Farmer Focus views on harvest and prices in 2005

FARMERS Weekly’s Farmer Focus writers give their views on this year’s harvest and prices.

Harvest

“There seems to be almost as many combines in our area as fields of wheat. Contractors on average will only do 120ha with a combine in a year. How do they make money?” Hendrik Visser (Aug 19)

“If every harvest went as smoothly as this one I would be a happy farmer.” Matthew Dale (Aug 26)

“I should have known when I was bragging about my winter barley yields it would come back to haunt me. Suffice to say my oilseed rape was as poor as my barley was good.” John Jeffrey (26 Aug)

“I cannot find a field below 20% moisture and, with the price of fuel double last year, I am determined to dry as little as possible.” John Jeffrey (26 Aug)

“Wheat yields are good – a bin-busting 4.1t/ha of a quality British farmers only dream of. But the price is terrible, returning a derisory £28.45/t.” Richard Crewe (30 Sep)

“The real pleasure of this year’s harvest has been the new Case 2388 combine; it has hummed along at 12 acres/hr.” Richard Crewe (28 Oct)

“Technology is fine, but recent harvest experiences with a new mobile phone leave a lot to be desired. I can’t see it in the sunlight, can’t hear it for all the noise and as everything around me vibrates, I don’t get a clue that way.” David Greasby (9 Sep)

Pricing

“Perhaps we should be like German car manufacturers and protect our production and export markets by insuring, or hedging. Early enough against the dollar.” Lorenz von Schintling-Horny (Mar 25)

“It’s interesting the trade are building up a head of steam trying to convince us £70/t for feed wheat is good business.” Mark Ireland (21 Oct)

“If prices edge up a little closer to £90/t in the next couple of weeks, I may be tempted to sell.” Mark McFerran (28 Oct)

“It looks like I’ll be spending more time in the office looking for all the millions my budget tells me we should have made this year.” Simon Redfearn (2 Dec)

Keep an eye on FWi over the festive period to find out what else our Farmer Focus writers had to say about a host of topics. Tomorrow (29 December), Sugar reform, ELS and Biofuels come under the spotlight.