This Week in Farming: Transition Live, Valtra and policy news

Welcome to another edition of This Week in Farming, your regular round-up of the best content from Farmers Weekly.

But first, fancy a farming day out next week? If you’ve got time, I think you’ve earned one.

On 9 May at Cambridge University Farm, we’ll be hosting Transition Live, a conference dedicated to profitable farming in the post-subsidy era.

Find out five reasons why you should attend, and get your tickets plus more event information.

Now, on with the show.

Pig and Poultry Special

Livestock has its monthly focus on pigs and poultry this week (they go together like eggs and bacon), as the industry gears up for the Pig and Poultry Fair later this month at the NEC.

In the meantime, here are three articles from this week’s coverage:

• Nutritional strategies for free-range layers
• How a Yorkshire pig company is reducing its carbon footprint
• Four ways to achieve a low feed conversion ratio in broilers

And for daily pig and poultry updates, don’t forget to check out our sister titles Poultry News and Pig World.

Policy latest

There’ve been nuggets of news across all the farming regions this week.

Here’s what you need to know from your area.

• In Wales, a £20m funding package has been unveiled to help farmers improve slurry storage infrastructure on farms, to comply with air and water regulations
• In Northern Ireland, more information has been released on how the transition from the Basic Payment Scheme to the Farm Sustainability Payment will be managed. Alarm has also been raised over veterinary medicine availability due to complications arising from the Windsor Framework
• In England, Defra has extended the consultation on targeted badger culling for the control of bovine TB
• And in Scotland, farm lobbyists have raised concerns about ‘woeful’ border controls that are putting farm sectors at heightened risk of animal disease outbreaks

Valtra’s Finnish renaissance

Machinery editor Oli Mark has been putting the 420hp Valtra S416 through its paces this week after the Agco-owned brand pulled the wrappers off its latest model recently.

The northern European brand has returned to its roots after a prolonged period of manufacturing at Massey Ferguson’s line in Beauvais, France.

It’s been a frustrating time for tractor drivers of all types lately with rain stopping play.

Contractors in particular have seen vast amounts of jobs pile up, as James Townley explains in this week’s Contractor Comment.

Who’s up and who’s down?

On the up and feeling groovy this week is New Holland, amid celebrations to mark the blue beast’s Basildon factory assembling its two millionth machine this July.

They’ve unveiled a ’60s-inspired paint job that will be sure to catch the eye at shows this summer.

Feeling down this week may be owners of residential holiday lets, after an announcement at the last Budget that there would be an unfavourable change in their tax status.

Get the lowdown on that and take heart that there is still a good chunk of time left to prepare for the changes.

Listen to the FW Podcast

Don’t forget to listen to the latest edition of the Farmers Weekly podcast with Johann Tasker and Sandy Kirkpatrick online.

Alternatively, bring us with you in the cab by downloading it from your usual podcast platform.