RABDF Princess Royal Award made to livestock nutritionist
15 May 2009
Prof David Beever has been presented with the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers’ Princess Royal Award by Her Royal Highness at Buckingham Palace on Thursday 14 May. The honour was made for his outstanding services to the industry.
Prof Beever, who currently is consultant nutrition director with Richard Keenan, has spent his career spanning almost 40 years dedicated to research in the livestock sector, in particular ruminant nutrition, milk secretion and environmental pollution. He has authored more than 450 research publications and was highly involved in developing CEDAR at Reading University to a research unit of international status. Before joining the University of Reading, he spent 20 years at the Grassland Research Institute, Hurley where he headed the Ruminant Nutrition and Metabolism department for the last seven years before it was closed.
“My firm belief has always been that there is no alternative to quality nutrition of the highest standards to achieving a profitable livestock enterprise,” he says. “In the more research active part of my career I focussed on providing quality research data suitable for exploiting at farm level. More recently I have become more directly involved in the industry and enjoy the transfer of sound scientific principles of ruminant nutrition to bring about gains in animal performance, animal health, product quality and environmental emissions. However, I remain fascinated by what I don’t know about ruminant animals and believe I have much more to learn about how cows function.”
He adds: “Having the ability to convert forages and other feeds into human food is a rather unique attribute of ruminants and the ability of cows to produce calves and milk, and to live a long and enjoyable life should be the major focus of all involved in dairy cow management and feeding. Above all else, I hope to usefully continue to serve the industry which I am so passionate about, both through further research and technology transfer.”
RABDF chairman, Lyndon Edwards commented: “David Beever has not only made enormous scientific advances in understanding energy and protein metabolism in dairy cows, but he also has the unique ability of making a complex subject understandable to farmers and consultants. I believe he is a worthy winner of the RABDF HRH Princess Royal award.”
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