By Karen Carruth

Jenny McKerr of Forth Mains Farm, in Lanarkshire, has just returned from a once in a lifetime trip as the successful candidate chosen to go on the sponsored study tour of South Africa.

The tour was hosted by the Royal Agricultural Society of the Commonwealth (RASC) Next Generation forum, which included 12 other candidates, all under 40, from all over the world who also had a passion for agriculture and wanted to learn about a wide range of farming systems. Jenny was delighted that the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society (RHASS) sponsored the entire trip for her, and she is in the process of putting together a report for RHASS detailing her new found knowledge and how she will use it in her own farming career.

Jenny is a recent entrant to farming in Scotland, having bought a 44-acre farm with her husband in December 2016 to support a beef and sheep enterprise with plans for possible diversification.

Gaining a BSc in Agriculture from Auchincruive before traveling the world and spending the majority of her time milking cows in New Zealand, Jenny then embarked on a career with AK Stoddart where she is currently Group Operations Manager.

The itinerary included visits to fruit, grain and vegetable farms, tours of the Biedouw Boer goat stud, an Angus cattle farm and Mutton Merino sheep farm, a visit to a game resort and travel by cart to see how donkeys and mules are used for ploughing and harvesting in the region.

Jenny talked about how she learned as much during the travel between the venues from her fellow travelling companions, talking about their own experiences. She adds: "It's amazing that we all have the same issues, how to encourage the younger generation into farming, the need to add value to our products, and how each country overcomes their own issues."

As for South Africa's agricultural sector, she adds: "They have plenty of challenges, it actually makes some of the things that Scottish farmers complain about seem quite trivial. Drought and land encroachment for example, that's something we have never had to deal with."

She says that the larger enterprises are now looking to the future, a rooibos tea plantation for example, are now packing and exporting tea themselves instead of selling the crop to processors. Peach growers have started to sun dry their own peaches, opening up another income stream. Adding value to agricultural products seems to be a common theme. We were also fortunate enough to see the end result of a Fairtrade project where the community had benefited from having a local school and medical centre built through money raised by selling their wine as Fairtrade around the world.

"I visited a vegetable packing plant, and I thought that a machine could have packed the vegetables with around five people employed. Instead, they had 30 people employed doing it by hand. They are some way back compared to UK agriculture methods, however the focus isn't on efficiency, it is on providing employment to break the cycle of poverty."

Agri-tourism is another avenue that she felt the South African farmers were reluctant to take advantage of. "I loved seeing all the farming enterprises, it was fascinating to see the one man and his mule operations aswell as the commercial livestock farms. The country only became a democracy in 1994, and it seems that it's only now that the skill set needed to take agriculture forward are coming to the fore. The youngsters are coming out of college and university with the ideas and skills now, it will be interesting to see where they take it."

Jenny is delighted to have been given the opportunity to take two weeks out of her home routine, away from her young family (her husband managed admirably she says), it also gave her time to think about their own farming enterprise and where they could make improvements. "I am grateful to RHASS to have been given this opportunity and have returned home with even more enthusiasm to contribute positively to the agricultural sector in Scotland."

She is going to be talking about her trip at a few discussion groups and as well as submitting a report to RHASS, which support this trip bi-annually, and learn from the findings.

RHASS chief executive Alan Laidlaw added: "Jenny is a well-deserved candidate for this trip, having shown her passion, ambition and commitment to farming in Scotland.

"I am very much looking forward to hearing about her experiences, and hope to share her new-found knowledge with the members of RHASS and the extended farming community in Scotland."

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Jenny McKerr

Partner

McKerr Farming

Mobile: 07725126905