Developing your business ideas with like minded people

GARD is an initiative that allows groups of farmers with a mutual interest to get together to develop and research ideas that they think will help them develop their businesses by improving what they are already doing or by adding new techniques or enterprises.

Groups are helped in these activities by two Project Managers based at Hartpury and the Royal Agricultural College and an Information Officer at the Royal Agricultural College who will undertake research on behalf of the groups.

Groups are usually of 8 or 10 farmers one of whom acts as the group leader and is the main point of contact with the Project Manager.

Groups can get together to look at almost anything that they think may help their business. The subjects chosen are amazingly diverse!

Group members are each eligible to receive a bursary of £250, which they can use for training in its widest sense. This money could fund direct training or could be used to “import” an expert to visit members’ farms or be used to visit a centre of excellence. For example, the Gloucestershire group that has recently visited the West of Scotland College to look at beef production systems.

The project is managed by a Steering Group led by Graham Littleton as Chairman with members from Business Link, who are the fund holders, and the two Project Managers plus the NFU County Chairman of the day.

The whole project is funded by a variety of contributors of which DEFRA is the largest having recently agreed to fund the scheme for two years at £45k pa. Two District Councils are also contributors. The training bursaries have been provided by the European Social Fund but this money has now run out and we are looking for contributions to allow GARD to continue giving these bursaries which are such an essential part of the scheme. Business Link provides the administration and is the fund holder and makes no charge for this.

There are currently nine groups in operation and a further two are in the pipeline. All groups are made up of Gloucestershire farmers.

GARD is based on the SWARD project (we copied their model) that has run successfully for several years and now has eighty farmer groups up and running. We urgently need further finance to meet demand within Gloucestershire.

For more information visit the SWARD web site: www.project-sward.com

Roger Smith Agricultural Advisor Business Link Gloucestershire 01242 864147