This Week in Farming: Bovine TB, Canadian kit and bokashi

Welcome back to another edition of This Week in Farming, your regular round-up of the best content from Farmers Weekly in the past seven days.

But first, here’s the latest round up of market data, including some good-looking numbers for anyone with finished beef cattle to sell.

Now, on with the show.

Brian May’s badger blind spot

The debate around the solutions to the long-running bovine TB crisis has been reignited this week by Brian May: The Badgers, The Farmers and Me, a BBC documentary which aired last night (23 August).

In an interview with Farmers Weekly, the Queen guitarist and long-standing badger activist said he would not be in favour of killing badgers, even if the science clearly shows that is part of the solution to eradicating the disease.

This prompted farmers to question why he had been handed a job presenting a show on the sensitive topic by the state broadcaster – a question I also tackle in my editorial this week.

Deere take a leap

It’s tough for tractor manufacturers at the moment, with many farmers keeping their cheque books locked away after a tough year.

That hasn’t stopped market leader John Deere doing a major overhaul of their entire mid-spec 6M range, with machinery writer James Andrews saying that Deere’s theory is that if it covers all the bases, its customers won’t be tempted to fraternise with its rivals.

And while he was examining them, machinery editor Oli Mark jetted off to one of the world’s biggest farm machinery shows, Canada’s Ag in Motion.

He picked out the best kit for all budgets that’s catching the eye of our friends across the pond.

Harvest update

It’s been a week of two sorts depending where you live – torrential rain in parts, while others munched through many more acres of harvest under clearer skies.

All is not rosy in the grain store though, amid concerns about near-unprecedented levels of ergot in cereals.

Harvest has also been a quick affair for some growers due to a vastly reduced cropping area.

Lincolnshire farmer Colin Chappell talked to deputy arable editor Emma Gillbard through his mentally and financially draining season, and Northumberland’s Glen Sanderson also told her about experiencing his worst harvest for 40 years.

Good or bad, the NFU is encouraging members to take part in its annual harvest survey so they can build up as accurate a picture as possible.

Winter livestock planning

It’s not just grain yields that have been low but straw yields too, with the consequential knock-on in price for livestock farmers.

All of which makes planning feed and bedding for the costly winter period a priority, meaning this advice piece on the topic may well come in handy.

Farmer Focus writer Doug Dear has been considering the topic himself, but is at least cheered by the buoyant beef price at the moment.

Who’s up and who’s down?

On the way down this week is weekly columnist Will Evans’s food waste.

Given it’s the third of Mrs Evans’s three bugbears, Will has turned to bokashi (not a martial art) to transform any scraps into something useful.

Soaring high is undoubtedly the number of students applying to study agriculture – up by a fifth since 2019, prompting some to ask: Is it the Clarkson’s Farm effect?

If you’ve applied to study agriculture because of Britain’s most famous farmer, write to me at the email address above and we’ll share your story.

Listen to the podcast

Don’t forget to tune into this week’s FW podcast, with Johann Tasker and guests.

You’ll find it anywhere you listen to podcasts, or free to listen to on our website.