We have been profiling our YDP judges over the course of the past week and so far have shared the profiles of our showmanship judge John McEnroe, our stock judging judge Marie Louise Ryan and our clipping and dressing judges Mark Philips and Alistair Cormack. Here are the final two profiles of members of our judging panel for the YDP final, which will take place this Saturday!
Alex Sanger – Senior Panel Interview Judge
Alex runs the Rosemount herd which was established in 1995 with 7 foundation cows from the Fairoaks herd. Through selective and progressive breeding and prudent purchases the herd has now expanded to 200 cows run on a commercial basis, with all steers being sold store or fat with Aberdeen-Angus premium. Surplus females have been sold for breeding with exports to Estonia, Romania and France.
Alex is currently the President of the Aberdeen-Angus cattle Society and had the mammoth task of being Chair of the organising committee for the World Angus Forum this summer.
He is also a past chairman of the North East Aberdeen-Angus Club, and was part of the organising committees for the highly successful 1000 cow tour in 2002 and the 2012 Ruby Tour.
He is former Chairman of Angus Cereals, a farmer owned co-operative based at the Montrose Docks, which handles predominately malting barley, supplying a local maltster. Alex and his wife, Wendy have three children, 19-year-old Alexander and twins Anna and Lucy who are 16.
Philip Halhead – Senior Panel Interview Judge
Philip is the C.E.O & Director of Norbreck Genetics Limited – a genetics company he formed in 1999, selling semen to major A.I companies and marketing semen, embryo’s and cattle worldwide. He was one of the first to sell British Blue semen back to Belgium and now has a flourishing export business. With a strong understanding of the UK beef market Philip is now supporting the beef breeding programme at Semex and developing supply chain relationships with key retailers to improve efficiencies at all levels.
Philip owns a 300 Holstein cow dairy unit in Lancashire along with small pedigree Aberdeen-Angus herd and pedigree British Blue herd. Embryo Transfer and IVF work is carried out regularly and extensively on the farm along with Genomic testing of youngstock.
He was granted Fellowship of Royal Agricultural Societies FragS, along with Freedom of the City of London. Philip also won the Farmers Weekly Young Farmer of the Year and is a keen ambassador for British Agriculture. He has been involved with the Milk Development Council, promoting milk into schools, was a member of the EBLEX Beef Better Returns Steering Group and past Chairman and committee member of the British Cattle Breeders Club. He was sponsored by RMIF (Red Meat Industry Forum) to attend the Oxford Farming Conference and reported his findings to the Young Entrepreneurs Conference at Cirencester College.
Philip has studied leadership and business in USA and more recently at Lancaster University on the ‘LEAD’ course.
An after dinner and conference speaker who tries to educate and inspire with his passionate keynote speeches on leadership and agriculture. Also a keen game shot who looks forward to both snow and water skiing when time allows.
We are very much looking forward to this years final and have a great judging panel line up. We would like to thank all judging panel members for giving up their time for this exciting event and we very much look forward to seeing you all at the final on Saturday.