FARMING
By Neale McQuistin
Rural stalwarts have just run two-and-a-half times around the world for #Run1000 charity effort.
Teams from the four nations of the UK and one representing the “rest of the world” have just completed the fundraising challenge, which started in October 2020. The 1,200 participants clocked up 64,785 miles of running or walking on Strava and have raised £45,438 for five rural help and mental health charities.
The beneficiaries of the funds are: The Farming Community, Embrace Farm, The Do More Agriculture Foundation, RSABI and DPJ Foundation.
The initiative’s founder and captain of Team Scotland, Sheena Horner, was joined by Charles Anyan, captain for Team England, Emma Picton-Jones, captain for Team Wales, Peter Hynes for Team Ireland, and Jason Meadows leading the Rest of the World.
The initiative was launched last October to coincide with #AgMentalHealthWeek and the “mission” was for each team to clock up 1,000 miles by the end of January.
Ms Horner said: “Our aim was to inspire rural dwellers to take to the countryside to get out and run or walk, to help improve their mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic,” she said. “We also wanted to give people a forum to talk, to compete and to have fun during the darkest months of winter.
“We aimed for each team to run 1,000 miles and that the first team to reach the milestone would be the winner. However, involvement was so good we blew that target in early January, so had to introduce some other winning categories.”
The first team to reach 1,000 miles was Wales, clocking up the most mileage in January and raising £12,700. Team Scotland logged the most distance per group member and raised £7,461. Team England raised the most money at just over £18,300.
Ms Horner added: “We’ve been overwhelmed with the success of Run1000 and we’re delighted to announce that we are working to ensure #Run1000 will happen again next year”.
Market round-up
Messrs Craig Wilson sold 779 prime hoggets and 264 cast sheep at Newton Stewart.
Prime hoggs were easy to cash and the average price per kilo moved up by 2p to level at 256p/kg. Top price of £128 was achieved for a pen of heavy Texels and for a pen of heavy Suffolks. Top price per kilo was paid for Beltex hoggs at 298p. There were 411 Blackface hoggets that averaged 253p/kg. Heavyweights sold to £118 and others peaked at 268p/kg. Cast sheep would be slightly back but still sold to £128 for a Dutch Texel Tup, while ewes peaked at £125 for Beltex and Blackfaces sold to £70.
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