This Week in Farming: Lamma, lambing and breed snobbery

Hello and welcome to another edition of This Week in Farming, your round-up of the biggest news from the Farmers Weekly website in the past seven days.

Here are the five topics that dominated the news agenda this week and a look ahead to what’s coming up on the next edition of the FW podcast.

Return of Lamma

It was a welcome in-person return of farm machinery event Lamma this week, after the annual shindig had been stymied by a certain contagious disease which needs no mention here.

While the absence of many of the big manufacturers was still very apparent, our machinery editor Oli Mark found plenty of tools and kit both big and small that was worthy of attention.

At the small end was Kent-based Holemaker’s range of double-hardened Versadrive drill bits, which claim to cut up to 15 times faster than standard bits.

At the other end of the spectrum, Fendt’s new flagship forager, the Katana 850, would have pleased many a grass-harvesting tyre-kicker.

Check out all the stories from the event.

Breed snobbery?

They may all be ending up on a plate, but do the same lambs earn different amounts of money if sold through a livestock market or direct to slaughter?

Livestock reporter Michael Priestley delved into this long-running debate by looking at whether shepherds who have had a real focus on producing low-input, hardier flocks are getting penalised in the ring even though the lambs kill out well.

Lilburn Estate manager Dominic Naylor says certain auctioneers and buyers must wake up to the fact that new “Brexit breeds” are growing in popularity to cut down on inputs and labour.

Elsewhere in the livestock section, this week, we have looked at more challenges for sheep farmers – bouncing back from a “perfect storm” of higher fertiliser prices, drought and poor winter forage crops.

ELM scheme latest

Defra farming minister Mark Spencer may have met the low expectations of the crowd at the Oxford Farming Conference with his announcement of extra funding for Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme applicants and higher payment rates for Countryside Stewardship.

However, questions remain about these latest developments.

Farmers who have had capital grant applications accepted for this year will not see any uplift, while applicants for next year will, leading many to consider tearing up their agreement and reapplying.

Read the details on what was announced in his speech. 

Falling commodities

It’s been a tricky start to 2023 on the markets with several key sectors seeing prices fall back from pre-Christmas and year-earlier levels.

Dairy processors’ commentaries are a doom-laden fret about softening consumer sentiment arising from the cost-of-living crisis, but farmers predict that supply would drop rapidly if severe cuts are imposed.

Meanwhile, UK feed wheat prices have dropped by £16/t on the week, opening at £235/t on 10 January for May 2023 contracts, and the GB liveweight lamb SQQ dropped back by 9p/kg to average 231.6p/kg for the week ending 10 January – a two-month low.

Get your lambing snaps in

This won’t be such a concern to many sheep farmers who have pretty much cleared out 2022’s crop now, but this year’s lambing is just round the corner – if you haven’t started already.

We’d love to share your sheep shed and lambing field images far and wide – so get our lambing gallery bookmarked and send us your favourite images as they come in.

And if you’re looking for inspiration for your knitting needles – there’s still time to get a copy of our famous FW tractor knitting pattern.

You’ll find it at the end of this lovely story about how the 50-year-old design is still going strong for one Somerset family.

Listen to the FW Podcast

Don’t forget about the latest edition of the Farmers Weekly podcast with Johann Tasker and Hugh Broom, which was recently confirmed to be in the top 5% of all Buzzsprout-hosted podcasts.

This week, the team bring you a Lamma special, with all the news from the machinery-focused indoor event and the launch of a special new podcast competition.

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