Thainstone to host Aberdeenshire Farm Resilience Programme meeting

Farmers in Aberdeenshire, particularly west Aberdeenshire, are being invited to attend a free welcome and introduction evening at the Porterhouse Restaurant, Thainstone Centre on Thursday, November 2 at 7pm.

Attendees are invited for supper followed by the opportunity to hear about the free business support, worth around £2000 per family, which will be on offer via the 2023/24 Farm Resilience Programme, which will run through the winter months and up to lambing time.

The Royal Countryside Fund (RCF), formerly The Prince’s Countryside Fund, is again working in partnership with RSABI to deliver the series of free workshops, providing free business skills and environmental training as well as one-to-one support to farming families.

In total, 60 livestock farming families in the three areas – West Aberdeenshire, North Ayrshire and Orkney - will benefit from the programme, which is open to dairy and livestock family farm businesses. The initiative takes a whole-farm and whole-family approach, and in Aberdeenshire it is being led by programme coordinator Gwen Chalmers.

While the focus is on offering the programme to farmers in west Aberdeenshire, those from other parts of Aberdeenshire are welcome to come along, as there may be spaces available on the programme to accommodate those from a wider area.

“Thursday’s meeting will be very informal and a chance to have a bite to eat and to hear all about what this excellent programme can offer. I would encourage people to sign up to come along,” said Gwen.

“The programme is a great opportunity to benefit from some first class business support which is all provided completely free of charge, covering areas such as benchmarking and improving on-farm efficiencies to reduce costs.

“The workshops will also cover succession planning, integrating environmental management and business planning with the aim being to support farming families with their decision-making to enable their farm enterprises to become more adaptable and resilient.”

To book a place at the event on November 2, please email Gwen Chalmers can be reached on chalmersrural@outlook.com or call 07840 815510.

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