Guestwick, the Jensens are this year producing 75 geese and looking to sell them to local hotels and restaurants as well as farmgate customers. With their daughter studying agriculture at the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester, the geese are one part of their diversifying enterprises that include borage, haylage and sheep production.

More than 50 BGP members and friends attended the event which began at Norfolk Geese. Mr Adlard's daughters, Louise Adlard and Georgia Hegarty, spoke about the development of the business over the past 35 years into the country's largest supplier of day-old goslings.

Then the visitors moved on to one of the Norfolk Geese breeding farms at Tibenham where Bob Sage and Martin Gulliver spoke about the seasonal production of goslings and their breeding policy.

At nearby Gissing Hall a goose buffet was the centrepiece of the anniversary lunch celebrating 25 years of the group. Chairman Judy Goodman welcomed the highest number of new members in a year, and spoke of the continuing increase in demand for geese. "Our sector is only a small part of the poultry industry, but goose is very much in keeping with the growing trend towards seasonal and traditional foods," she commented.

Roger Ranson, of BHR Communications, pointed to the potential for developing early autumn sales at Michaelmas, while Graham Loveday, of animal feed manufacturers Marriage's, described the nutritional requirements of geese and importance of achieving a good finish.