After nearly 17 years as editor of British Dairying, Mike Green is stepping down, with Olivia Cooper taking over the reins, supported by the Agri-hub team.
Mike was brought up on a dairy farm in West Yorkshire and started his career in the advisory service of the West of Scotland Agricultural College (now part of SRUC) in 1979, working mainly with dairy farms in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire. In 1987 he joined Farmers Weekly as livestock reporter and then moved to Farmers Guardian as news editor in 1991. He was appointed editor of British Dairying in 2005.
He intends to carry on working in agricultural journalism and will continue contributing to the magazine. “I have been privileged to work in the dairy industry for all my life and look forward to maintaining an involvement with the many dairy farmers and allied workers in the future,” he says.
“But, like many farm businesses, there comes a time when the older generation needs to step back and give the opportunity to younger, enthusiastic people coming through to bring in new ideas and take the magazine into the future.”
Taking over will be new managing editor Olivia Cooper, a farmer’s daughter from Berkshire with 20 years’ experience in agricultural journalism. Former chair of the BGAJ, she is based in Devon, and will be working closely with her team of agricultural journalists at Agri-hub: Ruth Wills, Natalie Noble and Marianne Curtis.
“Olivia is a well-known and respected journalist who has a deep understanding of the dairy sector and brings a wealth of experience to the team, ensuring the editorial tradition of British Dairying and continuing to service the information needs of dairy farmers,” says British Dairying publisher, Alan Whibley.
“I want to take this opportunity to warmly thank Mike for his diligence, hard work and being such a great person to work with.”
In his last issue as editor Mike oversaw some design changes, but readers will see little else change as Olivia takes over. “I’m very privileged to have been offered this role and am really looking forward to delivering interesting, practical and informative content to British Dairying readers,” she says.
“Mike’s boots will be big ones to fill and as a team we intend to provide a steady hand on the tiller. British Dairying is very well respected and we look forward to working with all of the regular contributors who make it the magazine that it is. We are busy planning content for the forthcoming months so please do get in touch with ideas.”
To contact Olivia please email olivia@britishdairying.co.uk or call 01392 840009.
