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This Week in Farming: Biosecurity gap, OSR and best of Lamma

Andrew Meredith 23 January 2026
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Welcome back to another edition of This Week in Farming. I hope your waterproofs are holding up, wherever you are.

First, here are your market prices (opens as PDF). Red diesel is up by more than a penny amid a jump in the oil price but most crop and livestock prices are flat.

Now, on with the show.

About the author

Andrew Meredith
Farmers Weekly editor
Andrew has been Farmers Weekly editor since January 2021 after doing stints on the business and arable desks. Before joining the team, he worked on his family’s upland beef and sheep farm in mid Wales and studied agriculture at Aberystwyth University. In his free time he can normally be found continuing his research into which shop sells London’s finest Scotch egg.
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The say-do gap in farm policy

Our exclusive lead story this week reveals that illegal meat seized at the border is not being tested for animal diseases, a shocking gap in what should be a key component of our early-warning system for reportable diseases.

“Food security is national security” has been the mantra of politicians on both sides for many a year.

However, as I note in my editorial this week, the gap between what is said and what is done yawns wide as ever, but those on the front line are not to blame.

And where did I steal the “say-do gap” phrase from? It was this report from the Policy Exchange Think Tank (opens as PDF) on how the troubling phenomenon also exists in the world of defence as well.

Lamma round-up

As promised last week, if you didn’t make it to Lamma 2026, here’s our machinery team’s 10 top stories after two days picking around the exhibits:

Growth agenda

There won’t be many wheels turning this week given the weather, but agronomists are already starting to dish out early advice on how to manage some decent-looking crops of oilseed rape.

There’s a round-up of four new nitrogen management technologies that will hopefully reduce the 50% of applied fertiliser that is currently wasted.

We also look at how Norfolk contract farmer Robert Scott hopes to fight back after losing nearly 400ha of land under management, due to landowner clients shifting away from arable farming in favour of environmental schemes amid falling grain prices.

When partnerships end in acrimony

In an equal farm business partnership, one partner has the right to buy the other out in some circumstances, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

This is a departure from the normal practice of ordering the assets of a dissolved partnership to be sold on the open market with each party allowed to bid.

Farmers Weekly business editor Suzie Horne picks over the details of the case and what it means.

And in other business news this week, there’s a fresh warning on the risks of being underinsured and how to remedy the situation.

Who’s up and who’s down?

It’s been a bad week to be a hare courser in Cambridgeshire – see the video of the police disrupting a gathering of more than 50 of them.

It’s been a very good week to have a brand-new covered slurry store, so our thanks to Keith Davis, dairy manager at Lydney Park Farm, Gloucestershire, for telling deputy livestock editor Shirley Macmillan how the slurry store project got done.

Listen to the FW Podcast

Don’t forget to tune in to the Farmers Weekly Podcast, with Johann Tasker, Louise Impey and Hugh Broom.

This week the team discuss the biosecurity story, spring cropping challenges and why farming needs better leaders.

You’ll find it anywhere you get your podcasts, or listen free on the FW website.

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