Milk price heads in right direction
Last issue I wrote about our expected maize harvest. Well, four weeks on, the contractors have just arrived and I’m now off to sweep the roads behind them all day.
The local community is not very tolerant of such things and road safety is becoming more and more important.
We have managed to get off 50 acres which has yielded well and was perfectly ripe. But the weather has beaten us and we’re awaiting a break to finish off and get some wheat in.
I don’t want to bore every one with the weather, but this year has been horrendous – I will be glad to see the back of 2012.
The milk price is finally starting to move in the right direction and I feel domestically we’re now in a real supply and demand situation with things in our favour. The processors are getting low on milk and are starting to realise we are not going to turn the taps on without higher prices, as soya and the like are just too expensive. When prices were lower we just kept up production regardless. This year’s poor forage has highlighted the reliance on soya to get that extra milk without a good forage base to feed them.
The farm has now got a new puppy. Unfortunately, Josh and his lady friend did not have any luck, so we had to buy a 12-week-old pup called Will, who is bringing lots of smiles and laughs to the farmyard and has already chewed his way through Mum’s shelving in the porch.
Paul Vicary farms 458ha at Hilders Farm, Kent, in partnership with his parents Helen and Graham. They milk 220 cows three times a day and have 200 followers and plan to increase herd size to 350 by 2015. They also run 500 ewes and ewe lambs.
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