Agricultural engineering student wins first Nick Bird award

Doug Fleming, a final year agricultural engineering student at Harper Adams University (HAU), has become the first winner of The Nick Bird Award.

Doug, from Berwick-upon-Tweed, gained the award after coming up with a simple, commercially-viable solution to the problem of bovine respiratory disease (BRD) in cattle.

The Nick Bird award was set up by Reading-based Farmex in recognition of the work carried out by Nick Bird, a director of the company who died earlier this year.

The award is for an outstanding piece of written work that involves recorded observations of an agricultural process, data analysis and interpretation with demonstrable added value for farmers and is open to final year students at HAU.

BRD is estimated to cost the British dairy industry £60 million every year, and is also a main cause of loss within the beef industry.

Doug Fleming took an engineering approach to the problem and designed a prototype sensing system, integrated into automatic milk feeders, which could alert farmers to a potential outbreak. The final design was successfully validated on a commercial farm.

The award, a cheque for £500 and an engraved perpetual trophy, was presented to Doug by Mrs Katie Bird at the HAU graduation ceremony.

Hugh Crabtree, managing director of Farmex, said: “By inaugurating this award we hope it will both commemorate Nick’s work and encourage students at HAU to forge new career paths in information and communications technology and precision farming.”

The award-winning student has said that he will be putting the money towards a trip to New Zealand before taking up a graduate position with Claas UK.

He said that receiving the award was a great honour and surprise and he was pleased to have recognition for all the hard work carried out on the project.