I was at the Royal Northern Agricutural Society Awards lunch on Friday. There are four main awards and three for upcoming people. The two student awards went to Rebecca Bradley and James Scott. Agricultural apprentice was Martyn Burnett. Under-35 award went to Stuart Duncan who has established his own farm machinery repair business. Graham Bruce was awarded for running Ringlink machinery ring since it’s inception 30 years ago. David Smith has been a stalwart of NFUS and has done a great deal of work with renewables and the local community. I wanted to give everyone a mention as they are all worthy winners, but I need to concentrate on James (Jim) Buckingham.

Jim was a college lecturer with what is now SAC/SRUC. It’s not often that someone makes the gigantic leap from academia to practical on-farm solutions, but Jim has done this very effectively. He has used his knowledge to improve ventilation systems, feed delivery systems and on-farm mill and mixing. It is with liquid feeding that he is the acknowledged expert in Scotland. In my opinion, liquid feeding improves the growth rate of pigs by up to 100g/day and definitely improves feed conversion through less wastage. Jim has introduced efficient systems to take pigs from weaning through to finish at up to 130kg.

The nature of ad-lib liquid feeding means it is running 24/7. Me and my fellow pig farmers have no hesitation phoning Jim, or his extremely patient wife Phillipa, at any time, 365 days a year. To their enduring credit, they never lose their temper, regardless of how unsociable our requests are. I well remember Jim doing a job at our pig unit just before Christmas and being called out to Ballindalloch (a good two-hour drive away) at 7.30pm. Needless to say, off he went, in spite of the ongoing blizzard. Due to these ongoing call-outs, we farmers have to be patient when it comes to jobs being finished off and the time of arrival. He has gained the nickname of “the late Jim Buckingham”, so it was somewhat ironic that he chose a fine-looking clock as his award.

Cattle

We have just finished weaning our six groups of cows. We like to keep the cows inside for three days at weaning as it saves them wrecking fences if you turn them straight out. We don’t have space for more than one group at a time, so it is a two-week process. Next week is my most nervous in the farming calendar, as we do pregnancy and Johnes testing. We have been Johnes testing since 2003 but we still get the odd positive animal. It’s been one out of over 200+ for the last two years, so hopefully we can go clear – touch wood. I said in my previous article that there seemed to still be cows running and we had left a bull in for an extra three weeks. We have had over 95% in-calf for nine of the least 10 years with the other year being 94%. I’m not confident at all about this year and can only put it down to the long dry spell this summer.

My eldest son gave me a track experience day as a Father’s Day gift. We had a fantastic time driving an Audi R8 and Porsche 911.

My son also drove a Lotus Evora and I had a hurl round in a Lamborghini racing car – Ford Mustang, Ferrari California, Aston Martin Vantage and Lamborghini Gallardo also available. I can thoroughly recommend it to any petrol heads amongst you. I can just hear my passengers to NFUS meetings, in my Mitsubishi truck, commenting that my driving is more suited to track racing.