Farmer Focus: None of us are in the same boat this harvest

The slight problem with writing a monthly article is that, once it’s in print, there’s no going back and, with honesty being the best policy, one must always come clean.

Last month, I reported both very good and exceptionally bad winter barley yields, and average but acceptable winter oat and oilseed rape yields.

See also: Farmer Focus: I subconsciously define myself by the business

About the author

Neil MacLeod

Neil MacLeod manages 1,600ha of mixed soils on the east coast of Angus, Scotland. The majority of the land is in arable production with diversified enterprises consisting of soft fruit, sitka spruce, environmental stewardship, and renewable energy.

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My prediction at that point was that our winter wheat yields would be variable based on soil type, their ability to cope with three months of winter rainfall, our local river bursting its banks, very little sunshine at grain fill and to top it all off, blisteringly hot weather through July. 

Well, I wasn’t wrong with yields ranging from 5.3t/ha to 10.2t/ha to average 7.9t/ha, 15% behind our five-year average for a crop that takes up 45% of our combinable area.

The funny thing was, that a lot of the wheat crops didn’t look too bad, and I had approached this harvest with cautious optimism.

But once in the combine, what looked like a 10t crop from the cab turned out to be an 8t crop by the time most of the light grains had been either blown over the sieves or removed by the pre cleaner at the drier.

What this has equated to for our business is a shortfall of around 600t of cereal crops in the shed and further compounded by the rising grain markets, it’s easy to do the maths.

There was a relatively positive end to harvest, however, with our winter beans averaging a pleasing 5.9t/ha.

Now, before anyone states the obvious, that we are all in the same boat this harvest and throughout the UK yields are down, I would like to point out that none of us are in the same boat.

Because when the dust has settled and we actually sit down with whomever we have to report, justify and, if brave enough, benchmark our figures to, be it landowner, trustees, the bank or even family, the feeling of failure is very lonely, and the boat all of a sudden only has room for one.