NSA Welsh Sheep 2011 will be opened by a man who has become recognised as one of Wales’s foremost elder statesmen, Sir Meuric Rees.

A distinguished public figure and former Lord Lieutenant of Gwynedd, Sir Meuric has served a very full public life and has received many honours but remains at heart a farmer. His advice is always sage and his counsel is based on the wisdom of years but, as ever, when he opens the event he will be sharply focussed on the future.

A former Chairman of the Council of the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society, his links go back more than 75 years to the day when as a small boy he took his pony to the Aberystwyth Show. He brought home a white card as fourth prize and nearly sixty years later in 1990 he was, uniquely, presented with two of the Society’s most prestigious awards, its Gold Medal and the Sir Bryner Jones Memorial Award.

Sir Meuric has served on leading Welsh and UK farming organisations. These include chairing the Pwllpeirian Experimental Husbandry Farm Committee, chairing the Welsh Committee of the UK Countryside Commission, which developed into the Countryside Council for Wales, and chairing the UK Sheep Committee of the Meat and Livestock Commission.

He and his late wife, Margaret, developed a farming enterprise extending to 1800 acres overlooking the Meirionydd coast, and sold all their produce through their Tywyn Wholesale Meat Company. The farm holding is centred on his childhood home Escuan Hall, where hill land improvement was pioneered in Wales.

He says the three most significant of the many changes in farming he has witnessed are: the change from horsepower to tractor-power; the passing of the 1943 Agriculture Act and the development of IT. And while he cherishes the friendships he has made along the way, his thoughts as he opens the NSA Welsh Sheep
Event will be firmly with the future of the industry and the young people who are its lifeblood.

In his address he will stress that the NSA Welsh Sheep Event is an opportunity for farmers to stand tall and demonstrate the pride they take in the food they produce. Their work also means that the countryside has never looked better and the host farms provide an excellent example of good conservation as a result of first class food production.

He adds: “We can take pride in our achievements, primarily as food producers, but also as custodians of the countryside.”
 
Gaina Morgan 07872823366
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