Speaker line-up for latest in beef webinar series 2021

The webinar will address the issue of resilience within beef production systems including how beef farms can become resilient from a financial perspective.

Speaker profiles

John McCallister

John McCallister lives near Rathfriland, County Down. After studying at Greenmount College, he returned home to start his farming career.

After being involved with Young Farmers’ Clubs of Ulster (YFCU) for many years serving in various roles within the organisation, he was elected YFCU president holding the position between 2003 - 2005.

With a passion for politics, John was then elected as a member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in March 2007 and re-elected in 2011 for the South Down constituency. He was the first MLA to have a Private Members’ Bill passed by the Assembly, becoming the Caravans Act 2011. He is also the only member to pass a second Private Members’ Bill when the Assembly and Executive Reform (Assembly Opposition) Act 2016 was passed.

After leaving the Assembly in 2016, John now works for YFCU and the UFU heading up the Land Mobility Programme. He bought in dairy heifer calves in 2017 and started milking again in early 2019. Rearing all calves, he has a very small beef finishing enterprise.

In 2017, he was appointed as a human commissioner and served in that role until 2020. He was appointed to the board of the Community Relations Council for Northern Ireland in 2019.

John Egerton

John Egerton is from Rosslea in Co. Fermanagh. John won the Grassland Farmer of the Year award in 2018 and Beef Innovator of the Year award in 2019 at the British farming awards. He owns 180 acres of land with 90 suckler cow’s, 200 ewes, contract rear dairy heifers and has a blade calf house rearing approximately 500 calves per year.

John farms full time with his wife and three sons, and is driven by the desire to make the farm sustainable for them all. He participated in the first two phases of the Northern Ireland suckler beef programme and he writes regular articles for the Irish Farmers Journal.

Ryan McDowell

Ryan McDowell farms in partnership with his father, Raymond, just outside Larne in Co Antrim. They have a family run suckler to beef farm utilising AA, Charolais and Hereford genetics. Ryan has full-time off farm employment and a young family, so they’re aim is to run a simple grassland system based around fertile, easy calving and low maintenance cows.

Cormac McKervey

Cormac lives on the Fermanagh/Tyrone border and runs a small suckler herd. He studied agriculture at Queen’s University Belfast and a postgraduate at Loughry. He was farm manager at Loughry, then beef/sheep adviser in Fermanagh and Tyrone before joining Ulster Bank in 2002.

As head of agriculture at Ulster Bank, his role is to advise the bank on agricultural issues, ensure good quality lending into the sector, train staff and represent bank at agri related events.

To register for the event, visit, www.ufuni.org/events.