A Llangurig farmer is planning to travel the globe and learn new ideas as part of a scholarship scheme.

The Royal Welsh Agricultural Society (RWAS) is sponsoring livestock farmer William Davies to travel the world as the 2027 Royal Welsh Nuffield Scholar hunting new ideas to grow farm businesses.

He expects to spend around eight weeks travelling, with current plans including the United States, Uruguay, Australia, New Zealand and Kenya. The travel will be spread across several shorter trips throughout the scholarship, rather than taken all at once.

During the visits, he will meet farmers, business owners, managers and advisers to understand how successful businesses operate and what enables them to grow sustainably.

William’s chosen topic is ‘Exploring globally scalable farm business models’, examining how agricultural businesses can grow and succeed through different ownership and management structures.

An Agriculture graduate of Aberystwyth University, William has run his own self-employed contract farming business since 2024, taking full management and operational responsibility for the livestock enterprise at Sweet Lamb Estate.

His role covers day-to-day livestock management, budgeting, benchmarking performance and planning improvements. William developed an agreement with the landowners, which includes a profit-sharing element while allowing him to build his own cattle herd and grow his equity in the business.

Through his Nuffield study, William will explore what enables some farm businesses to continue growing while others reach a ceiling. He will look at the role of ownership, access to capital, management, business structure and people, while considering which principles are consistent across different countries and farming systems.

His research will cover a range of models, including family and corporate-owned businesses, contract and share farming, leasing, management agreements and investor-backed businesses.

He is particularly interested in how successful businesses make decisions, allocate capital, manage risk and measure performance, as well as how they recruit and retain people.