Farmer Focus: Slurry storage gap filled by friend’s lagoon

I think the less said about the Budget, the better. But surely Leeds West and Pudsey had a better candidate for MP at the last election than Rachel Reeves.

She whinges about the “black hole” in the public finances, conveniently forgetting the worldwide pandemic.

Then she takes money that has already been taxed when we bite the dust, without understanding the consequences not only for intergenerational agricultural business, but also national food security.

See also: Advice on investing in a cover for a slurry lagoon or tank

About the author

Tom Hildreth

Livestock Farmer Focus writer Tom Hildreth and family grow grass and maize for the 130-cow herd of genomically tested 11,000-litre Holsteins near York supplying Arla. The Hildreths run a café, ice cream business and milk vending machine on the farm.

Read more articles by Tom Hildreth

Closer to home, the grass is still growing, and I’m regretting not hiring a zero grazer for the autumn.

That could have solved most of my problems – and probably created new ones, as I’m not sure the cows could maintain 42kg daily yield on wet autumn grass.

For now, we are filling out the ration with sugar beet pulp and seeing a daily increase of 2kg a cow.

It seems all the rain we wanted over summer is arriving now.

Surprisingly, the grassland is standing it well, and it’s a shame we’re in a nitrate vulnerable zone, as I’d travel with the tanker to get myself out of a slurry storage capacity issue.

Fortunately, a friend underutilising his lagoon has come to my rescue, just until I get my new concrete store up – which would have been up a year ago, had the Environment Agency and Rural Payments Agency not been such a pain to deal with regarding slurry infrastructure grants.

This year has seen a great number of changes to the farm. Robots were started up in January and have proved a life-changing addition to the farm.

Even Dad, who once said I could put them in “over his dead body”, is telling anyone who will listen how great they are.

The calf shed, which is nearly finished, will more than double our calf-rearing capacity, and we will no longer have temporary pens in any space we can find for the rush in summer.

I dare say we will find the calf shed as good an investment as the robots were.

The long-awaited slurry store is finally under way, with the base poured and building scheduled for January.

Having ample storage will be a massive weight off my shoulders, and the ability to utilise slurry at the right time of year should help the bottom line too.