Levy body AHDB (the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board) has appointed Doreen Anderson to the newly created role of senior knowledge exchange manager for Dairy in Scotland.
Anderson has worked with AHDB for eight years, most recently as senior knowledge exchange manager for Benchmarking and Farm Economics where she led a UK-wide team that worked across the livestock and arable sectors.
She is already well known to dairy farmers in Scotland having previously worked as AHDB’s regional officer for dairy in Scotland; responsible for collecting financial data from dairy farmers involved in the benchmarking discussion groups.
Paul Flanagan, dairy strategy director and director of AHDB in Scotland, said: “We are delighted that Doreen is taking on this strategically important role for us in Scotland.
Doreen has a good understanding of the dairy sector from her time at AHDB and her wealth of agricultural experience and wide network of contacts across the farming industry in Scotland and beyond means that we have the perfect person taking over the reins.
Anderson lives on a beef and sheep farm in the heart of Dumfries and Galloway so is perfectly placed for the interaction with the dairy industry in South West Scotland and across the rest of the country.
She said: “I am looking forward to joining AHDB’s National Dairy Team on August 1. I plan to draw on my experience of running AHDB’s benchmarking programme to encourage dairy farmers to increase their business competitiveness.
“I will also be working collaboratively with dairy leads in other key organisations including NFU Scotland, SRUC and the Scottish Government to provide visibility of our activities and integrate work programmes where we can.”
In her new role, Anderson will be responsible for ensuring that AHDB continues to develop and deliver programmes and practical tools that will enable Scotland’s 800 dairy farmers to thrive.
She will work closely with AHDB’s Strategic Dairy farm host Willie Baillie, at Hill of Covington farm in Lanarkshire, who is a member of AHDB’s Farm Excellence programme, to share his on-farm learnings with dairy farmers across the UK. A second Strategic Dairy farm for Scotland will be announced shortly.
