Feb 14, 2018
Tonight I'm staying in Wales and heading down to Wenvoe, near Cardiff to talk to dairy farmer, Abi Reader @AbiReader
We talk about Abi's family farm, and how the business has grown over the years. We discuss her role at the farm, and what that entails, as well as the fantastic team that she has working for her, and also touch on future plans.
We talk about the environmental improvements that they've made on the farm, including working with a local Wildlife Group planting orchards and working on a pond, which has helped them to gain two green flags.
Abi tells me about the various initiatives that she's involved with, from opening up the farm gates to large numbers of visitors annually as part of Open Farm Sunday, to regularly hosting groups of beavers, rainbows, and holiday clubs, and visiting schools to talk about dairy farming. We discuss also 'Cows on tour' and how that led to visiting a school in London with a model cow, and the fantastic response that it received.
We talk about her early education at a school in central Cardiff and being the only farm kid there, and how eventually she found her way to the Royal Agricultural college to study Agriculture, before joining the family business.
We also talk about the Secretary of State for Wales leading one of her heifers at the local agricultural show, and how that went a bit wrong (?!), and not one, but two visits to number 10 Downing Street last year, as well as her involvement with the National Farmers Union.
Honestly, Abi's involved with soooooooo many things, marvel that she is, that there's just not enough bloody time or space to list them all.
Just listen to the podcast folks! ;-)
This episode is kindly sponsored by NFU Cymru. For more information please visit www.nfu-cymru.org or rockandrollfarming.com