It is a huge privilege to have been elected as the Dorset Horn and Poll Dorset Sheep Breeders’ Association President for 2026 – especially as the first Scotsman to hold this post.
When I looked at the first edition of the flock book, dated 1892, I noticed that almost all the 167 members lived within very close proximity to Dorchester in Dorset, under the Presidency of the Right Honourable, The Earl of Eldon. It is certainly a sign of progress to say we now have approximately three times those numbers of members from across the whole of the United Kingdom and beyond.
Sixteen years before the Earl of Eldon held the Presidency, another famous Scotsman – Alexander Graham Bell – patented the telephone. I wonder what advice (over the phone) a nobleman from Encombe in Dorset would give a Commoner from Scotland for his year in office?
But maybe I should consider the advice of Alexander Bell instead, when he famously said:
“When one door closes another door opens, but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us”.
I am convinced that the Dorset Horn and Poll Dorset breed can unlock profitability within any agricultural setting and I would urge farmers to see the ‘open door’ that our breed offers.
The sheep sector has had to endure many challenges over recent years, including the trade friction, paperwork and uncertainty from Brexit; and Bluetongue control zones with strict livestock movement controls, which affected the sale of sheep across the UK.It is therefore vital that sheep farmers find a breed that can retain profitability in volatile times through high productivity from low input costs.
The Dorset is the only purebred sheep that can breed naturally out-of-season, producing three crops of lambs in two years from a forage based diet and can fit seamlessly around other farming enterprises. More lambs x low input costs x labour availability = maximal profits!!
As if that was not enough, the breed also offers a ‘free-of-charge’ advisory service through its network of Association members spread across the country. Individuals who can offer lived examples of the breed thriving in a wide variety of settings from the cooler climes of Caithness, Moray and Aberdeenshire to the balmy southwest coastline of Devon and Cornwall (and everywhere in between)!
I look forward to my year in office, to meeting breeders (old and new) and to seeing many more farmers realising the benefits that the breed can offer.
James Royan
President