Farmer Focus: Growth talk reminds me of some ag products

A new king, a new prime minister, the passing of the Queen and funeral broadcasts have meant less coverage of the changes in government than you would expect.

The markets haven’t stopped, though. Tax cuts, and the increased public borrowing to follow, have resulted in the pound weakening further. This generally suits agriculture, making imports more expensive. And, as part of Arla, it helps us maintain our price relative to Europe.

About the author

Tom Stable

Tom Stable and family, Ulverston, Cumbria, milk 350 Holsteins three times a day, producing milk for Arla and ice cream for their Cumbrian Cow brand. The 300ha operation, of which two thirds is rented, grows grass, maize and winter wheat and cows average 11,800 litres.

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The worrying flip side is the inevitable increase in inflation and the rise in interest rates that will follow. The interviews with politicians who keep saying a simple 1% increase in growth will easily pay for all this reminds me of all those products sold to dairy farmers that will “easily add one litre to your cows”.

See also: Regular analysis advised as drought hits silage quality

Our fourth and final cut was made on 2 September and was better than expected, considering the very low level of inputs that went into growing it. It weighed in at 8.6t/ha (3.5t/acre) freshweight.

Each year, fourth cut is followed by the removal of sand from the slurry store, which isn’t as bad as it sounds. First, we use slurry tankers to remove what we can. We cart this to the furthest ground because it’s the easiest element to move.

The next step is to use a side discharge, which is filled with the telehandler via a concrete ramp into the store. This demands the most patience – it’s awful to handle, being neither slurry nor muck.

After a full day with just one spreader, we are ready to crack on. We continue to fill the spreader and three grain trailers – the portion left in the store gets drier with every load and has a consistency very similar to cement.

These loads are carted further away onto stubble ready for pre-maize application in spring. In total, the whole process takes four days: two with the tankers, one with the spreader and one with the trailers.

It’s not too arduous to get rid of the entire year’s sand for 300 cows and empty the store to have maximum capacity for the winter.

The cows are still performing nicely, but we are having limited success settling the heifer group down in the parlour. It seems to be a “one step forward, two steps back” kind of problem.