This Week in Farming: Bluetongue, Spending Review and speed
Rachel Reeves © PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo Welcome back to another edition of This Week in Farming, your quickfire guide to the best content from Farmers Weekly in the past seven days
First, here’s your markets (opens as PDF), with the lamb price rebounding after some steep falls in recent weeks, perhaps on lower turnout.
Now, on with the show.
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Bluetongue and TB latest
The Welsh government is to require all livestock entering the nation to have a negative pre-movement test for bluetongue from 1 July, a decision which is set to have a profound impact on the Welsh and English livestock industry.
The change, a bid to keep the disease away from Welsh livestock farms, could take a particularly heavy toll on cross-border farms, livestock markets and the wider supply chain.
Here’s reporter Anne Dunn’s initial story, but expect more on this next week.
In other disease control news, Defra has issued a major update on changes to the way it wants to battle bovine TB in England, with a shift away from badger culling in favour of badger vaccines now and cattle vaccines in the future.
Spending review
It’s all done bar the talking. Rachel Reeves has told Defra what it can spend for the three financial years starting after this one, which will take us through to the likely end of this parliamentary term.
We’ve got a first breakdown of the figures and some early industry reaction.
In my editorial, I muse that this is only one component of some significant upheaval at the department, with major personnel changes and chunky policy decisions still to come this year.
Cereals 2025
The arable sector’s favourite jamboree returned to Andrew Ward’s Lincolnshire farm this week, with crop plots, kit and sunshine aplenty.
Here’s the first crop of stories to emerge from the event, with much more to follow next week from the machinery and arable teams:
- Drone applies pod sealant to OSR in UK first
- East Yorkshire sprayer operator picks up top award at Cereals 2025
- Top 10 strategies to tackle flea beetle
From rubbish to rations
Speaking of machinery, the cover story in this week’s magazine is a super read on how County Armagh farmer Niall Turley converted a bin lorry into a diet feeder.
He opted for the decision thinking it would be cheaper to buy than a tractor of equivalent age, use less fuel, and be more manoeuvrable
In other unusual self-propelled kit news, check out this self-propelled muck machine from Oxbo, the Dutch manufacturer previously called Ploeger, which is designed to quickly incorporate all types of solid manure.
Who’s up and who’s down?
On the way up (the speedometer) this week is farmer and professional racing driver Alex Quinn.
We spoke to him ahead of the biggest race of his career this weekend (14-15 June), the world-famous 24-hour endurance race at Le Mans.
And down – but only in the sense that he’s often found under a machine with a spanner – is former college lecturer Tym Morgan – a very well-respected man who started the careers of a legion of agricultural mechanics.
He spoke to machinery editor Oli Mark for the latest of our series on Workshop Legends.