This Week in Farming: Budget, bunt, and Chinese connections

Welcome back to another edition of This Week in Farming, your one-stop shop for the best Farmers Weekly content from the past seven days.

First, here’s your markets (opens as PDF), with a welcome bump for wheat.

We’ll have more news on the end-of-month dairy price changes next week, but have already heard that Freshways will impose a brutal 7p/litre reduction from 1 December.

Now, on with the show.

Boring, boring Budget

The best description of Wednesday’s fiscal event I have heard so far came from the Spectator’s James Heale, who called it a Nero Budget as, like the long-dead Roman emperor, Chancellor John Healey fiddled while Rome burned.

That was the verdict of NFU president Tom Bradshaw as well, along with the rest of the farm lobby in their snap reaction on Wednesday afternoon (28 October), as well as my own verdict in this week’s editorial.

For a full look-through the minor tweaks that affect farming, read business editor Suzie Horne’s analysis here – as well as this separate piece on why rural groups fear that Andy Burnham’s devolution agenda will put the countryside at the back of the queue.

SFI debacle

More than a month on from the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it SFI window for English farmers, it is still causing embarrassment for Defra ministers, with Stephen Morgan forced to blame the previous administration in a grilling this week.

And the department has been faced with fresh questions about its behaviour this week, specifically why did they bung The Wildlife Trusts almost £2m to help buy an estate in Northumberland?

The charity confirmed this week that the deal is now complete, pledging to leave the eight tenants to farm as they see fit.

China in our hands

Two great reads from Farmers Weekly deputy editor Abi Kay this week who has spent weeks researching how connected the UK and China’s agricultural markets are.

That’s resulted in one feature looking at how British agriculture is helping China feed itself, and a second asking how deeply is China embedded in UK farming?

One thing is for certain: If successful, its march towards ever-greater self-sufficiency will upend global food supply chains.

Threat levels

The UK’s number one wheat disease, septoria, is gaining a stronger hand in the UK due to milder, wetter winters scientists at Niab have said, warning farmers that earlier drilling dates also enhance the threat it poses.

Arable editor Richard Allison discusses all the factors that growers should consider, while also separately probing why seed-borne diseases, such as bunt, are making a comeback.

But if you really want an acute threat on a farm, there’s not much worse than an erratic or violent group of cattle.

Deputy livestock editor Shirley Macmillan talks to vet Mel Julian of Cross Counties Farm Vets about the importance of maintaining daily human contact in a world where machines are doing ever more of the main husbandry tasks.

Who’s up and who’s down?

On the up this week is remarkable Shropshire farmer Ed Riley, who is closing in on completion of 52 half marathon in 52 weeks to raise funds and awareness for Herefordshire-based mental health charity We Are Farming Minds.

Feeling down were independent pig producers at this week’s NFU Scotland conference, who warned delegates they are losing a combined £1m per month.

In the week that the UK government signalled an end to CO2 stunning, it appeared to still be disregarding the severity of the farmgate price squeeze, NFUS president Andrew Connon warned.

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 have a Budget special, with reaction from a slew of farming voices.

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