I鈥檇 like to thank you all for a warm welcome to both East and West Sussex. It has been a busy month meeting county officeholders and group secretaries across the two counties.
It was great to attend the West Sussex Growers Association exec meeting in June and positive to see the group of members proactively tackling labour supply through apprenticeships.
The following day, I joined the Battle and Rye branches on their summer farm walk at Tibbs Farm. Good discussions followed a tour of the hop gardens and the pick your own enterprises. A big thanks to the Wheeler family for hosting and for providing an excellent barbecue afterwards.
With health and safety our key focus following the NFU Council meeting, thank you to everyone who attended our pre-harvest event at Westons Farm near Horsham, as well as our event across the border in Kent.
We continue to engage with key stakeholders with ongoing national work on the family farm tax, rural crime and abattoir issues.
Please continue writing to your MP as a steady stream of personal letters or emails from farmers will make a real difference. You can either write directly or use our letter writing tool on 皇家华人.
Wishing everyone a safe and fruitful harvest ahead and I look forward to meeting with more members over the summer.