John Lloyd

John Lloyd was a family man and a stockman with unusual vision, a product of the family farming system, making his initial mark on the farming world through YFC stockjudging.

He went on to grow his first noticeable capital from the proceeds of 12 sows which allowed him to buy a small farm, get into the dairy business and found the Gillwell herd of pedigree British Friesians.

Always an ambitious individual, he was always looking to improve and was particularly interested in Canadian Holsteins when they started to come into the UK in the years following WWII when the new government was identifying the fact that food production was a matter of importance and through the 1947 Agriculture Act showing that it meant business by bringing in support schemes and guaranteed payment.

John had bought his farm in 1953 and in 1955 married Sheila, a match made in the YFC which resulted in them going on to have three children, Judith, Pamela and Richard. The next 10 years was spent growing the business, developing a poultry business and taking on the tenancy of an 800-acre farm on Anglesey.

By the end of the 1960s, his farming business was thriving but then disaster struck in the form of the 1967 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. It was to be a turning point in John’s life and whereas it would have been seen as reasonable for him to have restocked with the traditional Friesian, bearing in mind that his own Gillwell herd of British Friesians had been lost to the outbreak, John invested in the higher producing Canadian Holstein and determined to take the opportunity to import a significant number of Holstein cattle to try to get something positive from the disaster of FMD on the dairy world of the UK.

It did not meet universal approval from his peers, but he had no qualms about backing his own judgement, particularly when he became aware of the fact that the quality of the stock being imported were selected by milk producers who bred the cattle without any reference to a Government Civil Servant in the guise of being an appointed livestock officer.

John had become inherently scornful of Government Livestock Officers and often drew attention to the fact that such officials were the key reason for the fact that the UK had become a dairy cattle breeding backwater.

He took pride in drawing attention to the fact that with his original herd the most milk produced in a day from his best cows was just above four gallons – a figure virtually doubled with the Holstein. It is significant that today some 80% of dairy cows in the UK are Holstein – a matter of huge importance for the dairy business.

One of his biggest successes in a campaigning sense and one which both Lord Plumb and John Thorley played a part was that of persuading government (when John Macgregor was Minister of Agriculture) to get rid of 'livestock quality controls' and the associated government department. It was a hard fought scrap and one of the telling aspects in the discussion was the fact that the fast growing sheep business of the 1970s was not hampered in any sense by the guidance of people who had only partial understanding of the business and no financial investment.

John had many other strings to his bow, not least the fact that he chaired the Flood Prevention Society, an organisation created to pursue all avenues with the clear objective of preventing avoidable flooding.

It was set up in 2000 after devastating floods – flooding and its causes was a matter which had been a lifelong interest and he was particularly annoyed by the fact that official responsibility for flooding had been handed over to the Environment Agency, for whom he had little respect due to their lack of hands on experience.

In one of his more targeted attacks on the Environment Agency John drew attention to the fact that at the time when Baroness Barbara Young was CEO of the Environment Agency without any experience of river management she successfully drove a policy which slowed river flow and prevented rivers from being dredged all in the name of encouraging Habitat, Wildlife and Biodiversity.

The world of farming innovation, Conservation and Environment is poorer from the passing of John P Lloyd. Starting from very humble beginnings, but with incredible vision, drive and tenacity and as evidenced by the high proportion of Holstein cattle which make up the present numbers of the dairy cattle world, John was a leader of the dairy farming sector earning the accolade of being a true stalwart of a positive approach to farming and food production.

John is succeeded by his second wife, Jane, his children, grand children and great grandchildren.

John Thorley