This Week in Farming: Big pickups, milk trade and avian flu

Hello and welcome to This Week in Farming, your chance to catch up on any stories you’ve missed in the last seven days.

Below are five of the biggest topics we’ve written on this week as well as a look ahead to what’s coming up in this week’s Farmers Weekly podcast.

Avian flu housing order

As if poultry producers didn’t have enough to contend with currently, the avian flu outbreak shows no sign of abating.

A housing order for all poultry in England will be imposed from Monday (7 November) to try and stem the rapid spread of cases in commercial flocks, with new outbreaks being reported daily.

There is currently no order being imposed for poultry keepers in Northern Ireland, Wales or Scotland.

Defra also announced recently that it was modifying compensation rules for farmers that have seen their flocks compulsorily slaughtered in order to accelerate payment.

Earlier this month it was revealed that work is underway to develop a vaccine to guard against the highly contagious disease, which is also having an effect on wild birds.

Store lamb trade back

You’ll have probably seen the grain price swinging all over the place as traders try and follow every scrap of news coming out of Russia and Ukraine (check our markets section for the latest).

However, a shift in the lamb trade may have escaped your attention, with prices in the store ring slipping back amid fears over light winter forage stocks.

Check out the latest prospects for the winter with our livestock reporter Michael Priestley.

Then read all about how Cornish farmer Adrian Coombe has been putting EBVs to good use, making an extra £4.30/head on lambs sired by rams he confesses he previously may not have bought at market.

RAM pickup import

 A mammoth engine under the bonnet may not do your carbon footprint much good but we know many of you won’t be able to resist a closer look at the latest American pickup import from Ram.

The 1500 Laramie model is what our friends stateside would call mid-spec but by our standards it packs a serious punch, with a 5.7-litre naturally aspirated Hemi V8 that’s good for 395hp.

Find out our first impressions of the left-hand drive import or look out for it on the cover of this week’s magazine.

Slurry and silage storage breaches

Making use of every scrap of nutrient goodness from slurry has never been more important with the cost of artificial fertiliser, but also to protect the environment and ensure agriculture does not get more than the fair share of the blame for unclean waterways.

So, it was troubling to hear this week that the Environment Agency has more than doubled its rate of farm inspections in England, finding slurry and silage storage permit breaches at more than half the sites it inspected.

Of 561 serious pollution incidents across all sectors in 2021, 54 were caused by farming activities, down from 58 in 2020.

This separate story from the machinery team on a slurry concentrator that uses seaweed to reduce volumes of slurry back to 15% of its original mass may be a solution for some.

It can turn dairy and pig manure into a dry, solid, stackable material alongside water that is clean enough to be released back into the environment.

Dairy markets stall

Arla’s 1.33p/litre price rise for November certainly set tongues wagging when it was announced last week, particularly given increased production and some tell-tale signs that global demand for dairy products is softening.

Business reporter Charlie Reeve delves into the details, while over on the livestock desk Rhian Price has been finding out the best ways to train heifers to use a robot milker.

She went to meet the Tibbs family near Bristol to see how a change of strategy has helped them manage a smoother transition into the milking herd.

Listen to the FW Podcast

Don’t forget the latest edition of the Farmers Weekly podcast with Johann Tasker, Hugh Broom and Charlotte Cunningham.

This weekend they’ll be asking if the government doing enough to Back British Farming, reviewing the pork markets and hearing from chief reporter Philip Case’s recent trip to the west African nation of Guinea. 

Listen on FW or bring us with you in the cab by downloading it from your usual podcast platform.