The Bluetongue vaccine should be available any day now and it's a relief that so many farmers have placed orders and are getting prepared. Large numbers of the Bluetongue carrying midges have been reported in Belgium and the Netherlands and, with warmer weather on the cards, these are worrying times.
Our message is to encourage everyone to be as vigilant as possible in looking for symptoms of this silent killer. Livestock editor Jonathan Long and FW photographer Jonathan Page have produced some videos, picture galleries and practical content as step by step advice to help you spot the signs and cope with the vaccination process.
There's a lot of material about on treatment options and prevention methods so make the most of it and keep us posted on anything else you require from us to help you through. Farmers can respond to this blog or use the website forums at FWiSpace share their experiences, express a view or just let off steam.
We need to hear your fears, concerns, ideas and thoughts and we need to know how our livestock content can best meet your needs this spring and summer. Keep us posted and we will respond.
What would you cook if you had a strict vegetarian coming for Sunday lunch and he just happened to be the Secretary of State for the Environment Hilary Benn?
Well, Peter Kendall and his wife Emma sensibly chose vegetable quiche but their kids were decidedly put out that accommodating their important guest meant missing their usual Sunday roast fare and, according to the NFU president, "they were disrespectful about it". These kids will go a long way - why stand on ceremony for a politician.
The Kendall family were hosting another Hilary Benn visit to their arable farm in Eyeworth, Bedfordshire so a hearty lunch was pretty important to helping the day go with a swing. Making the most of the opportunity, Peter showed Hilary Benn around the business that he runs in partnership with his brother Richard.
The Kendalls are big fans of GPS technology and use it regularly to inform their decisions on 620 hectares of combinable crops. A demonstration on the benefits of precision technology in one field was a key part of the visit. All of which set the scene perfectly for Peter then trying to convince the Secretary of State that incentives are desperately needed if farmers are to invest in smart solutions.
You have to admire these tactics.... One of the big challenges is trying to convince Government just what agriculture can do. We need a lot more effort like this to get the politicians on to farms to see what's going on first hand. And it seems the politicians want more of it. On the introduction to his own website, Hilary Benn actually states "I believe in a fairer society ....and that practical politics can help us get there". So say all of us......
Today,. we've launched a survey in conjunction with the Tenant Farmers Association and the NFU to find out what sort of rent rises tenants are facing and the issues cropping up in their relationship with landlords.
If you are affected by a rent review, take a few minutes to look at the survey and fill it in at www.fwi.co.uk/rentreviews.
The tenanted sector is bracing itself for some tough negotiating as an unprecedented wave of rent increases looms. FW is determined to provide practical advice for all involved in the process this year but we need information from you if we are to provide a really useful service.
Alongside the online survey itself, you will also find other guidance on what to expect as the rental demands come in and discussions start with the landlord. If you've already kick-started talks on your farm about this, then why not share your views and experiences at www.fwi.co.uk/forums
What is it they say... a problem shared is a problem halved.... or something like that!
Some interesting comments have come in on my last blog post about NFU bias. I don't think FW is biased towards the NFU and I tend to agree with Peter Wells when he says the NFU can do more to consult with its own members before entering talks with Government. A more joined up approach is definitely needed with members and other agricultural organisations if the industry is to speak with one, unified and more powerful voice. At times, not enough is done to reach agreements within the industry and so the politicians see internal squabbling and receive mixed messages. Arguments and misunderstandings about the future of the new levy boards were a classic example. I know the NFU is watching this blog with interest so here's an opportunity to direct your views at people who want to listen and can make a difference.
I disagree with Peter Wells on his point about the scope of the NFU. He suggests Peter Kendall and his policy team should concentrate entirely on farmer needs and leave politicians to worry about the interests of the nation. While the NFU's primary purpose is to represent UK agriculture, it cannot do this in a vacuum. For too long, farmers produced food without thinking about the end customer and look where that got us. We've ended up with a poor public image and consumers are ill informed about the origins of their food and the challenges farmers face.
