FARMERFOCUS
FARMERFOCUS
Tim Piper
Tim Piper farms at
Churchlands on the edge
of Romney Marsh, Kent.
Wheat, barley, oilseed rape,
herbage seed and vining
peas occupy 890ha
(2200 acres) of the
1105ha (2730-acre) unit
HAPPY Christmas and a prosperous New Year to everyone reading this article.
Happiness is something we have some control over, but prosperity is more difficult these days.
Little has been done on the land since my last article, when most work was finished for winter. We have been busy loading out seed peas, grass seed and Consort wheat with a useful £3.50/t premium for Hagberg and specific weight.
On the subject of grain, why, oh why, cant we have a single farm assurance scheme, with a basic set of ground rules and different modules for different enterprises? As a mixed farmer, with cattle and store lambs, I am fed up with "jobs-worths" poking their noses around my farm asking me the same questions.
Whether it is FABBL, Produce Assurance or ACCS, the inspectors are all the same and only in livestock do we see any price difference, albeit a penalty to those not assured rather than any premium for assurance. I am in favour of assurance, but lets have some financial reward.
Continuing on the grain theme, before Christmas I had a long conversation with Richard Butler, chairman of the NFU cereals committee. I suggested farmers should be paid standard bonuses for supplying grain above specification, as we get with oilseed rape. Surely that would be preferable to a negotiated extra on every deal which the merchant knows he can claw back in some way or another?
But at present, one merchants testing equipment can vary considerably from anothers. A sample of this seasons Chariot malting barley, drawn from one 10kg bucket but tested by different merchants, produced nitrogen results ranging from 1.26% to 1.78% nitrogen. Richard Butler says this is in hand with merchant accreditation to the Trade Assured Scheme for Combinable Crops (TASCC). I hope that will assure some sort of standardisation in future.
But that is more than can be said of UK millers standards. They buy foreign milling wheat with an ergot tolerance, but have a zero-tolerance standard for UK grain. *
James Moldon
James Moldon manages the
220ha (550 acres) heavy
land Stanaway Farm, Otley,
Suffolk, for the Felix
Thornley Cobbold
Agricultural Trust.
Crops include winter wheat,
barley, OSR, beans, linseed
and sugar beet
AS the 1990s draw to a close and the 2000s begin, who would have predicted the problems that British Agriculture now faces?
With an unpredictable future ahead, it seems difficult to know in which direction to turn. But the industry as a whole has been in this position before and I feel confident we are now moving towards better times.
The environmental aspects of farming are going to play a more important role in farmings future and much of this will focus on chemical and nitrogen inputs, I suspect. A great deal of work still needs to be carried out on reducing inputs further while ensuring the continuation of a viable and profitable system.
A pesticide tax has not been ruled out, and it remains a daunting prospect. Such a measure would undoubtedly do further financial damage to agriculture and possibly make all arable farming unprofitable.
But we have to fine-tune the way we farm today. Being a LEAF demonstration farmer and practising integrated crop management I feel this will continue to be the way forward in the future. As consumer opinions change with the help of the media, it is obvious that providing high quality and affordable British produce will remain the number one priority. There are still opportunities to make money, but management flexibility and decision making will become ever more important to take advantage of them. Careful budgeting and running the farm more efficiently by trying to cut both fixed and variable costs should put the farm in a stronger position.
Barry and myself are carrying out mundane maintenance projects and so far there are no intentions to buy new machinery. But we do hope to build a mole plough for the coming season. Other winter tasks revolve around the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, mostly hedge maintenance this year, but also an extension and upgrade of a pond, and coppicing some woodland will help improve the wildlife habitats on the farm. *
Mike Cumming
Mike Cumming is manager
at Lour Farms, Ladenford,
Forfar, Angus, where spring
malting barley and seed
potatoes occupy about half
the 749ha (1850 acres).
Other crops include winter
wheat, barley and oats,
oilseed rape, swedes and grass
LOOKING at our winter crops, it is nice to see wall-to-wall coverage, including headlands.
Nowadays, all headlands get a pass with a deep cultivator before drilling and they look better for it. But I do feel out of step with current thinking. Not a week goes by without my reading the virtues of reduced cultivation. Such systems do not fit our farming here at Lour. The exacting demands of seed potato production dictate a higher staff a hectare rate than on all cereal units and row crop work places an upper limit on tractor size and weight.
These factors formed the basis of our decision to opt for the Amazone RDP drill combination a year ago, when our drilling system was reviewed. If the ghost of Christmas future took me forward a few years to see large kit establishing cereals here without the plough, I would be a sad man. The vision could only mean one thing; economic pressures to reduce fixed costs had seen the demise of enterprises, including potatoes, with arable output centred around continuous cereals.
To date, our strength has been our mix of enterprises. Until recently the yearly variations in financial performance have often been self-balancing and there can be no doubt that the soil structure and average yields in this part of the world are greatly improved by rotation.
I believe we still have a bit more to squeeze out of our arable crops by applying an attention-to-detail approach to all our cultivations and husbandry. I am sure we can all think of practices we turned a blind eye to when prices were good, such as drilling compacted headlands, as profitability was not under threat. These things all add up and need to be addressed.
I must also mention strobilurin chemistry, which has delivered ever-higher expectations of wheat output. For Scottish farmers this brings ever-greater risk. We desperately need new growth regulators to prevent a cap being put on output and safeguard returns. *
Mark Ireland
Mark Ireland farms with
his father and brother at
Grange Farm, North
Rauceby, Lincs. Sugar beet
and barley are the core
crops on the 1004ha (2481
acres) heathland unit
ONE advantage of an all arable farm is that come Christmas, hopefully, everyone can take a complete break.
That gives me time to reflect on farmings past, present, and possible future.
Pesticides have seen some of the biggest changes. Gone are the days when they were collected from the back door of our local Boots shop in Sleaford and the return of the empty drum was rewarded with repayment of a crown. Who said recycling is a new idea?
More recently strobilurin chemistry has lifted yields and with further new chemicals in the pipeline our armoury against pests, weeds and diseases is nearly complete. There are few problems today which cannot be tackled somehow. Looking back to 1986, the year I finished at Harper Adams and returned home, the figures show that although agriculture has seen a massive fall in prices so too have some of our suppliers. A 5-litre can of Roundup (glyphosate) cost £61 and cypermetherin was £12.90/ litre. Was it taxed in those days?
In the same year we sold 1400t of spring malting barley "as seen in store" at £162/t, less another forgotten figure – the co-responsibility levy. Will we ever see these prices again? I think not and grain marketing is definitely not a rainy day job anymore. Fewer buyers in the market will see the proportion of grain grown on contract or sold through pools only get higher.
As on many other farms, labour here has reduced and a few staff have to be proficient at many specialised jobs; A six-row sugar beet harvester cannot be operated well by the untrained and inexperienced. It is imperative our present staff are able to pass on their knowledge to a younger generation.
Agriculture is in a state of great distress at present. But I am looking forward to the challenge and better times ahead. I wish all readers a prosperous New Year and hope not too many go down with the millennium bug! *