It was great to join the Frant & Mayfield branch at their annual summer barbecue in July, kindly hosted by branch chair Ian Russell and family.
The charity event was a demonstration of the farming community coming together at a busy time, enjoying some quality local food and drink while catching up with friends.
The West Sussex Growers Association has also been busy and hosted a centenary dinner to celebrate an incredible milestone for any organisation. Read more on this in next month’s BF&G magazine.
In addition to branch summer events, we continue to work closely with MPs across both counties on key issues affecting members.
It was great to see Chichester branch chair Bethan Klinkenberg host Jess Brown-Fuller MP on farm earlier in July.
Now is a good time to reach out to your local MP and encourage them to visit your farm. It is vital we keep raising the issue of IHT, but we can also welcome MPs to celebrate Back British Farming Day on 10 September.
If you want to organise a visit, or have one planned, contact me so we can help with briefing notes and planning.
Work with key stakeholders across both counties continues. We were invited to meet with Sussex Police at two separate meetings in July, which provided a good opportunity to feed in key issues affecting members.
We also hosted a webinar to hear member views on the South Downs National Park consultation ahead of our NFU response, submitted on 1 August.
91²Ö¿âEast Sussex and NFU West Sussex county management groups met in July with a discussion focused on plans for the year ahead.
These plans have a focus on NFU regional board priorities and aim to supplement local branch level activity in the counties.
If you wish to feed into these plans, please do reach out to your local NFU contact, whether that is a branch chair, commodity board representative, or group secretary.
Wishing you a continued safe harvest ahead.