Farmer Focus Arable: Snow halts Philip Bradshaw’s sugar beet harvest

While we have been fortunate compared with many with the early cold weather, it has caused some issues here, particularly with our sugar beet. Most was lifted before the first snow arrived, but the remainder could be a challenge.

I took the opportunity of finishing wheat drying on some of the dry, frosty days, and the fast cool-down cycle times meant it kept me busy. Most has left the farm, at a good mix of prices. The interesting question is what price to assume in our decisions for next year or even the year after?

Happily, I discovered our Single Farm Payment had arrived in the bank on 1 December. This is the second year running that has happened and is in stark contrast to the early years of the scheme when we were routinely several months later than most.

I hope the majority are being paid out, and I also hope soon to be able to decipher the many statements and replacement statements from past years. I have always felt that we are still owed some – having been underpaid in the past – and that looks to now be resolving itself just in time to start thinking about the new scheme.

We have for several years now observed the construction of the new “A16 bypass”, which has taken a hectare off the end of the farm at Newborough. Thanks to English Heritage, a huge bridge was built to protect the historic Roman-built Car Dyke canal where the new road crossed it.

The contractors are having to again rebuild the embankment up to the bridge due to cracking. Incredibly, this is the second time, and means that the new road – which is so important both for local traffic and the transport of a significant percentage of the high-value vegetable crops coming out of South Lincolnshire – will be almost a year late opening.

I wish you all a very merry Christmas, and all the best for 2011.