Yes, we've got to talk more constructively to each other to find common ground but we've also got to do an awful lot more communicating beyond the industry. We cannot afford to leave it to politicians and celebrity chefs to do our batting for us.
A well known farmer told a colleague of mine the other day he thought FW was completely biased in favour of the NFU. He argued that this was dangerous to FW's independence, particularly as he believed the current NFU leadership was not challenging Government anywhere near enough.
So what do you think? Our position in the last couple of years has been to support the NFU as best we can because we genuinely believe the organisation and its people work desperately hard to do the right thing for farming. Where necessary, FW will speak up and criticise but when it is necessary and certainly not all the time.
When I took over as editor in 2005, one constant complaint was that FW had been too whingeing, too negative and offered no hope for the future. We consulted with over 4,500 people in farming about how we should adapt to changes in the industry and new information needs. It became clear that farmers overwhelmingly wanted us to update our tone and be more solutions driven and positive.
I interpreted that approach as also trying to work more constructively with the key organisations like a critical friend. A critical friend doesn't just say what you want to hear, it will also be brutally frank when it needs to be. And that's how we see our relationship with the NFU. We are as independent as we've always been.
In the last couple of years, the NFU too has altered its stance. It's had to find a new way of communicating and working with Government, the EU and the media if it's to put British agriculture back on the map. The future is about constructive negotiation and keeping channels of communication open. Politicians rarely understand farmers and they need to wake up to the harsh reality that production farming really matters.
In our opinion, the current NFU leadership has made significant progress in breaking down barriers between the industry and the policy makers. There's an awful lot more to do before we have a government that encourages and enables but we're getting there through careful diplomacy and consultation. Being at war with each other and with Government will get us nowhere.
So, over to you. Could we be tougher on the key organisations?
Just returned from a few days in the French Pyrenees attempting to learn to ski with the family. A glorious break - no didn't break a leg - just completely overwhelmed by the beauty of the place and the quality of the food. It's often said that we Brits have a lot to learn from the French in terms of making the most of the provenance of our food. Regionality is such a big thing wherever you go in France...... cheese, wine, bread, meat......wherever you look there's choice beyond your wildest dreams and fantastic merchandising and information about the origins of the produce, how it was crafted and its connection with the local area.
Some pockets of the UK have cracked the local food opportunity though. I was recently in an Asda store in Kendal, Cumbria and stunned to see no less than 14 odd gondolas taken up with local food from local farmers. Much of it was under the Plumgarths label, pioneered by FW's Farmer of the Year John Geldard. John has been working with many Cumbrian producers to supply the local restaurant and hotel trade, Centre Parcs and Asda. Their achievements in gaining so much floorspace for home-grown grub in one of the major retailers is remarkable, particularly as it is not isolated off in its own location. All the local produce is mainstreamed with relevant products and sits alongside the big brands. In some cases, the local line is selling so well that it's taking space from traditional best sellers.
John Geldard's own free range eggs had three times as much shelf space as Asda's own label and were selling like hot cakes. Having cooked an omelette with John's eggs last night, I can see why. The store manager is totally committed to the local food concept because it's great for business and he's constantly looking at ways to expand the range and market the products better.
Asda deserve praise for their efforts on local food and the Kendal store is a fantastic role model for others to follow. Apparently, the retailer is now looking to expand the local food concept in Kent next.
Is anyone aware of other stores making their mark on local produce? Let's hear about it.
This blog is paying off..... reader/web user Bridget Olds has a great idea for FW to provide more information on the pictures chosen for front covers. For example, where livestock images are used, Bridget suggests giving details of who owns the stock and the name and location of the farm. I'm sure we can incorporate this in front cover planning, we simply need to find a suitable home for the details.... our designer Grant Sherriffs is working on it.
Farmer David Christensen also had a good idea for adding more FW comment, analysis and context to stories by adding a separate box at the end of relevant pieces. This fits with our aim to be more practical and to really make the most of the editorial team's expertise. We will give this a go sparingly.
Any more ideas you have to improve the magazine and the website will be gratefully received. Simply reply to this blog.
