This Week in Farming: Defra’s £400m, protests and dairy KPIs

Welcome to the Easter edition of This Week in Farming, stuffed with more treats than a shrinkflation-addled seasonal chocolate egg.

Farming’s hectic this time of year, so this is the quickest way to check in with the best bits of content from Farmers Weekly you may have missed in the past seven days.

But first, are you feeling fitter than ever after working hard all winter?

Then check out our Britain’s Fittest Farmer competition, a fun way to test your muscles against your peers this summer.

Now, on with the show.

Westminster protests

A mighty procession of tractors honked their way through astonished Westminster commuters on Monday evening in protest at substandard food imports and poor trade deals. Read more on who organised it and see what happened on the video highlights.

I also went along and filed this report that pondered whether it was an effective way to get a message across.

Scots policy update

Some more details emerged this week on the future of farm support payments in Scotland, with Suckler Beef Support Scheme (SBSS) payments set to be conditional on a maximum calving interval of 410 days from next year.

There was also more detail on what hoops would need to be jumped through in order to comply with the Whole Farm Plan.

Meanwhile, this year’s SBSS payments started rolling out the door as normal.

Where’s your sweet spot?

The livestock team have been hard at work taking a special look at cashflow and budgeting for this month’s Dairy Update – our special extra section in the magazine.

Farmers of all types will enjoy this discussion on the intangible, yet important, business ‘sweet spot’ – the point at which a dairy farm is running at optimum, and further growth would threaten profitability.

An interview with Josh Fincham, finalist of Farmers Weekly’s 2023 Dairy Farmer of the Year Award, also serves as a useful reminder of just how good a return can be achieved from investing in a practical business course.

And don’t just watch the milk tank ticket – here are the business key performance indicators you should be monitoring.

Tiny telehandlers

Fancy a specialist loader but most models are just too big to get in all your pokey corners?

Step forward the latest offering from Kubota, which has a turning circle of just 2.7m but still manages to lift up to 1.5t. Machinery editor Oli Mark gives his first impressions of the model.

And another week, another electric vehicle. Check out the Czech Spartan 2.0, an off-roader with a range of up to 150 miles that bears a mild resemblance to a Mercedes G-Wagon.

Who’s up and who’s down?

Defra secretary of state Steve Barclay will be feeling chipper this bank holiday weekend after surviving a marathon grilling from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee of MPs largely unscathed.

He’s finally put an official figure on the departmental underspend from the past two years at £400m.

This will be returned to the pot for the forthcoming financial year and hopefully heading towards your pocket.

Feeling glum this week? Large Scottish landowners have got a fight on their hands to see off draft legislation that would force holdings to be broken up when they come to the market and prevent private sales.

Listen to the FW Podcast

Don’t forget the latest edition of the Farmers Weekly podcast with Johann Tasker and Sandy Kirkpatrick. There’s also a bonus episode this week on the changes to the Sustainable Farming Incentive.

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