The Morgan family have received a prestigious award in recognition of their contribution to agriculture.
The family, who farm at Pockthorpe Hall, near Kilham, received the Driffield Agricultural Society’s prestigious Mountifield Award in front of a packed audience in Driffield Showground’s Rix Pavilion, the Driffield & Wolds Weekly reports.
Pig numbers at the farm have grown from an initial 800 sows to 1,700, producing pigs reared to bacon weight.
The family – David, wife Sue and daughters Vicky, Rachel and Kate – have become familiar voices in the national media, highlighting the realities of pig farming and the drivers behind the different systems deployed throughout the sector.
They were awarded the Farming Weekly Pig Farmers of the Year award in 2012 and have appeared on BBC Breakfast, BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today programme for a whole week in 2018 and, last month, on Countryfile.
In his citation, the society’s Tim Burdass said: “The Morgan enterprise is not about individuals, it is about the whole family believing in what they produce, how they produce and using the highest standards and welfare systems to mark it as a first-class product, whilst extensively advertising all that is good about the British pig industry.”
Accepting the award alongside her mother, father and sisters, Vicky Scott explained how proud her family was to receive the award.
“This is a massive honour and I’m not sure we (Vicky, Rachel and Kate) really deserve it but mum and dad definitely,” she said.
“They have been a big inspiration to us, and we are really proud of what they have achieved.
“We’re really lucky because we love what we do and are in such a privileged position.
“Kate, Rachel and I studied agricultural marketing at university and new from the moment we came back that we wanted to make products that were truly demanded.
“We have gone out of our way to make sure people want our products, we have told people what we do as, if people want to eat pork, I think it is really important that people understand how it is produced.
“We give them a choice. If they see it and they like it, then they go ahead and buy it!”