Food and drink welcome for Norfolk business forum

Award-winning dairy products, outdoor pork, prime beef and daffodils were just some of the subjects which featured in an initiative to promote an agricultural round table in north Norfolk.

Business leaders from the district invited political leaders and leading local food producers to outline some of the key challenges faced by the industry.

In a three-hour tour of four

farms, councillors and officers of North Norfolk District Council were given a flavour of the farming industry.

Christopher Deane, group secretary of the National Farmers' Union at North Walsham, who helped to organise the programme, emphasised the potential of working with the North Norfolk Business Forum. It followed the successful launch of the Tourism Round Table earlier this year.

"We see this a possible first step towards working more closely with the district council and the business forum to help the agricultural industry prosper and develop."

Ian Doughty, who is the forum's chairman, outlined the main objectives. By involving the local authority the opportunities for the district's land and buildings could be considered while promoting more understanding and knowledge about all aspects of agriculture. The final strand involved promotion of north Norfolk's locally produced food and drink.

Three dozen guests, including the council's deputy leader, Dr Clive Stockton, and North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb, were taken on a tour of part of the Stody estate.

"This was a possible first step towards working more closely with the district council and the business forum to help the agricultural industry prosper and develop," said Mr Deane, who stressed the need to boost the rural economy, countryside and tourism.

He welcomed the potential to promote goals including "procurement of local food and drink, and encourage education and the understanding of why farming matters and its importance in north Norfolk.

"Thirdly, there is the opportunity to explore in general terms what we as an industry would like to see and what would help to generate rural diversification, employment and tourism," he added.

Adel MacNicol, who is the retiring president of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, welcomed visitors to her family's estate, which is a 1,700 hectare farming business with 300ha of woodland centred around the parishes of Stody and Hunworth.

"Bringing people together is really important for the future of our agriculture. I'm delighted to see it happening in north Norfolk," she added.

The tour included a briefing by award-winning farmer, Duncan Jeary, who started his beef enterprise nine years ago. His herd of about 80 Aberdeen Angus cows, was founded with a single animal in 1999. Now, the cattle graze low-lying grassland on the Stody estate and are housed in rented buildings on the estate.

The visitors, including the council's chief executive Philip Burton, and other forum members, chartered accountant David Missen, of Larking Gowen, and Michael Mack and Richard Rampton, of the Norfolk Rural Business Advisory Service, also heard from specialist outdoor pig farmer Roger Newton. He finishes about 55,000 pigs a year for Waitrose, all reared and finished outdoors, and employs about 30 staff across Norfolk.

Then, the visitors went to Roger and Brian Pointen's Grange Farm, where the brothers run about 80 mainly Holstein cows producing milk, cream and ice-cream products. They started the venture in 1984 when milk quotas threatened the future of the business.

"It has been a fascinating morning," said Mr Lamb. " It seems to us all that it is worth trying to build the relationship and increase the understanding and it is great that the council should come along and participate."