PAUL Dawes of Kipper-knowle Farm, Dinmore, is the South Wales and Mid-West regional winner of the Limousin National Suckler Herd competition.

Paul farms the 1,000-acre Dinmore Manor Estate which his family bought five years ago. The move to the county led to the start of pedigree breeding. It came at the end of the foot-and-mouth crisis when Paul bought 30 cows and followers from Peter Brown's Peasley Hill herd in Staffordshire.

Bloodlines have also been bought from around five other sources, including the Wintercott herd at nearby Leominster. He has also purchased several outstanding sires for the developing Dinmore herd, paying 30,000gns for the bulls Wilodge Tonka and 10,000gns for Saunders Stallone. There are now 50 registered cows.

Elved Williams from Sennybridge, who judged the area competition, did look at the pedigree stock, but his brief was to inspect the quality of the Limousin sired calves produced by Paul's 120 crossbred suckler cows.

Commercial

The commercial cattle enterprise is based a few miles away at Marden Court Farm, which was bought four years ago. Half the sucklers calve between March and May and the rest in October and November with the Limousin influence very strong throughout. Paul is convinced that selling finished cattle on the hoof is the best way to optimise returns from high quality cattle, but the system means that he does not see grading results. Despite the poor finished cattle prices during the summer, Paul is remarkably optimistic about the future of the beef sector, or at least for the top end of the market.

He is waiting to see what impact the switch to a single farm payment will have. Second in the section was A H J Jones and Son of Talgarth, third J Bryan Jones of Brecon, and fourth Malcolm Williams of Shobdon.