John BlackBusiness Development Director – john@scawfellgenetics.co.uk / 07545929809

John BlackJohn is from a family farming background in Northern Ireland. Leaving the family farm in 1998 to work in Australia on one of the largest dairy farms in Victoria.

John returned and studied Land and Business management at Riseholme Agricultural College. John worked as a Rural Development Advisor for DEFRA before moving into the private sector as a business consultant with Fairfax Mangement Consultants.

In 2007 John was a co-founder of Backsafely Ltd and designed a unique agricultural immobilizing device to prevent thefts. After selling the business to a competitor John focused on consultancy to the livestock sector conducting a number of research projects around livestock ID and the red meat supply chain.

In 2010 John took over the management of the GB arm of the Ulster Farmers Union Livestock ID business successfully growing the business to a turnover of £1m in just under 4 years. In 2014 John negotiated and managed the successful acquisition of a leading competitor in the ID market.

In 2016 John briefly joined Mole Valley Farmers to assist with a restructure of their members benefits and direct sales division, managing product categories with a combined revenue of just under £12m annually.

Recently John worked alongside UK Sires Services as a management consultant through Agrismart Ltd to launch, implement and manage a direct selling arm of the business providing cattle genetics direct to farmers. John also manages the National Livestock Database project aimed at developing technology leading to the eradication of livestock thefts, need for movement records and DNA profiling of all cattle.