From the director of operations

Paul Sneyd joined the Hereford Cattle Society in February 2021 as director of operations. He reports on his first year in the job.

by Paul Sneyd

As I am sitting writing this article, we are now facing a further new mutation of the Covid virus - Omicron. Hopefully with the UK’s vaccination programme as it is, and the new measures the government are implementing around booster jabs, it can be ‘managed’ without too much further heart ache and disruption to all of our lives.

I joined the society back in February 2021 as the new director of operations. It is both a privilege and an honour to work with such a prestigious breed society. Like with many things in life, there are always challenges with any organisation, but I am definitely a ‘glass half full’ person and know the breed and society have a great future. I believe we are also well placed to manage and successfully capitalise on the new environmental challenges that are coming our way. My background is in farming but for the last 10 years I have been involved in the global soft fruit industry and had the benefit of experiencing a range of farming practices across the world. The society has continued through these recent difficult Covid times and like many, has tried to maintain our ‘business as usual’ ethos. However, the main things we have all missed are the number of shows, events and opportunities to get together as normal. Some shows did get going in the summer, which was just fantastic, as well, we held our annual dinner in October.

I’m pleased to report that our membership continues to grow despite this lack of shows and events in 2021, especially as our summer shows are an important and integral part of the society enabling promotion of the breed and pedigree herds. Nevertheless, as the year progressed and movement became a little easier I was able to start and meet some of the industry leaders and more importantly our partners to move forward in forging relationships and in particular looking at how we can improve our beef sales.

It was a real delight to see the spring and autumn parade and sales happen with 2022 seeing the return of the shows, hopefully. The spring trade was particularly robust with a strong average sale price for both the heifers and the bulls.

Despite everything, the National Herd Competition did take place in 2021. For this, I must thank Pat Stanley for undertaking the judging along with all the travelling that is involved. Pat commented on the standard of the herds and said it was an extremely difficult decision but in the end chose the Studdolph/Glenvale/Ashdale herd of the Thorne family as winners.

This year, with the reduced number of shows and subsequently less expenditure, council signed off a sustainability and carbon audit project to be undertaken by Dr Liz Genever. In the UK, like most other countries, there is a massive focus from government on climate change mitigation and this will affect all our lives and particularly those of us involved in agriculture. This project will enable the society Paul Sneyd

to better understand and know what areas we need to work on - to ensure our breed’s sustainability, and how we can reduce any negative impact on the environment. This will ensure we future proof ourselves for the next decade and beyond. Breed promotion is paramount and we continue to work hard in this area ensuring that we are focussed at all levels: with our farmers; in our marketing; and at processer, retailer and consumer level. I would also like to thank you, the membership, for your support while we have all worked our way through some tricky and on occasion difficult times, which sadly may continue with Covid still apparent as we enter 2022. The staff at Hereford House continue to work tirelessly and the work of modernising our practices continues along with the ever-increasing challenge of reducing our printing and paper usage (thus costs) which are vast. I would like to thank the staff for their hard work, dedication and their ‘going over and above’ attitude to ensure the society continues to deliver to you, our members.