Welcome to the 5th Anniversary issue of Direct Driller / Normal Farming magazine. When we started the magazine, we really didn’t know what to call it. We knew it should focus on soil health, reduced cultivation, conservation agriculture (remember when it was called that), sustainability, efficiency and profitability. Lots of good words and I’d hope …
January 2023 If you are like us, then you don’t know where to start when it comes to other reading apart from farming magazines. However, there is so much information out there that can help us understand our businesses, farm better and understand the position of non-farmers. We have listed a few more books you …
Thank you to those who has signed up to be a Direct Driller Patron after the last issue. Our farmer writers are now rewarded for sharing their hard-earned knowledge and our readers have the facility to place a value upon that. The Direct Driller Patron programme gives readers the opportunity to “pay it forward” and …
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 …
Written by Chris Fellows We have recently taken part in an Innovate UK competition to try and encourage farmers to read from formal material. Trial results, papers, research, on-farm projects and so forth. The assumption being that farmers who are better informed, make better decisions and thus become more profitable or sustainable (or both hopefully). …
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 …
Getting a confession out the way. About a third of my meals are 100% vegan. But in balance, an evening dinner rarely doesn’t contain meat. I like to think this is normal. Nutritionally balanced. A healthy diet, that supports a healthy farming ecosystem of arable and livestock. What’s not to like about that? Well, everything …
As executive editor of Direct Driller I would like to extend a warm welcome to our new sponsor Trinity AgTech and its founder and executive chairman Dr Hosein Khajeh-Hosseiny. At the same time, give most sincere thanks to ProCam for their support and inspiration from the magazine’s first issue. Procam have been great from the …
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 …
Some people are born to be leaders, most just learn on the way. The latter seems to be how it works in farming. Our leaders are bred. Groomed though various roles to be the right mix of farmer and business we need to represent us. I’ve had the pleasure in meeting some of the spokespeople …
