Page 5 - Yorkshire Post Rural Awards 2017: The Winners

SATURDAY OCTOBER 14 2017 YORKSHIRE POST
Online www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
Twi er @yorkshirepost
RURAL AWARDS /5 SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT
Student/Apprentice of the Year
MARTINA ROBINSON
WINNER
DETERMINATION: From left, host Harry Gration, Martina Robinson, and Charles Mills, GYS director.
MARTINA ROBINSON has been a student at Bishop Burton College for the last seven years.
She does not come from a farming background but it soon became apparent to all at the college that she was a natural when it came to looking after animals and taking on tasks in the great outdoors.
Martina stormed through her studies achieving a string of distinctions, while all the
time mucking in on the college farm, from overnight lambing duties to volunteering to help on Open Farm Sunday.
This would all have been a wonderful achievement for anyone, but an even greater achievement for Martina who has fought against severe debilitating illness – cerebral palsy and functional dystonia which causes her mobility problems and fatigue – to get to where she is today.
Diversification Award
WOLD TOP BREWERY
WINNER
CHEERS: James Lloyd, right, of sponsors Wilkin Chapman with Gill Mellor of Wold Top Brewery.
THE MELLOR family founded Wold Top Brewery in 2003 and they have become
so successful for what they produce that they have even learnt Italian to capitalise on interest from abroad.
Its multiple award-winning range of beers are brewed using chalk filtered water from the farm’s borehole.
Fourteen years ago it was brewing 300 gallons a week with no paid staff, now Wold
Top at Hunmanby Grange is up to 5,600 gallons with a team of 14.
In 2015, a new brew plant was installed which increased the brewery’s size by 150 per cent to cope with demand. It now fills two million bo les annually.
The farm has further diversified with the addition of Muddy Souls Events, hosting weddings and the annual Moonbeams music festival.
NFU MUTUAL PROUDLY SUPPORTS THE PRINCE’S FARM RESILIENCE PROGRAMME
Express your interest now
The Prince’s Farm Resilience Programme provides free support and advice for farming families near Whitby and Middleton-in-Teesdale. With one to one support and group workshops, the programme can help improve e ciency and resilience for family farms.
“It’s been very supportive and I would say if anyone had a similar opportunity... to definitely take it and go for it.”
Rona, North Yorkshire Farmer
For a list of the 15 locations across the UK and to find out more about the ways in which you and your business can become involved please visit www.princescountrysidefund.org.uk/farmresilience
The deadline for signing up is 31st October 2017, spaces are limited to 20 farms per location.
The National Farmers Union Mutual Insurance Society Limited (No 111982). Registered in England. Registered office: Tiddington Road, Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire CV37 7BJ. Authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority.