A Suffolk-based family business played a leading role in a Christmas-themed fundraising event in London in aid of a farming charity today.
A Celebration of British Livestock, featured two native breed heifers on parade in the centre of the city, accompanied by a mounted detachment of the Honourable Artillery Company and mounted police.
Animal health products firm Animax Ltd, based at Stanton, near Bury St Edmunds, was principal event sponsor.
A Celebration of British Livestock was raising money for the Addington Fund, a charity for farming families, and raising the profile of the British livestock industry at a challenging time for the sector.
The star attractions were two Shorthorn heifers, blessed by Reverend Canon Michael Hampel on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral ahead of a Christmas service at St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street. The heifers then headed the procession.
Animax managing director James Porter and marketing manager Carolyn Holland joined key figures from the farming industry at the event.
Mr Porter said the company, founded in 1982 by his father, veterinarian Les Porter, understood the huge pressures farming families are under.
“Our customers are farmers and many of our employees have their own farms or livestock,” he said.
“My family had a small sheep farm and later a pig farm during the 1970s and 1980s and experienced first-hand the economic pressures faced by farmers. We experienced personally the collapse of the pig markets during the 1980s. Subsequently, through Animax we have seen the devastating repercussions of on farm disease including foot and mouth and tuberculosis.”
The Addington Fund, launched in 2001 by Canon Richard Addington from St Edmundsbury Cathedral, supports farmers who, through no fault of their own, can face losing their homes due to personal health problems, disease affecting livestock or global issues affecting the price of livestock, milk or grain.
Animax specialises in the research, development and manufacture of animal health products.
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