NFU AGM & Conference

Congratulations to Minette Batters who is the first female President of the NFU and she certainly takes to the reins at a very challenging and important time for UK agriculture.  Along with her new Vice President, Stuart Roberts and re-elected Guy Smith as Deputy President, they will certainly be kept very busy and have to hit the ground running.

This year’s NFU Conference saw a record attendance of 1560 delegates and whilst it was a bit of a gamble at the time, credit for the move to the ICC goes to the then NFU Vice President, Gwyn Jones. The move has been a huge success.

In terms of the papers whilst the Secretary of Stated for EFRA, The Rt Hon. Michael Gove gave a very good stage performance but his paper told delegates nothing they couldn’t have heard from him 12 months earlier.  In summary, he should have done better.  More on this another day and on the interesting elements of the Dairy Breakout.