Last updated 09:04, Friday, 21 November 2008

Borderway's Agri-Expo in its second year “outshone” some long-established events and attracted 7,500 visitors.

• Slideshow: photos from Agri-Expo

Neil Slack, from Newby, Penrith, leads round the ring

There was no sign of credit crunch woes at the recent event, in which 340 head of livestock competed in various shows.

Trade stands from every major agricultural business offered refreshments to visitors and the chance to catch up on the latest news.

Among the attractions was the Border British Blue Club calf show, which attracted almost 50 entries. The championship was taken by Kevin Watret from Annan.

John Fleming, society secretary, said: “It’s a first-class event, greatly overshadowing a number of long-established traditional beef events.”

The Aberdeen Angus English calf show was also hosted at the event and among the competitors was Bryan Ronan from Appleby. He has a 15-strong Angus herd and took the homebred bull championship.

He said: “As margins get tighter as feed costs go up, more and more people will move to Angus-type cattle that you can finish on grass.”

In the hotly-contested commercial cattle section, the Harryman family, of Keskadale, Keswick, took the championship with their Limousin-cross heifer Black Beauty.

Keith, Mark and Shaun Harryman run 100 pedigree cattle and buy in commercial cattle each season to calve down and sell through Carlisle every year.

In the sheep section, a pair of Beltex lambs from Andrew Baillie from Callacrag, Carnwath, took the supreme championship.

The young farmers stockjudging and stockman of the year competition was won by John Ritson of Baggrayeat. Runner-up was Kenneth Hall of The Knells and third was William Ridley of Woodhall.

A charity auction raised £7,500 to be divided between the Great North Air Ambulance and a breast cancer charity.

David Pritchard from the mart said: “We feel it is important to promote our industry by staging this event and giving a positive outlook for the future of our farming industry as a whole.”

Plans for next year’s event are already under way.