This Week in Farming: Eagle, Deere and a tenant commissioner

Welcome back to another edition of This Week in Farming, the fastest way to get the best bits of Farmers Weekly from the past seven days.

First, here are your markets (opens as PDF), although unless you want to marvel at how flat on the week everything is, I wouldn’t bother looking.

Now, on with the show.

Eagle visits farm

Dame Angela Eagle made the first farm visit of her tenure as Defra farm minister this week, in a carefully choreographed appearance with NFU president Tom Bradshaw.

No journalists were present but farm host Marion Regan told Farmers Weekly that Dame Angela was in “listening mode” as she toured the soft fruit and arable business in Kent.

The news comes as the farming industry as a whole enjoys profits above the five-year average, albeit with significant variation.

Business editor Suzie Horne talks through farming’s medium-term outlook with consultancy firm Andersons, while chief reporter Phil Case measures the gap between the pledges in prime minister Keir Starmer’s speech to NFU conference in 2023 and what’s happened since.

Build back better

Farmers Weekly‘s print edition this week carries a debut Ultimate Guide to Agricultural Buildings, a supplement designed to spark a few ideas for anyone thinking about a new shed.

Not all of it’s up online yet, but published articles include:

• How to maximise capital allowances on building investments
• What’s in Your Livestock Shed? visits £115k lambing shed
• What’s in Your Livestock Shed? visits low-effort, high-welfare beef shed
• Sheds or silos? What do consider when upgrading grain storage
• How to build a quality machinery shed on a sensible budget.

Euro vision

John Deere may be known for its US heritage, but it’s not shy about bending to the whims of customers elsewhere on the globe.

Machinery editor Oliver Mark inspected the green giant’s prototype 550R self-propelled sprayer, the first with a European-friendly, front-mounted cab that are not of Mazzotti provenance.

And in other machinery news, Canadian quad bike manufacturer Can-Am has joined the ranks of electric ATV suppliers by adding its new Rotax E-Power battery drive unit into the otherwise diesel-fuelled Outlander.

Alternative inputs

There are two pieces from the arable team this week on the hot topic of alternative inputs.

The first, a look at how a Hertfordshire farming duo are getting on with a Johnson-Su bioreactor – a method of producing home-grown compost to promote improved soil health.

Arable editor Richard Allison spoke to Richard and Olly Blair about how they hope the product will ultimately improve yields.

He then turned his pen to another topic that’s given a lot of growers pause for thought – how to cut through the marketing hype for biostimulants.

Who’s up and who’s down?

On the up this week is the debut tenant farming commissioner for England, Alan Laidlaw, whose appointment was announced yesterday (26 September).

This marks a high-profile comeback for him after an abrupt departure from his previous job as chief executive of the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland almost a year ago.

Feeling glum this week are surely the winners of Britain’s Fittest Farmer, who don’t have an excuse for a grand day out at Jeremy Clarkson’s pub, The Farmer’s Dog, this weekend.

Don’t miss the highlights of the contest’s finals.

Listen to the podcast

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

This week, they delve into the future of artificial intelligence in livestock farming, speak to new tenant farming commissioner Alan Laidlaw, and review a new exhibition on the future of food.

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