A large contingent of Welsh farmers travelled to Nottingham to attend one of the most important events in the calendar of the UK sheep industry – the bi-annual Sheep Breeders’ Round Table.

Over 200 delegates in total heard from international experts in genetics, farming and marketing. Key speakers included Icelandic sheep industry consultants Eyjólfur Ingvi Bjarnason and Eyþór Einarsson, and Emma Eyþórsdóttir, associate professor at the Agricultural University of Iceland.

The long anticipated preliminary results of the RamCompare project were announced in the Friday session which sparked much discussion. Phase two of the project has commenced with further results to be announced in May.

Past Hybu Cig Cymru – Meat Promotion Wales (HCC) Scholar Huw Williams of Talley in Carmarthenshire presented his work on the use of EID Tracking and DNA Shepherding for identifying parentage in flocks in Australia and New Zealand. Also, sheep geneticist Janet Roden outlined the ways that performance recording and genetic improvement could enhance the Welsh hill flock.

Sheep-breeder Aled Huw Roberts, from Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, Powys, won a scholarship from HCC to attend the Round Table event. He said: “I immensely enjoyed all the presentations and specifically the discussion after each. The underlying messages were to improve on-farm efficiency through having a clear focus on the market and quality of the products we are selling.”

HCC industry development officer Gwawr Parry added: “The theme of this year’s conference was ‘thinking positively’, so it was great to see so many make the trip from Wales to contribute to constructive debates on how the industry can take on the challenges of the future.”

The Sheep Breeders Roundtable was organised by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB).