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New Year Honour For Ram Sale Supremo
31/12/06

The man who has overseen the progress of what has become Europe’s biggest multi breed ram sale, has been awarded the MBE for services to the sheep industry in Wales in the New Year Honours List.

george hughes

Nearly thirty years on, the success of the NSA Wales and Borders Ram Sale at the Royal Welsh Showground , with an annual turnover of almost £2million is largely due to the foresight and shrewd stewardship of founder and current chairman, Carmarthen farmer George Hughes.

George Hughes has spent his life breeding quality sheep and promoting the industry. He has been particularly involved in producer led marketing of high quality breeding sheep. And he's a keen breeder of champion Southdown sheep and has the oldest flock in the UK.

His name has been, associated with most of the main events and achievements over the last thirty years. He’s vice president and a past chairman of the NSA, a council member and exhibitor with the Royal Smithfield Club and has judged at more than a hundred and forty five shows, including twelve ‘Royals’.

He was awarded the Sir Bryner Jones Memorial Award in 1976 ‘for the person who has made an exceptional contribution to the sheep industry in Wales’. He received the 1983 George Hedley Award for ‘Outstanding Services to the Sheep Industry’, and the 2002 John Gittins Award for the person in Wales who has contributed the most to the sheep industry.

He takes pride in the fact that the ram sale has acted as a catalyst and prompted many more ram and other sales.

“We’ve shown that it’s possible for a group of producers to go and make a good sale”, he says. “There was only the Abergavenny Suffolk sale and a few others, but now the number of sales held around the country is incredible.

Mr Hughes concedes that it took courage … and eighteen months …. to get the first sale up and running. He had hoped in 1978 to attract 150 rams and in the event they had 664.


George Hughes has been married to Thelma for fifty years and they have two sons and five grandchildren. The couple spent much of their married and working life near St Asaph and now live at Porthyrhyd near Carmarthen.

link Record price for day of strong trading at Builth NSA Ram Sale
link Breed a better pedigree flock
link Prime performances at Skipton Christmas shows

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NSA
National Sheep Association