Harper Forum report - Velcourt and Sastak

Posted 3 November 2015

By Tom Whittaker

On Thursday 22nd October at Harper Forum we welcomed Nick Shorter, southern farms director at Velcourt, Europe’s leading farming company. He spoke about “How to succeed – A Farm Management career in the 21st Century”.

During the talk he outlined the opportunities, challenges and expectations of graduates coming into farming as well as the background to Velcourt which has 80 separate farm businesses from Northumberland to Devon and farms by the principles of: Co-operation, Financial Discipline and Technical Innovation. He also gave details about farming’s biggest challenges including meeting global demands, managing risk and looking after big business.

Velcourt offer scholarships of £3,500 per academic year for both the arable and dairy sectors with the aim of recruiting and developing the best at an early stage and for the scholars join the management team.

Last week, Thursday 29th October, David Mills gave a talk about Sastak, an agricultural machinery ring, recruitment and training company with 800 members of which he is a director. He spoke about the different services which Sastak offer, as well as their acquisition of other businesses and how the abolition of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme has affected their business.

This week, Thursday 5th November, we have John Beardmore of The Ohio International Intern Program, who will be talking about overseas placements. 

It will be held in the Regional Food Academy at 7PM and all staff and students are welcome!

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