This Week in Farming: US trade, OSR outlook and bull rescue
© Mid & West Wales Fire & Rescue Service Welcome back to This Week in Farming, your one-stop shop for the best Farmers Weekly content from the past seven days.
First, here’s your markets (opens as PDF), and there’s a bit more slippage in the beef and lamb price this week as markets continue to fall back from record-breaking highs.
Some analysts are now warning that consumer demand has cooled slightly as a bigger proportion of these price rises have been passed on to consumers.
Now, on with the show.
About the author
Trade talk
Conversation over the impact of the US-UK trade deal on farming has dominated the past week, with a cautious welcome over what was (and wasn’t) included in the beef provisions giving way to concern for the bioethanol sector.
US secretary of agriculture Brooke Rollins visited these shores to trumpet the benefits of American farmers and farming in joyfully bombastic terms. She definitely sees this deal as a toe in the door that will give way to greater things in future.
In my editorial this week, I reflect on the fact that the effect so far is moderate, but attention now turns to the forthcoming release of information on what a deal with the EU to align more closely on standards may mean – including a threat to progress on gene editing.
Defra blunder
Defra farm minister Dan Zeichner probably hasn’t enjoyed this week after he was forced to give a statement to parliament on Tuesday (13 May) that acknowledged the department had blundered in the way it abruptly closed the SFI scheme earlier this year.
Farmers in England who had begun an application but not submitted it before the rug was unexpectedly pulled from under them will now get a second chance to apply.
In other Defra news, we are apparently very close to learning more about how the department intends to regulate to promote fairer contracts in the pork sector.
Top of the flocks
How do two sheep-mad siblings manage to work together in one business? By each having their own flock of course – as well as sharing a third.
“Katie is all about attention to detail; Claire is the cowboy: she covers the ground and gets things done,” says Sue Evans, their mother, with the whole family speaking to livestock editor Judith Tooth in this positive succession story.
Elsewhere in the livestock section this week we have an in-depth dairy discussion about the pros and cons of increasing the amount of home-grown ration, rather than buying it in.
Rapeseed special
In arable this week, the spotlight is firmly on oilseed rape, which has been relatively stress-free this season if western Crop Watch agronomist Antony Wade’s experience is anything to go by, as well as Farmer Focus writer Andy Barr.
United Oilseed’s deputy chairman Dick Hall is similarly bullish, telling a positive story about how well he has managed to integrate the SFI environmental payments with growing the crop profitably in a one-in-eight-year rotation.
Could some of you be cutting in a month if this weather continues? It won’t be long after anyway, so attention is already turning to next season.
We’ve got this general analysis piece on the prospects for the 2025/26 cropping year, as well as a separate in-depth look at the regional differences in varieties for next season.
Who’s up and who’s down?
On the up this week is definitely Bruce the bull, a big boy from Brecon who was rescued from a bog by a very jolly-looking team from the Mid and West Wales fire and rescue service.
Feeling more glum are arable farmers with grain to sell, as global economic uncertainty hampers hopes of any rally in prices.
Listen to the podcast
Don’t forget to tune in to the FW Podcast, with Johann Tasker, Louise Impey and Hugh Broom.
You’ll find it anywhere you listen to podcasts, or free to listen to on the FW website.