Thanks (Tom Rigby in particular) for the feedback on our website and this blog. I agree with you that the design of the blog could be improved and the black background isn't easy to read...... we will work on that.
Lately, I've been heavily involved in recruiting within the Farmers Weekly Group. We've had a couple vacancies to fill and it's given us a great opportunity to bring on the young talent within the team. Possibly one of the most important jobs I can do as an editor is to make sure we put the right people in the right jobs and build a strong team.
So I'm pleased to report that we've been able to promote three members of staff into more senior positions. They are: David Cousins as the new Machinery and Features Editor; Ian Ashbridge as the new Business Editor and Caroline Stocks as the new deputy news editor. All three take up their posts shortly and more information on content plans for their areas will follow shortly. The two section editor posts have come about as a result of Nick Fone (machinery) and Andrew Shirley (business) leaving for new ventures outside Farmers Weekly. Both will still be involved in farming related businesses and I'm hoping we can still use their great writing and editing skills by inviting them back to work with us from time to time. Good luck to everyone in your new jobs.
The FW team has had an interesting week listening to our customers - farmers. Last Friday, a group of livestock producers spent a day in the FW office in Sutton, Surrey to tell us what they thought of our products and how we could improve what we do. As always, it was invaluable feedback, particularly in learning how we can mix and match content in the magazine with the website offering. Space in print is pretty restricted these days but we have this limitless resource with www.fwi.co.uk and the key is to use it and our time wisely on the things that farmers find most useful.
One of the main lessons for me from this meeting was the need to "keep it simple" and spell out what things mean for the ordinary farmer at grassroots. The guys told us that they want the bigger picture stuff in terms of industry news and developments but we could do more to explain how this impacts on Joe Bloggs the farmer, depending on his/her type of enterprise. I guess we already knew this but it's important to be reminded of it. So for example on the issue of the blue tongue vaccine, more detail on the likely costs and implications for a typical beef producer and not just the topline on what it costs the whole industry. Obvious really, but sometimes you get so close to the story that it's easy to miss the basics.
Yesterday we also had fantastic feedback from web users on early proposals for changes to our site. Researching audience needs before we revise the products is absolutely key. So we've conducted a series of face to face, in depth interviews with typical website users to find out their attitudes to the internet, to fwi itself and to our plans to update and improve it. We call it useability research and it included business farmers, an agronomist, a farming student and someone in an environmental role. What did we discover? Well most of these people are frequent users of fwi and other websites so they are pretty web savvy, clued up and very clear about what they want and don't want. They've given us a fantastic steer on how to move the site forward - making it easier to access, more relevant and an essential tool. I won't say any more at this stage because it's such early days and I don't want to give anything away to competitors. Suffice to say that we were pleased by the wholly positive reaction from users to the changes we are looking to make. More details later. Website traffic has hit record levels in the last couple of months so we are reassured that we're doing something right but there is always a lot of room for improvement.
My blog is about encouraging customers - farmers and advertisers - to talk to us about everything we do. So don't hesitate to get stuck in and have your say..... good and bad comments...... we need to listen and will respond. Comments please?
Out of the blue on Thursday we heard that Reed Elsevier is to sell off Reed Business Information, which amounts to all its global print and online businesses that are dependent on advertising revenues, including the Farmers Weekly Group. As you can imagine, it's been an unsettling time for us as we get to grips with what it all means. Firstly, Elsevier has decided to divest because it sees advertising led businesses as too cyclical and it wants to concentrate on other business models such as user pays and data services instead. It will sell all its magazines and websites in the UK, US and Europe.
Farmers Weekly is one of the strongest brands in the UK stable and inevitably is getting picked up in press headlines, which makes it sound a bit like we are the only titles to be sold but in truth we are one of many. Our leaders tell us that there has already been a phenomenal amount of interest in the group and is hopeful that all the products will be sold as a whole. It may be many months though before there is any definite news.
