Dairy Farming
During World War I he started farming a rented 99 acre hill farm at Garthllwyd with six Blue Albion milking cows and a hand operated separator. As the herd grew, he was unsatisfied by the low price he could get for his milk locally, so started to produce cream that he sold to Harrods in London. In 1926 he moved to a larger farm, Woodlands at Forden, Powys where he renovated the farm buildings and equipment, enlarged his herd, improved their productivity and then expanded further by renting other farms in the area. By 1937 R.W. Griffiths was milking cows on 900 acres (3.6 km2). In the 1950s he bought Woodlands and then the 2,000-acre (8.1 km2) Walcot Estate near Lydbury North from the Earl of Powis, which had come into his family when Robert Clive purchased it on his return from India in 1760.
R.W. Griffiths built up his prize winning Montgomery Herd of tubercular tested pedigree Friesian cows at Woodlands by introducing bulls from as far away as the Netherlands and Canada. To further his pedigree breeding plans he became a partner in one of the first artificial insemination and progeny testing companies in the UK. In 1961 he won the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society's coveted Sir Bryner Jones Memorial Award for an exceptional contribution to dairy farming in Wales.
He was a prominent member of the National Farmer's Union, and a member of the regional Committee of the Milk Marketing Scheme when it was established in the 1930s - later to become Dairy Crest. He was a council member of the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society responsible for the establishment of the permanent grounds for the Royal Welsh Show at Llanelwedd near Builth Wells in mid Wales. Because of his interest in the future of agriculture he became a governor of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and a member of the Agricultural Research Council, following one of whose meetings in London he died in 1962.
Read more about this topic: Robert William Griffiths
Famous quotes containing the word farming:
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—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)