Exciting line-up announced for NSA Northern Ireland Region Conference
29th October 2014
The Northern Region of the National Sheep Association (NSA) has secured an exciting line-up of speakers for a sheep conference on 19th November.
The conference will begin at 7.30pm, following the region’s AGM, at Greenmount Campus. The event promises contributions from Drs Liz Genever and Aurelie Aubry and NSA Communications Manager Joanne Briggs.
Dr Liz Genever is a Senior Livestock Scientist at Eblex (the levy board for English beef and sheep producers and processors). Dr Genever works within the research team where she manages projects and communicates the findings to producers. She specialises in grazing management and evaluating beef and sheep systems. Her current work focuses on the importance of body condition scoring ewes and the need to understand grass and feed supply and demand.
Dr Aurelie Aubry carried out research projects on ecosystems management at University College Cork, Ireland, where she also contributed to the development of agri-environment schemes. Dr Aubry is currently leading a range of sheep research projects at AFBI, Hillsborough, in collaboration with ten co-research farmers across Northern Ireland. Part of this work is an investigation of the relationship between trace element supplementation of lambs and their levels of parasite infection and their combined effects on lamb performance. The AFBI sheep research programme also monitors the grazing behaviour of different breeds in the hills and quantifies their effect on the vegetation structure and diversity. A feeding trial is being carried out to study the effects of gender (castrate versus entire male lambs), diet and breed on lamb meat quality, and an evaluation of contrasting replacement breeding strategies and their effects on both ewe and lamb performance is in progress.
NSA Communications Manager and Sheep Farmer magazine editor Joanne Briggs will speak briefly about the NSA Next Generation Project. NSA Next Generation is the National Sheep Association’s project dedicated to the sheep farmers and service providers of the future. The sheep sector in the UK needs an innovative, enthusiastic and professional next generation and NSA is committed to encouraging, not just sheep farmers, but also vets, advisors, consultants, nutritionists and all the other service providers that make up the industry. The NSA Next Generation project includes an elite Ambassador Group – up to 12 young people selected every year to take part in a series of special training and personal development events. N. Ireland’s two current members of the Ambassador Group Thomas Gibson, Broughshane and James Davidson, Ballymena will be with Joanne to speak about their recent experiences as young ambassadors.
The conference is free of charge to attend and open to all.
For more details contact Edward Adamson on 07711071290 or at edward.adamson1@gmail.com.
