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