The RABDF Plunkett Foundation Farmer-Director Development Programme, a two year Defra funded initiative for the dairy sector, is being launched this month with the first of a series of training courses designed to improve individual's skills around the board room table and ultimately, strengthen the competitiveness of milk groups.

The courses are open to all farmers, irrespective of the company they supply, who are current or aspiring directors or council members of a milk co-operative or farmer controlled milk group and wish to improve their skills and knowledge.

The nine, one-day long courses arranged for 2005 cover a range of topics from director and board member roles and responsibilities, chairmanship skills, improving board effectiveness and strategic marketing. Farmers can select one or more courses. The majority of open courses will be held at RABDF headquarters at Leamington Spa. Further series are planned for next year.

In addition to the open courses, training programmes can be delivered on an in-house basis to any milk group and tailored to meet the company's specific needs.

"The RABDF and Plunkett Foundation jointly ran a similar series of training courses during 2003 when more than 130 individual farmers attended one or more training days, a response far greater than we expected," explains Plunkett's Quintin Fox who together with John Sumner of RABDF jointly manages the programme "We are now responding to the positive feed back from those who took part. They unanimously indicated the training had been of considerable value, and more would be welcome."

John Sumner adds: "The effectiveness of farmer-directors is a critical success factor in the performance of milk groups of all types and the dairy industry in general. As we have seen in recent months, farmer-controlled businesses have become larger and more complex, and they will continue to do so, which increases the demands on the management capability of the elected farmers involved in running them."

Further details on the RABDF Plunkett Foundation Farmer-Director Development Programme are available from John Sumner on 01694 724678 and Quintin Fox on 01993 810730