I will keep readers posted about developments as soon as I have them. Our view at Farmers Weekly is that it is business as usual and that we must focus on continuing to deliver quality information products for farmers and the industry. Without doubt that's the most helpful thing we can do for any prospective buyer interested in taking over. We're confident but not complacent.
Under Reed Elsevier's ownership Farmers Weekly has flourished and therefore there's always a sadness to leave a good parent. However, the future under a new owner could be even more exciting and open up new opportunities for the brand. That's the way I want to look at it right now.
It may come as a shock to many of you - all of a sudden farmers are flavour of the month with politicians. The Prime Minister, no less, and his secretary of state Hilary Benn have been queuing up to reassure, encourage and show they care. Both attended the NFU centenary conference in London this week.
Benn talked of an industry that had innovated, adapted and was full of entrepreneurs. Brown gushed that it was "the hard work, ingenuity, resiliance and courage of farmers in difficult circumstances that the whole country admires". Such sentiments may have something to do with the NFU celebrating its 100th birthday or, more importantly, an increasing appreciation of the strategic value farmers bring to future food, energy and environmental security.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not knocking it. Farmers need all the support they can get, particularly from ministers and should take the praise positively not suspiciously. Working with government to find solutions has to be better than constant confrontation. But then Gordon Brown reminded us that he was treading hallowed ground. Some 50 years ago it was Winston Churchill who twice addressed the NFU annual conference and on its 75th birthday it was Margarert Thatcher who did the honours. Can you imagine Maggie with her handbag standing up in front of a vociferous group of farmers? I would love to have been a fly on the wall. If any readers/users remember this amazing spectacle do let us know.
It's easy to go stir crazy in the office, so yesterday I joined 350 odd people attending the 2008 Sentry Conference where FW was the media partner. A big pat on the back to David Richardson and his Sentry colleagues for organising another impressive event and for being courageous enough to put a global warming dissenter on the speaker platform.
We were treated to a feast of ideas and theories on the theme: matching the food, energy and environmental challenge. The highlight for me was the fiesty presentation given by Philip Stott from the University of London. Philip is a professor of biogeography - he looks at how plants and animals respond to climate change, shifting continents and humans. You may have heard him on the radio for the BBC on the Jeremy Vine show and the weekly environment programme, Home Planet. He's one of those speakers who uses no notes, speaks at a rate of knots, marches up and down the stage, waves his arms about a lot and makes alarming statements that you're stilll thinking about days later. I can't imagine anyone ever sleeping through his lectures.
Anyway, his main point yesterday was that global warming and climate change were not the same thing and that the former was invented by politicians, namely Margaret Thatcher in the eighties, to suit their own agenda. Farmers, he said, should beware of taking global warming too seriously. He also argued that whatever we do here ion climate change will have no effect whatsoever because the UK is such a small energy player and the climate has been flipping between hot and cold, dry and wet since an archetypal Nigella Lawson stirred the primordial soup 4.6 billion years ago. If climate stopped changing, it would be truly interesting.
And another inconvenient truth, according to Philip Stott, is that we cannot manage the climate predictably by fiddling at the margins. Climate, he said, is like "Glasgow on a Saturday night - a wee bit chaotic. So, when you are next exhorted to wear hemp underpants to save the planet, remember King Canute and take a wee dram of common sense."
The audience was riveted but many didn't quite know what to make of the flamboyant Professor. There was an irony in his message given that the opening speaker to the conference, Professor Robert Thompson, from Illinois University USA, had struggled to get there because he said he'd been the victim of global warming himself. Freak tornedoes had gripped many US states, killing dozens and grounding most transatlantic flights. Undaunted, the organisers pulled off a live link up with Professor Thompson's own web cam straight into the Chilford Hall conference centre in Linton, Cambs. The poor guy may have had to get up in the middle of the night to deliver his speech, but it was worth it.
His main message was:
* We will need to triple or double production to meet global food needs
* 40% of the earth's land is not suitable for agricultural production
* That we must invest in scientific and technological research to learn how to improve production and land use quickly
* World food demand could double by 2050
In conclusion, he warned it could be immoral to burn food for fuel by the middle of this century if we are struggling to improve production. If you want to hear more from Professor Thompson, look out for him at the NFU conference next week. He is definitely worth a listen.
