Congratulations to VI Champion Bruce Steele, ARAgS MBPR on recent award and radio interview

09 August 2023

VI Champion Bruce Steele was recently awarded the prestigious Associateship of the Royal Agricultural Societies. Bruce also appeared on BBC Radio Ulster's Farming News segment this morning (09/08/23).

  • Bruce Steele

Back in May, at the Balmoral Show, VI Champion Bruce Steele, who works in collaboration with VI Sponsor, the Ulster Farmers' Union was awarded the prestigious Associateship of the Royal Agricultural Societies.  In a process that began with a nomination by existing Fellows of the Society in November 2022, Bruce had to demonstrate distinguished achievement throughout his career in agriculture and related land-based industries.  Across the whole of the UK, there are only 300 Associates, all of whom have been recognised for their outstanding contribution to the understanding, efficiency and well-being of agriculture. Congratulations to Bruce! (Image shows Bruce holding his certificate presented by Nick Cook, UK Chair of CARAS, who distribute the awards)

Bruce is not the only VI Champion to receive such an honour, with Mixed Arable and Beef farmer David Bell, based in Fife, Scotland receiving the same award in June 2022. Both Dave and Bruce are part of the 37 strong VI Champion programme team that aims to help enable farmers to work to achieve an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) - based approach to sustainable agriculture through regional meetings and through engagement with local organisations and media outlets.

On that note, Bruce was interviewed this morning for the Farming News section of the Good Morning Ulster show on BBC Radio Ulster.  The interview was primarily about the re-registration of glyphosate due in the next few months and Bruce spoke eloquently about the importance of glyphosate to NI farmers.  There was also discussion on the recent wet weather and the detrimental effects that the rain was having on the current harvest.

You can here Bruce's interview on BBC Sounds here (at 21.42 minutes in):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001pgbq