This Week In Farming: Neonics, Amaroks and gaps on shelves

Hello and welcome to This Week in Farming, your bulletin of the best Farmers Weekly content from the past seven days.

Here are five topics to catch up on and a reminder of where you can listen to the FW podcast.

Cutting crews

The decline in the small abattoir sector is a blow to many livestock farmers, particularly those that have sought to add value to their output by selling direct to consumers.

This week, we look at what can be done to reverse the closure of so many of these relied-upon businesses.

In brighter news, finished beef prices are going from strength to strength, with a 42p/kg deadweight lift in the beef trade in 2023 amid ongoing tight supplies on both sides of the Irish sea.

Here’s the latest advice on getting the most out of your beef finishing ration so you can hold on to as much of that margin as possible.

Food shortages

Gaps on supermarket shelves have highlighted the ongoing fragility of many food supply chains in recent weeks, attracting the attention of the mainstream media.

Experts are warning that supply shortages could persist for many months to come, with stagnant prices and fears of drought this season putting many products under threat.

In my editorial this week, I mull when a falling market becomes a failing market – noting that no one is suggesting falling milk prices should be supported, but there is grounds for glasshouse growers to get aid to assist with their energy bills.

Stay legal

If unlimited fines aren’t your thing, this update on how to stay on the right side of the law when tree felling may chip away at any gaps in your knowledge.

There is an exemption allowing landowners to fell up to 5cu m of growing trees in any calendar quarter on a property without a licence, but conditions apply.

Separately, the threshold for emergency use of neonicotinoid-treated sugar beet seed has just been crossed, but strict conditions apply, including a time limit of 120 days.

In other beet news this week, a garlic-based nematicide has proved its worth in independent trials for a second successive season, despite the low risk of Docking disorder in 2022.

Amarok around the clock

Is it a Volkswagon? Is it a Ford? Is it any good?

These are just some of the questions we’ve attempted to answer as we take a first look at the latest version of the VW Amarok – the first for four years.

Of course, new kit doesn’t just come from the dealer and machinery editor Oli Mark has been busy celebrating many of your home-made pieces of kit recently in our annual Inventions Competition.

Check out who turned a fag-packet design into reality, with pieces including a bale accumulator, a badger-proof trough and a budget direct tine drill.

Seeing bread

Even the most dedicated TV basher has to acknowledge that schedules are close to saturation point with shows about farming.

Yet, as columnist and arable farmer Lucy Nott notes this week, that doesn’t mean ignorance about the countryside is in decline, but rather that producers of these programmes need to show more than just fluffy lambs.

Elsewhere, a brilliant letter of the week came in from Jonny Williams, who laid down a challenge to UK beef farmers… can and should the sector invest in its own large-scale abattoir while prices are high, to take back control of the supply chain?

Listen to the FW Podcast

Don’t forget the latest edition of the Farmers Weekly podcast with Johann Tasker and Hugh Broom too.

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