It looks like arable movers, shakers and advisors seem to be moving away from yield, costs and profits towards the birds, bees and ecology. They’re ‘following the money’ as Warren Buffett might say. Today they are making the choice between AHL1 (pollen and nectar flower mix) at £739 / ha/year or leaving their Sustainable Farming …
Farm risks rise as subsidies fall The competent and effective manager keeps a weather eye out for storms which threaten their organisation. The ‘threats’ can be sudden, coming out of nowhere or alternatively events which have been building up for some time. Threats are sufficiently important to be the T partof the highly regarded SWOT …
Written by MIke Donovan Many farmers experiment with seed varieties, fertiliser, chems, machinery, target dates… looking for ways to improve results. Some farmers post their results on The Farming Forum and other media so others can benefit. Others join groups such as AHDB’s Innovative Farmers Field Labs so specific problems can be answered. The Farm …
Written by Mike Donovan Downside pressures increase Every farming year has its ups and downs and in many ways 2022 didn’t perform too badly. The cost of inputs was certainly a real hit, but were to an extent balanced by the increase in crop values. Interest rates rose rapidly following inflation, but from an historic …
Written by Mike Donovan I have some sympathy for the new Defra Secretary Ranil Jayawardena. He got the job on Sept 6 and before the month was out was facing questions over ELMS – the greatest change in UK farming since the 1947 Agriculture Act. Ranil’s knowledge of farming is scant and he was surely …
There’s quiet confidence in farming at present, and it looks like there will be more money than normal available for investment. Andersons ‘Loam Farm’, their virtual 600ha of combinable crops, is forecast to have a business surplus of £840/ha (on an output value of £1966/ ha) this year compared with £573 in 2021 – but …
Farming is not the only industry to face tsunami-sized variations in product prices and input costs. Think airlines, oil, retail, manufacturing, restaurants, hair dressers, theatres… I recently had a very interesting conversation with a very senior oil man who explained the hugely difficult and expensive process of shutting down a refinery and the equal cost …
If this issue of Direct Drilling says anything, it is that farmers are not afraid of change. Every one of the farmer focus articles describes how the contributor has made changes to many of the inputs under their control. It provides a vast amount of highly relevant and valuable information for all involved in arable …
Despite the pandemic and the likely economic crises in its wake, people continue to experience a growing anxiety concerning greenhouse gases (GHG) and climate change, which extends to include farms and food production. While farming, and the process of photosynthesis, is one of the few ways of reducing CO2, livestock production and soil cultivation release …
Substituting the plough, power harrow, sub-soiler and cultivator for a one-pass machine makes sense for any farm. Creating a soil environment which allows nature to do the hard work is, as we all know, beneficial to farm profitability, farming lives, greenhouse gas emissions, birds and bees. These benefits fit with the thinking of Defra minister …
