THE best examples of Cornish farming were marked at a glittering evening reception and dinner where the first Western Morning News Cornwall Farm Business Awards were presented.

Husband and wife team Martin and Bridget Whell, from Bodmin, won the supreme award, the Victor Ludorum, emerging top from the seven distinct categories. Mrs Whell said after receiving her award that she was "absolutely delighted".

The Whells milk 350 cows on a 470-acre holding, and Mr Whell is a member of the National Farmers' Union national dairy board, playing an active role in the sector's policy-making process.

A former county chairman of the Cornwall Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs, he described himself as "a cow fanatic – and part-time panto dame".

The new members' pavilion at the Royal Cornwall Showground at Whitecross, Wadebridge, was the venue for the awards, attended by 180 guests.

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Western Morning News Cornwall Farm Business Awards

Supported by 15 county organisations, from solicitors Coodes to BBC Radio Cornwall, the competition was staged in aid of the ARC Addington Fund – one of the two farming charities that received substantial funds from the WMN Green Wellie Appeal during the foot and mouth crisis of 2001.

Guests were welcomed by WMN editor Alan Qualtrough, who said the awards were an excellent way of celebrating the farming community.

He added: "There is a strong need to showcase the diversity of farming businesses. Cornwall has a wealth of successful farmers who not only work out on the land, but there are those who have diversified by setting up businesses, those who create new products and those who greatly boost the tourism industry.

"These awards champion everything local – local people, local communities, local businesses and local procurement – as well as encouraging farmers to continue the outstanding work they do and inspiring new businesses to start up and diversify."

The awards are the brainchild of Ian Bell, director of the ARC Addington Fund, based at the National Agricultural Centre in Warwickshire. He told guests that the fund represented organisations that could run almost anything on a farm, from selling farms and land, to advice on loans, insurance, tax liabilities, livestock and machinery.

He said farm businesses had made huge strides forward over the past few decades, and the agricultural industry was capable of reacting and responding to change far faster than any other.

While setting up the awards, the organisers had come into contact with more than 200 individual businesses, and that in itself made him feel that Cornwall was "the food capital of the entire country".

He said: "The farming community is a very proud one, but they are also very modest people, not swift to call for help."

The ARC Addington Fund worked closely with the industry's two other national charities – Farm Crisis Network and the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Fund – he stressed, each having its own speciality.

They supported farm businesses which had encountered problems beyond their control, most recently members of the failed co-operative Dairy Farmers of Britain.

"But ARC Addington Fund's main thrust is in providing housing, helping people move forward into farming and also to retire with dignity," he said. "Housing problems are a huge barrier to retirement, which is a very sad situation. As a nation we haven't got it right at the exit end of the work process."

He spoke about the ARC Addington Fund barn conversion complex at Trevorva, near Probus, opened by Prince Charles three years ago. Five homes had been created from three redundant buildings, and so far 130 people had been able to use them.

Mr Bell received a cheque for £250,000, to be used by ARC Addington Fund within Cornwall, from John Dark, treasurer of the Agriculture House Trust.

The building in Truro, former home of the National Farmers' Union and Cornwall Federation of Young Farmers Clubs, was sold recently, and members had been adamant that they wanted half the proceeds to go to the Fund, Mr Bell explained.