New voice for Yorkshire farmers’ link to government

Madge Moore, the former national director of agricultural business development organisation Lantra, has been appointed as chairman of the Yorkshire Food, Farming and Rural Network.

The Yorkshire Agricultural Society, which hosts and supports the Network, has this morning announced that Ms Moore has taken the leading role vacated by North Yorkshire farmer Charles Mills who is now concentrating on his duties as the Society’s show director.

Ms Moore’s role includes leading discussions with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and related organisations at both national and regional levels, including Future Farmers of Yorkshire.

She said: “I am delighted to take up this appointment and look forward to building on the Network’s activity to date and Charles’s leadership.

“The Network is ideally placed to act as a two-way channel of communication to respond proactively to Defra’s latest Food and Farming Plan. I will continue to make it a priority that the voice of Yorkshire’s food, farming and rural businesses is heard and that both national and regional agencies respond accordingly.”

One of Ms Moore’s first tasks will be to chair a consultation meeting on Defra’s new 25-year Food and Farming Plan at Pavilions of Harrogate, the Great Yorkshire Showground on Tuesday, December 1.

The meeting will showcase Yorkshire examples of: productivity and the growing economy, exporting to global markets and innovation and agriculture, to feed into and influence the Government’s vision for the food and farming industry.

Speakers at the meeting will include James Hopwood, director of York-based Ibbotsons Produce Ltd, Professor Rob Edwards, head of agriculture at the University of Newcastle and chairman of the Farmer Scientist Network based at the Harrogate showground, and Sam Hoste, of the national AgriFood Innovation Campus in York.

Ms Moore, who was brought up on an East Yorkshire farm and lives in Roos near Withernsea, has extensive experience as a farmer, and also on the national stage.

Most recently she was Lantra’s national director focusing on employer engagement across the environmental and land-based businesses.

An honours graduate in Botany, she began her career as a hybrid wheat breeder for Nickersons in Lincolnshire before she and her husband moved to his family farm in New Zealand. There she helped manage the mixed arable and livestock farm looking after more than 2,000 breeding Romney sheep and mohair goats whilst developing various export initiatives.

On their return to the UK, Ms Moore worked firstly for the Agricultural Training Board in Yorkshire and then Lantra.

For the last two decades her national role has included working at senior levels with government, regional development agencies, trade, education and professional organisations, charities, as well as with employers in the agriculture and horticulture sectors.

To register for the Defra consultation meeting, see www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/yorkshire-consultation-on-defras-25-year-food-farming-plan-tickets-19520514384