This Week in Farming: Welsh protests, slurry kit and carbon

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

First, here are your markets (opens as PDF), with another pleasing uptick in the value of new season lambs.

Fuel prices are mercifully flat on the week as things in the Middle East remain subdued.

Now, on with the show.

Tractors back on the streets

Farmer protests are set to resume today (28 June) as tractors and placard-wavers head for Welsh Labour’s conference in Llandudno.

Led by Welsh grassroots group Digon yw Digon, the main focus continues to be inheritance tax, but there is also mounting concern about the recent bluetongue border decision.

Chief reporter Phil Case was at the NFU Council meeting on Tuesday, where president Tom Bradshaw noted that the union’s favoured approach of lobbying MPs in a more considered way is bearing some fruit.

But time is running out, and immense challenges remain to getting meaningful change, as markets editor Charlie Reeve learned when he sat down with shadow farming minister Robbie Moore.

This is despite the government’s position being made up largely of “incompetence and intransigence”, opinion columnist Joy Bowes says in a blistering column.

Slurry kit: Where is it made?

Our main machinery feature this week is a major look at where the makers of muck and slurry machines are headquartered.

Still dominated by domestic players, but there are a small but significant number of overseas contenders too.

In machinery news this week, John Deere have squeezed another 50hp out of the engine of their flagship F9 forage harvester to take it over the 1,000hp mark, and we round up the 12 new machines grabbing attention at the recent Royal Highland Show.

Break crop weed control

Propyzamide, a staple weedkiller in oilseed rape and beans, is under the spotlight after being detected in a number of watercourses following last year’s wet conditions.

Specialist arable freelancer Louise Impey spoke to Corteva, the product’s manufacturer, and Anglia Water to get the latest advice on best practice for propyzamide users.

As harvest nears, growers’ thoughts are naturally turning to next season’s drilling decisions, so we’ve also looked at the wide range of winter barley choices for this autumn.

And arable editor Richard Allison caught up with Leicestershire farmer and FW stalwart Will Oliver, who has signed on as an AHDB strategic farmer.

He’ll be throwing open the farm gates to growers to see on-farm research for the next six years.

Carbon capture on a Cornish beef farm

There’s more optimism for those hoping to prove that farms are closer to net zero than many critics imagine.

Livestock editor Judith Tooth went to visit Cornish beef farmer and hedgerow enthusiast Roger Halliday and his wife Lavinia.

Find out how he has changed his hedgerow management, and what he’s learned as part of a major funded project that will conclude next year.

Elsewhere in Livestock, we take a look at the revival in milk recording, and an analysis of three-row v two-row cubicle sheds.  

Who’s up and who’s down?

On his way up this week – if his imagination is to be believed – is columnist Will Evans, who thinks he could be on the cusp of a freebie-laden career as a social media influencer.

Feeling down this week are members of the Scottish sheep industry, who are worrying about the rapid decline in flock numbers on many Highland estates.

Listen to the podcast

Don’t forget to tune in to the Farmers Weekly 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.