One of the nasty bits about my job is having to make tough decisions about what we should stop doing to give us room to develop new initiatives. Jenny from Sussex is absolutely right - it is sad that we decided to stop running the Farm Women's Club at the end of 2007. We agonised over this for some time. FWC organiser Jean Howells, who for 14 years has been the inspiration behind the Club at a national level, is retiring this March so we felt it was the best time to take this difficult decision. FW and its parent Reed Business Information have enjoyed a long connection with the Club and its members but our business is changing fast. It became apparent, that if we are to give farmers the best service possible we really must put all our efforts into our core areas - business information through our website and magazines. These are challenging times and it's vital we concentrate on farmer needs first and foremost.
For many years, the majority of FWC groups have been operating on their own organising lively meetings and growing their membership up and down the country. So I'm hopeful that many groups will continue to have strong membership support regardless of FW's involvement. Indeed, Jenny from Sussex is a prime example as she is optimistic that her group will go on.
While not all FWC members are comfortable with using websites, I would encourage all those that are to take a look at the discussion area fwispace on www.fwi.co.uk and use this to publicise your meetings, trips and regional events. You can add your own photographs and share comments on the forums. It's a great way to stay in touch with friends and let others know what's going on. Promoting your club in this way may also help recruit new members.
So, it's been a difficult but necessary decision to withdraw from the FWC. Best wishes for the future to all members.
FW certainly works hard to be a powerful ally for farmers but it's apparent that there's still a lot of reticence about the wider media. I was speaking at a meeting of the Norfolk Mardlers last night in Hethersett and there were a few growers who were still angry about last week's tv coverage of the poultry sector and the slaughter of livestock. Several Mardlers commented that they felt the majority of farmers did not trust the general media or journalists one jot. They argued that they were too cynical and wary about their messages getting twisted to ever get engaged with tv, radio or press interviews.
I think this is a real pity. As an industry, the way forward has to be to learn to manage the media and not be afraid of them. We have to put agriculture back on the front foot and be confidence about the messages we relay. WE should grab every opportunity that comes our way - I know the NFU do. The public are interested in what farmers have to say and are not as duped as you might think by media spin. Whenever we see farmers participating in broadcasts, it's usually impressive, informative and entertaining. We should have nothing to hide and nothing to run away from.
There's lots the industry and FW can do to put farming on the front foot with the media and in the eyes of the public.
I really liked the way poultry producer and NFU sector spokesman Charles Bourns wrote a confident piece for The Mail on Sunday yesterday challenging Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. This is exactly what we should be doing - coming forward, talking positively and openly, informing consumers. LEAF's Farm Sunday initiative is another great way of educating and enthusing the public, and school visits on farm are to be encouraged. We know there are an awful lot of businesses out there keen to open their gates and be subjected to public scrutiny. The Farmers Weekly Kids Connect Campaign prompted another 1200 farms to sign up to school visits last year, which is a great start for this Year of Food and Farming.
And there's more we can do at Farmers Weekly. The team has been working hard in the last couple of years sending out press releases on key themes that impact farmers and commentating to the national papers, radio and television. I recently took part in a Sky tv debate with Jonathan Dimbleby on the issues for farmers in 2008 and our livestock editor, Jonathan Long, has been particularly active on tv with blue tongue and foot and mouth.
We will be using the magazine and website to give practical advice to farmers when dealing with the media and there will be more campaigns, like Food Miles and Kids Connect, to link the industry with consumers more. I try to be quite hands on in this respect when presenting to local farmer groups. Tomorrow night, I've been invited to speak at a meeting of The Mardlers, near Wymondham, Norfolk and will partly use the occasion to encourage farmers to raise their profile and project more optimism.
I believe that as farmers if we do not show we have confidence in ourselves and our future, then why should we expect the public to believe in us. This means accepting that the way we communicate as an industry needs a massive overhaul. What do you think?
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