Food for Thought

The NFU has issued some depressing figures which suggest that by Jan 2008 the average free-range egg producer will be losing £27,000 a year while broiler producers will be losing as much as £118,000/yr because of high feed costs.

When are retailers going to realise that the price has to go up?

The National Register of Sprayer Operators (NRoSO) has reacted to criticism that the scheme is too bureaucratic and takes too much time to gain the necessary points to remain a member.

Single annual training events - worth 10 points - are to become the focus of NRoSO member training, but attending an event will not be compulsory, and a range of other methods of obtaining the 30 continuing professional development (CPD) points over three years needed to remain a member will still be available.

Sounds like a sensible way forward.

Today's story in The Independent about a possible subsidy cap wasn't new news (FW reported it back in September). The way the paper handled it was also pretty predictable - featuring the usual collection of Royals and Dukes (excuse me while I yawn).

But it is not all bad news. The story has generated some interesting discussion about the purpose of support payments and whether a cap would really be such a bad thing on the FWiSpace discussion forums.

It's not too often I step outside the realms of agricultural business. As a business journalist, I'm not comfortable with anything that doesn't have a pound sign next to it, or, preferably, a graph.

So its a real change of pace to report from Germany's gargantuan Agritechnica 2007 event.

Opinion is divided on whether this is the world's biggest - or merely Europe's biggest - agricultural machinery show. Some reckon the USA's Farm Progress Show is even bigger, but Agritechnica can certainly claim to be the biggest show indoors.

This was the first day Germany's farming public got to see what Agritechnica had to offer. Various moustachioed Bavarians have begun poring over the gleaming kit while ruthlessly-efficient Teutonic businessmen nod unsmilingly and tap into Blackberries.

Here in the press room, stuffed to the gills with bratwurst, sauerkraut and kartoffel-something, there's a strange quiet throughout the exhibition complex.

I just don’t understand how DEFRA junior minister Lord Rooker can put his head in the sand over the 2012 cage ban.

It’s the pig sector all over again, with the government pushing ahead with welfare legislation regardless of whether other EU member states stick to the same timetable. And the result could be the wholesale export of the intensive egg sector.

We have also already seen it happen in Germany, who is phasing out conventional cages before other Member States. Producers simply moved production to neighbouring countries, mainly the Netherlands.

And it will happen in the UK if it unilaterally goes ahead with the ban in 2012.

DEFRA has to be realistic about the timetable of rehousing millions of birds in the UK. Whether switching to free range or enriched, it will require building new units just to maintain the UK flock size.

Listen to the radio today or pick up a newspaper and you'll find headlines moaning about the rising cost of food (or as they prefer to say the 'soaring' cost of food). When are people going to realise that food has been unrealistically cheap for too long?

I've just logged onto the website of one of the big four supermarkets and seen a 300g pack of bacon retailing for 96p and a 2kg beef roasting joint for £4.78.

Who on earth is going to make any money at those kind of prices and what on earth is the quality going to be like?

Earlier in the year, Farmers Weekly started an initiative which we called The Big Debate. The idea was to take a controversial farming subject, set out the arguments surrounding the issue and then let readers decide the final verdict.

The first question we asked was about wind turbines but now we’ve come up with our second. We’re asking farmers: Have the past 50 years left a good or bad legacy for UK farming?

I admit that it is not an easy question to answer. When I first read Matthew Naylor’s article which argues that the past 50 years have left a bad legacy for UK farming I found myself agreeing. But then I read former NFU president Lord Plumb’s countering article and found myself agreeing with him too.

This could mean that I’m not very decisive. But what I’d prefer to think it that it is because the issue is not clear cut and there are pluses and minuses on both sides.

Bluetongue and foot-and-mouth are not laughing matters. But I changed my mind when I read this from FW columnist Stephen Carr

According to BBC Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson petrol at over £1 a litre is cheap...

...well compared with bull semen at £24,000 a litre, he claims.

And he maybe right, but it got me thinking: What's your measure? How do you compare the price of things?

For instance, a pint of beer is the same as 10 second-class stamps??

I think the BBC did something similar last week on its Radio Five Live breakfast programme.

So what's your measure for things agricultural?

Whilst recently on holiday in Vietnam I saw this unusual sight.

These cows were seen being driven into the Red River for their daily swim across to the other side which must have been at least half a mile.

A calf was spotted later pondering how to get the coracle the right way up!

Geneva, Switzerland

"I can't leave you with with too strong an impression that volatility in the grain markets will be acute and you will see markets like you've never seen before."

Such were the reassuring words of one of the world's leading grain market analysts here today. Dan Basse is a regular contributor to the Global Grain conferences and, as president of Chicago's AgResource forecasting firm, you'd expect him to know.

The Welsh Assembly Government has revealed that it is ready to issue single farm payments to 75% of farmers in Wales on 3 December.

It is great news for them (unless you are one of the unlucky 25%), but sadly farmers in England are facing an all too familiar scenario.

For the best that DEFRA and the Rural Payments Agency have so far come up with is to say that it aims to have completed 75% of the value of payments by the end of March 2008.

And instead of making getting payments out a priority, DEFRA seems to be getting sidetracked by issues such as cost-cutting and talking about giving golden handshakes to DEFRA officials of up to £150K.