Julian Hughes

Julian Hughes is currently the managing director of Hughes Farming Ltd, a fully integrated grow, process and supply business in the fresh produce industry that supplies all of the major retail multiples in Ireland and exports to North America, Europe and the UK. Hughes Farming is a Lean Process business that employs over 45 staff in Kilkenny and from a land base of 800 acres is supplying products ranging from carrots, parsnips, onions, pumpkin, daffodils and other fresh produce crops along with approx 200 acres of cereals and forage grass. Hughes Farming was the 2018 Kilkenny Agribusiness and overall Business of the Year.

Previously Julian setup and owned Hughes Consultancy and Training Ltd, an adult education FETAC accredited centre, that he sold in 2014. Julian was a founding partner in a large corporate fund based farming project in Eastern Europe and was involved in numerous corporate consultancy roles in Africa, Russia and Eastern Europe. Julian was the external examiner for agriculture in WIT College and has had research work peer reviewed and published in scientific journals in the past.

Julian has B.Sc and M.Sc Crop Protection and is BASIS and FACTS trained and is a member of the IFA horticulture committee. Married to Valerie, Julian has two children, Robyn and Billy where they live in Kells, Co Kilkenny.

Julian was a 2010 Nuffield scholar studying innovative cropping technology and practices globally with the study becoming more focused on the people who carried out the innovation and also on corporate structures.