Northern Farmer Awards 2023: Young Farmer of the Year finalists

The winners in ten categories will be announced at a spectacular awards ceremony at Pavilions of Harrogate, the Great Yorkshire Showground, on Thursday, February 23. Ahead of the big night, we are publishing mini-profiles of all our finalists.

Also to be revealed at the ceremony will be the overall 2023 Northern Farmer of the Year, chosen by the panel of judges from the winners of the ten categories.

Finalists for Young Farmer of the Year, sponsored by NFU Mutual:

NFU Mutal sponsors Young Farmer of the Year

Eighteen-year-old Maddy Welford lives on a smallholding near Selby with ten acres of owned land and a few other fields rented for grazing her flock of about 40 Ryland and Coloured Ryeland sheep.

She got her first Ryelands when she was just 11, and has been showing them ever since. “They were classed as a rare breed, but the interest and popularity over recent years means the breed is now classed as a ‘minority breed’ which is great news,” she says.

The sheep are predominantly bred for showing and improving the breed stock. With two championships under her belt in 2022 and a second at the Great Yorkshire Show in 2021, plus other good wins and placings at a wide variety of shows, the results speak for themselves.

READ MORE: Northern Farmer Awards 2023, Family Run Farm of the Year finalists

She keeps some of the female lambs as replacements and to increase the flock size. Others she sells privately to breeders. Male lambs will go mainly for slaughter, though she is now also keeping some of the best males to sell on as shearling tups to other breeders. She is always on the look out for new tups to improve her own bloodlines.

Maddy Welford

Maddy went to Bishop Burton College and studied level three agriculture, and has been offered places at Newcastle and Harper Adams, but may defer to continue working, gaining more experience.

She is keen to see children better educated in farming matters, while one of her biggest passions is for more use of sheep’s wool. “It is completely natural and has so many uses, it is one resource that could be exploited fully in a positive way,” she says.

Jamie Teasdale has worked hard to assist his father since he had an horrific accident with the combine in 2017. They subsequently found out his father has a heart condition so Jamie put on hold his plans to go to the other side of the world to expand his knowledge, and became the farm's main combine driver aged just 17 – as soon as he had finished at Askham Bryan College.

READ MORE: Northern Farmer Awards 2023, Sheep Farmer of the Year finalists

They are tenant farmers at Wethercote Farm, Skiplam, an arable and sheep farm on the Nawton tower estate near Kirkbymoorside. They also have some B&B pigs for Wold farms.

Jamie Teasdale

By following his father’s advice, Jamie has been able to learn a huge amount in a very short space of time.

The advent of Covid meant his father was classed as very vulnerable and so Jamie carried on the farmwork, but it didn't stopped the pair completing a Countryside Stewardship agreement which included some capital works.

Jamie has been working full time on the farm now for more than five years. As well as becoming chief tractor and combine driver in the middle of harvest aged 17 following his dad's accident, he also took responsibility for all other aspects of the farm, which is 850 acres of arable with 100 acres of grass, 3,500 B&B pigs and a flock of commercial sheep.

Jamie’s dad is now back working, but Jamie does the majority of the physical and machinery work. He is keen to get the positive message out about farming and signed up to the www.farmertime.org initiative to be able to talk to school children about what they do on the farm.

Andrew Langthorne of Crawford Grange, Brompton, Northallerton has been dealt quite a card throughout his life. The 26-year-old has cystic fibrosis and has spent much of his life in hospital. He even had a bout of Covid in the middle of the pandemic but that has not held him back.

Andrew Langthorne

The 320-acre farm is predominantly livestock but with a small acreage of arable in rotation with grass, which is grazed and used to make silage. There are usually about 300 head of buffalo on the farm – 75 breeding cows calve each year and are reared on the farm through to kill at around 24 months.

The farm used to have a dairy herd but as a baby Andrew was allergic to cow’s milk so his parents bought a few buffalo for milk, and gradually made the change from dairy to buffalos for meat. The farm also has a shop, founded in 2000, which has customers from all over the UK.

As the buffalo herd grew the rules about killing and transporting buffalo at the time led them to build their own slaughterhouse over ten years ago, initially for their own use but now being used by other farm shops and small farms.

Andrew works with the animals – which also include Aberdeen Angus cows, eight Saddleback pigs, 35 pedigree Shropshire sheep, 50 commercial Mules and 20 red deer – ensuring that all the farm work is done efficiently, freeing up his parents to run the farm shop and slaughterhouse.

Andrew still finds time to be a major player in local Young Farmers clubs and in future is looking to increase the Aberdeen Angus herd.