Sustainable dairy work at Future Farm leads to Farmers Weekly Livestock Adviser of the Year nomination

Posted 1 October 2024

The work of a livestock consultant in boosting sustainable milk production from the Harper Adams University Future Farm herd has seen him shortlisted for a top award.

David Howard, head of dairy services at advisory and supplier group Wynnstay, is one of four people in the running for Livestock Adviser of the Year at this year’s Farmers Weekly awards, set to be announced this Thursday.

With his advice, the 400-strong dairy herd at the farm is producing almost 6,000 litres per cow each year from forage on a 65 per cent forage diet – which is nearly double that of the average UK dairy herd.

With a target for the Future Farm to become Net Zero by 2030, advice such as David’s is set to prove crucial – and his work is certainly appreciated by Kate Robinson, Ruminant Sector Manager on the Farm.

She said: “It is quite a unique position for David to be in – not only has he got commercial farming clients, but then he has got us as a University farm – so he has not only got farm staff, he’s got academics, other industry-led experts – everybody likes to have a contribution!

“He’s good at dealing with that as well – he goes and has conversations with one of our Professors, Liam Sinclair, for instance they had a talk about proteins not that long ago.

“That’s great, and while David is a nutritionist, he is willing to accept everybody else’s ideas and inputs.

“He has been a gamechanger for all the team that are involved with the dairy.

“He helps us with ration formulations, forage analysis, ordering feeds.

“What people really like is he’s on a WhatsApp group chat, so we can upload the daily milk quality results that we get – whoever phones him, even if he’s busy, he’ll say ‘I’ll call you back’ – and he always does.

“That flexibility is absolutely brilliant – sometimes he might come twice a week if we have got a problem – other times we might not see him for three or four weeks, but he is always at the end of the phone.

“We aren’t always fixed when we get together – we go with what the cows tell us.”

For his part, David says he has enjoyed his work at Harper Adams.

He added: “It has been a pleasure to work with the Future Farm team.

“The industry needs leadership in innovation and early adopters of the latest technology to progress and remain ahead in a very competitive global dairy market.

“The Future Farm team have always been prepared to take the first step and give other livestock farmers the confidence to adopt new technology whist setting ambitious targets for net zero. I feel very privileged to support this superb team.”

David will find out whether or not he has been selected as Livestock Adviser of the Year this Thursday at the Farmers Weekly awards at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.

Kate said: ““It is nice to see people get credit for something that they do really well, and David is such a quiet man that he would never shout about his own achievements, so I was really pleased!”

And David added: “It has been a real honour to be shortlisted.

“There are some outstanding candidates on the shortlist and so it is very exciting just to appear on the same list. Success in my role at Wynnstay would be impossible without such a fantastic team around and so I would like to thank my colleagues for their fantastic support as well as the livestock farmers I have the privilege of dealing with.”