Reaseheath agriculture students are to star in this Friday’s episode (March 3rd) of the Farmers’ Country Showdown, a new daytime TV series celebrating inspirational farming families and the rural events where they showcase their hard work.
The series, which is running for 15 episodes on BBC1 every weekday at 3.45pm, covers the huge range and brilliance of British farms that are striving to be the best at what they do. It also visits some of the farming shows, food festivals and award ceremonies that help farmers bring their products to a wider audience.
Every episode features two similar families who are preparing for a special event in the farming calendar. We were approached to take part in the ‘next generation’ themed episode following last year’s success of our stockjudging team in the College Challenge at the East of England Smithfield Festival, Peterborough.
The film crew chose to follow Level 3 Extended Diploma student Iwan Parry on his family’s sheep farm in North Wales and then at Reaseheath with fellow members of this year’s stockjudging teams as they prepared to take on the 2017 challenge. Our stockjudging teams were also filmed competing at Peterborough in a hard fought competition against landbased college teams from all over the country.
Agriculture lecturer James Bickerton, who specialises in beef and sheep and coaches the stockjudging teams, was also interviewed. He told Producer / Director Kirsty Seager: “Family farms are the backbone of agriculture. Now they’re getting bigger and more commercial and our students need the skills to manage both businesses and people.
“Iwan shows a lot of ability and has a good depth of knowledge and understanding. He’s a good judge of stock and he can discuss issues in a mature and confident way. He’s a good example of a student who has a great future ahead of him.”
Reaseheath on The Farmers’ Country Showdown: Friday March 3rd, 3.45pm. (Episode 15) Set your recorder or catch up on BBC iPlayer here.
