Arable Farmer Focus: Funding decision imminent on Allan Chambers’ mini malting plant
Our 40ha of forage maize, grown annually as a cash crop and sold to local dairy farmers, is almost ready to harvest.
This will be our earliest start and should be easily gathered as ground conditions are excellent. There are plenty of well-filled cobs, so we are optimistic. The deal is £35/t harvested with three tractors and trailers delivering the crop at around 30% dry matter. This low management demand crop is valuable in our rotation as winter wheat likes the well opened friable soil that is left.
In August, I wrote about defining “active farming” and now with the EU clearly stating that further funding is to be targeted only at “active farmers”, our industry urgently needs to get the definition of “active” correct and present it to our “masters” in our devolved government in Northern Ireland.
I have my concerns, as many members of our elected Assembly and officials from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development are landowners who have annual rent agreements with working full-time farmers. The task is to ensure that no “slipper” farmer gets a penny from CAP reform. Rental values of land must only reflect the economic return the land can generate for the person who carries all the risk.
A decision on our farm’s application for funding from the EU-sponsored Processing and Marketing Grants Scheme for our mini malting plant is imminent. It is not a runner without the 40% grant, so we hope we have presented a strong enough case to the independent adjudication panel.
Mistake of the month – I should have recorded my neighbour saying tractors should never be fitted with front loaders as they aren’t built for it. Guess what’s arrived in his yard recently? You’ve got it a new 160hp tractor with the aforementioned attachment. A replay would be fun.
