Issue 30 – Contents
Inside this issue:
Issue 30October 2024
Introduction
Written by Mike Donovan What will be the farming policy be for the new government? Keir Starmer promises pain before gain, yet so far the Defra budget has not been discussed in any detail. It’s the principle question in the minds of all 109,000 farmers and its 471,000 workforce today. Farming employs 1 per cent …
Defra Answers your SFI 2024 Questions
Written by Chris Fellows After the interruption of a General Election, Defra have been able to get back to answering farmers 2024. The delay, which has been frustrating for all, has now passed and on the 26th September Defra delivered a webinar in collaboration with the Farming Advice Service (FAS) and The Farming Forum (TFF). The webinar was lead …
Farmer Focus – Tim Parton
September 2024 How one’s life can change between articles! You never think anything is ever going to happen to you! I can honestly say that it has been the worst year of my life so far! As somebody that has always taken health and safety seriously, you just never know what is around the corner …
Mycorrhiza manipulation: nature vs nurture
Mycorrhiza and specifically ‘arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi’ (AMF) and Ectomycorrhiza (EcM) are important symbiotic fungi involved in the successful growth of the vast majority of plant species across the world. We have previously discussed their roles and strategies impacting their activities in an introductory article. The following article aims to expand on this by discussing the …
Restoring farmland biodiversity: The Allerton Project
The Allerton Project, as a research and demonstration farm, has been in operation since 1992. We are, however, a part of the wider Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), a membership organisation who have been conducting conservation science to enhance the British countryside for over 90 years. Today, the GWCT’s Farmland Ecology Unit carries out …
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Farmer Focus – John Pawsey
September 2024 Alice and my pre harvest holiday was with Wild With Consent whose website promises ‘This is wild camping, but not as you know it’. I have always asked for Alice’s consent before going wild otherwise she would have me arrested. What the website actually meant that we could camp in a remote place …
Glyphosate or tillage: which is worse for soils?
Which is the lesser of two evils – glyphosate or tillage? That’s what Rothamsted Research’s Prof Andy Neal has been trying to find out Written By Mike Abram Glyphosate or tillage – which will do more damage to soil health? It’s a question that has exercised both regenerative farmers and the organic sector from different …
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Farmer Focus – Andrew Jackson
September 2024 Another year has passed and although I am without doubt a bit older, hopefully I am a little wiser from all the errors that I have made. We have tried to devise a rotation based around predominantly first wheats, interrupted with break crops of grass seed (down for two and a half years …
Getting emissions down in a measured way
Written by Rob Nightingale from Frontier “Yield is king!” This was a tag line in farming throughout my career as a farm manager and agronomist. Interestingly, now as a technical sustainability specialist, it’s a phrase finding resurgence again. At times in our history it has probably been more pertinent than others, for example during the …