TWO-TIME AgriScot award winner Donald Millar has been announced as the event's 2017 Scottish Dairy Farm of the Year assessor.

Mr Millar, whose Trailflat Farm in Dumfriesshire was recipient of the Scottish dairy farm of the year title in 2016, will now lead the search for this year's winner in the run up to the event on November 15.

Back in 2011, Donald was also the recipient of the AgriScot business skills award. Subsequently he went on to work at Trailflat alongside his parents Keith and Irene, taking on responsibility for nutrition, fertility, crop management and day-to-day running of their 240 pedigree Holstein and Jersey cows.

The Scottish Dairy Farm of the Year award also has a new sponsor for 2017 in the shape of Edinburgh-based animal behaviour tech firm, Ice Robotics. Announcing the new sponsor, award convenor Jack Lawson commented: “We are really excited to be working with Ice Robotics as sponsor for the Scottish Dairy Farm of the Year Award. They are a Scottish based business exporting cutting edge dairy farming technology to the world and I’m sure their ethos fits very well with the future facing, innovative nature of AgriScot and our awards programme.

“We are also delighted that Donald Millar will step up to the challenge of finding a worthy winner of the 2017 Scottish Dairy Farm of the Year title. Seldom have I met a more able young man in the milk production industry.”

Antonia White from Ice Robotics said: “The Scottish Dairy Farm of the Year award is a fantastic vehicle to reward farming businesses at the top of the tree.

“Our sponsorship of the award is our way of giving something back to the dairy industry, which we are proud to be a part of.”