Opinions Focus
- Recent weather in the UK has been beneficial: warm and wet.
- Winter crops are well-established.
- The sugar beet harvest looks better than we’d earlier feared too.
What’s happening on farm
What an exciting time it has been since I last wrote. At least our King is still here.
The god of English farmers must have been away on holiday because we have had an unusually kind autumn. (thus far). Air temperature has been some 2°c above normal and it has rained kindly on us which has allowed winter crops to get well established, both oil seed rape and winter wheat, which is now some 85% planted. Yes, there is a disease threat and the creepy crawlies that eat everything I grow will have also multiplied but “well sown is half grown”. There’s a long way to go yet though.
Not mentioned much in the outside world, agricultural input inflation is running at 35% and whilst talking to our agronomist he cheerfully mentioned that the pesticide providers were rather unhappy on missing this particular boat and they were going to do their bit to increase inflation this coming spring – I know every farmer that writes in this column worries about this. How much we have in common around the world.
Although we are not directly involved, bird flu is out of control in this part of England and there are a number of farmers that are suffering financial as well as emotional loss.
And, slightly strangely in my view, my lovely wife decided to set-light to a pumpkin on the last day of October. This might have been because she had been shopping.
Crop Stage
Maize harvest is over whilst sugar beet continues. This crop clearly is benefiting from the autumn conditions and, whilst it will not recapture the yield lost to the summer drought (and it was a proper drought lest we forget), it might not be a disaster. Beet supplied have both similar sugar and dirt tare levels as last year, according to factory averages.
As is the rage, autumn cover crops have been planted and grow well.
Big Concerns
I sat through a presentation from a member of The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (the bit of government that looks after agriculture in England, or so it is alleged) last night, via Zoom. It was explained that His Majesty’s government had been reforming the farmer support system since 2001 but due to the arrival of the “newest government” useful guidance was going to be delayed, but we were helpfully reminded that payments were being withdrawn at an increasing rate.
Rewilding is being pushed as the way forward for English agriculture. Whilst reading an article on the subject, it occurred to me that the writer was a failed farmer who had a second source of income as did their spouse. It is an insult to suggest that farmers do not want to look after their asset from which they earn their living and if you deny them the chance to do this there will be a much bigger problem created.
Whilst getting my covid booster today I came across a “closed sign”. The subsidy that was put into this particular project cannot and will not ever be repaid.
Ambitions for the Year
On a happier note, I spent a week in London trying to progress this ambition. Treated like a proper student, for the first time in a very long time, a lovely man very patiently explained how I needed to look at things.
If the USDA Baseline projections are anywhere near correct, it was time well spent.
