Blog: Getting to know Andrew Palmer

Growing up on a farm in East Yorkshire made me enjoy working with my hands and this led me to study Agriculture at Bishop Burton College. Upon graduation, I started working on a small indoor breeding unit in Yorkshire and moved to a larger one few years later. In 1997, I was promoted to manager for the outdoor pig production unit, and so my career as an outdoor pig producer began.

After five years of working on a couple of units, I stepped into the role of a fieldperson for a large pig business, looking after five units weekly. During my time there, I took part in the first Professional Manager Development Scheme (PMDS)  run by AHDB, and I was able to develop my leadership skills. It was at this point in my career that my approach to managing units and teams changed, in terms of understanding, leading, training and mentoring.

Eight years ago, I progressed my career within the industry by joining AHDB’s pork Knowledge Exchange team This gave me the opportunity to give back to the industry and share my years of experience and technical knowledge, as well as offering first-hand experience that can help businesses grow.

I lead projects like our Monitor Farm program, through which I work with producers to introduce Lean management practices to their businesses. Planning pig discussion groups is another key part of my role, but as the industry changes to deal with various challenges, I and my colleagues are looking at new ways to share knowledge, research and industry thinking. We are starting this with the introduction of a new international pig club; the first of these is taking place on 31 October when we are visiting (albeit virtually) Brazil. The events will feature speakers from around the world who will share their knowledge and experience with pig producers in the UK and give us an insight into pig production and markets in other countries.

Other projects that I’m involved with include a trial to find out how both pigs and the environment can benefit from sowing grass cover mixes to improve soil management on outdoor units. This follows a series of workshops for outdoor pig producers and landowners that we ran over the last few years focusing on the best ways to improve site management and environmental legislation. I also set up the 8 kg club, where our team worked with a large business across eight breeding units to improve weaning weights. As a result,, we identified factors that influence this key performance indicator.

I enjoy planning and delivering training courses for our stockperson development scheme and building bespoke programmes for producers. Seeing teams progress and businesses and production grow is extremely rewarding. Most important to me is engagement with our levy payers, which is the best part of my role.

In addition to my other activities, I also write articles to update levy payers on projects or important topics and have dipped into the world of social media to promote our activities, which you might have come across, you can find me on Twitter here. I also run events and have featured on several  episodes of our Food and Farming podcast, which all bring variety to the role.

Working with AHDB has helped me gain qualifications in BASIS (soil and water), Green Belt Lean management and other management and leadership programmes. Earlier in my role, I had the opportunity to travel to various countries and share the knowledge I gained with the industry I enjoy discussing industry growth and activities with visitors from around the world, through face-to-face events and webinars.

One of my most fulfilling moments while working at AHDB was when a Defra white paper highlighted our activity working with outdoor producers, landowners and other stakeholders to improve soil and land management in the east of England. All of which started from conversations with and ideas from levy payers. This confirmed the value and importance of engaging and maintaining good relationships with levy payers and the wider industry.

Even though the pork industry is constantly evolving, and technology is playing an increasingly significant role, we still need people to drive the industry forward. A firmer contract commitment and more risk sharing across the entire supply chain would help address recent industry issues, for example the rising costs of production and the gap in returns.

Away from work, I am a keen gardener and love DIY projects around the house and garden. Running helps to clear my mind and I recently took up golf  – but need more practice!

Feel free to contact me if you would like to chat, have any questions or need help with your business.