South Shropshire farmer gets OBE
A Shropshire farmer and author has been awarded an OBE for services to dairy industry.
Roger Evans, a founding member and one-time chairman of the dairy co-operative First Milk – who also writes best sellers about life on the farm – has been given the medal after 50 years of dairy farming and 30 years writing about it.
Mr Evans farms 350 acres around Lydbury North in South Shropshire with his family, where he is also a parish councillor. He is also a life long member of Ludlow Rugby Club and a well known charity fundraiser, but is best known across the farming community nationally for his contributions to such magazines as Dairy Farmer, Veterinary Times, Cow Management, Milk Industry and West Country Life.
In 2000 he was awarded Business Magazines columnist of the year in 2000 for Dairy Farmer, and has had five books published, including his latest, 2016's 50 Bales of Hay.
He has also won a Dairy Industry award for his contribution to the agri-business and food sector, is a fellow of the Royal Agricultural Society of England for “putting dairy farmers first”, and was made Dairy Ambassador of the Year at the Dairy Industry Trade, Cream Awards in 2014.
But the latest royal accolade was still a shock, he said.
"I was very surprised to receive the letter," he said. "The first thing I thought of was my mother because her father had an OBE and that was something she was very proud of.
"She would have been really pleased if she had known that I had been awarded one too."
Friend, and former Shropshire Star editor, Andy Wright said Mr Evans deserved the honour.
He said: "The farming industry at times gets a bad press and is often misunderstood by those who live and work in towns and cities. A farmer all his life, Roger feels strongly about the beauty and wonder of the countryside that he has made it his vocation to entice visitors into this world by explaining it through wit and humour.
"Roger sees his role as broadening the understanding of the average man or woman in the street in the ways of the countryside. He is particularly suited to this as his wife runs a B&B on the farm and he often finds himself explaining farming matters and observing nature as he takes guests round his farm. I have had that privilege and it was an eye-opener.
"His views on the countryside are both trusted and sage. The irony is that late in life he has become debilitated with a disease which makes it hard for him to speak and sometimes to get about. You might think that would drive him to the far reaches of his warm kitchen. Not a bit of it, Roger still seeks to be an ambassador for farming and the countryside whenever he can and a finer one I cannot contemplate," he said.
