AHDB Pork’s field team is back to full strength after appointing Mike Shattock as the new Knowledge Exchange (KE) Manager for the south of England.
The appointment comes just a week after AHDB Pork appointed new recruit Sam Crocker as Knowledge Transfer Officer.
Mike joins the team having left his 250-sow farrow-to-finish unit in South Africa, which is now being managed by his son.
He also spent time in the commercial world, selling creep feed, vitamins and minerals to on-farm mixers and managed a dairy farm in the early years of his career.
KE Senior Manager Kate Mellor said: “We are really pleased that Mike has joined the team, he has a wealth of industry knowledge from his time working in both South Africa and the UK and can draw on first-hand experience of developing his own unit which his son is now expanding further.”
Mike added: “I’m really looking forward to working with pig producers across the south of England. It feels like an exciting time to join the team as we are about to start recruiting for Strategic Farms which will encourage producers to share knowledge and experience with each other and drive productivity.”
The search for new Strategic Farms will start in the New Year, following the success of the pilot project (the Focus Farm), which started in June 2016 at David Goodier’s unit in Lancashire. Strategic Farms use farmer-to-farmer learning to accelerate the uptake of knowledge and are part of AHDB’s wider Farm Excellence Platform, which inspires the industry to improve performance and succeed through knowledge exchange.
Mike will be sharing details about how to get involved early in the New Year and further information will also be available in Pig World and on the AHDB Pork website: pork.ahdb.org.uk
