BBC Countryfile moves further away from farming

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BBC Countryfile moves further away from farming

Many farmers are complaining that 'their' TV slot is being hi-jacked by people they describe as 'the sandal brigade', 'foodies and fadies'  and 'rural tourism' and so on. It's hard to deny it. 
But, as Andrew Thorman explained to a group of farming journalists from the GAJ, the audiences for all the farming programmes, including the early morning Farming Today, have increased

How productive is it to roll grassland?

The cost of diesel and time makes it important for each tractor job to have a positive financial outcome. This blog asks about the benefits of rolling grass in the spring, and suggests the outcome may actually be negative. 

Farmers have a major role in drought and flood issues

Todays DEFRA conference should be looking at soil management

The up-coming drought in the S-E of England is worrying farmers, who are demanding concessions to any drought orders in order to protect their crops and livelihoods. Yet it is on their land that the rain mainly falls. Is modern land management, that is, the way farmers work the land, in any way responsible for the problems of drought and flood?  And if so, is there anything which can be done to help solve the problem? 

Practical Farm Ideas thinks there is.  For years

EU funding: less for farming, more for science

Farm leaders need to focus on agri research funding as well as defending farmers' CAP entitlements

'Cut spending on agricultural support through Single Farm Payment and use the money on increased research' is not simply a call from UK universities wanting to protect their budgets, but is one which looks like getting the backing of Business Secretary Vince Cable. 

In a recent interview to the magazine Science|Business Vince Cable said "Overall UK government policy is to restrict the EU budget, but within that overall budget we would like to spend more on innovation" and he went on to say that money should be spent on science rather than agriculture. 

With the Science minister David Willetts right behind him, and PM David Cameron personally launching an overall UK Innovation Strategy, there's a good deal of support in Cabinet, and Caroline Spelman from Defra looks likely to be out-gunned. 

While the focus of innovation is on science outside agriculture, the hope is there will be opportunities for innovative ideas and developments in agriculture to be rewarded and financially encouraged, and this could and should include farmers. 

Will the farmer's greatest lobbying body, the NFU, catch the direction the wind is blowing and ease the way for a leg-up for ingenious farmers who have ideas which can make a difference throughout the world of agriculture? Plus making sure that agri science and technology is up there with other life sciences, engineering and other research areas. Or will the NFU stick to its guns and continue to focus on payments based on area and past entitlements?

Agri research has been under pressure for the past decade, and many valuable and well established centres either closed or minimised. A review of the present work, in both agri science and agri technology would be a useful starting point for the whole industry, farmers included. At present it always appears that there is significant duplication in some areas, while others are left unattended. 

http://www.sciencebusiness.net/news/75582/Cut-agriculture-for-the-sake-of-science

Look through the FarmIdeas website and download the Complete Index from this page: http://www.farmideas.co.uk/articles.php

Some 'modern' farmers are slow to change

Some 'modern' farmers are slow to change

For them, the risks of change are greater than the security of doing things the way they have been done for the past few decades.

Is there any other trade or business so resistant to change and technical development as farming? Air transport took a about a decade to make the huge change from propellers to jet engines. Medicine takes on new drugs and techniques as fast as they are approved. The print industry, in spite of huge union resistance, took up computers long before they became a part of household life. Retailing has gone on-line, phones gone mobile, cars diesel, broadcasting digital, and those in any of these industries who have taken the view that change can only make things worse have been truly left behind, sometimes finished.

Here are two recent experiences which tell me that farming is different. Take the case of the dairy farmer who has been shooting his 'surplus' bull calves for the past decade or so. When an alternative is suggested, an alternative that might be slightly more productive, which might use this by-product of milk production as a human food source rather than an expendible waste product, which maybe a more ethical option to shooting them for disposal, he hums and haws, looking for good reasons why his calf policy is still right economically, and therefore, as a business-like farmer, ethically okay as well. The other farming head-in-the-sand is a 1000 acre cereal grower who totally resists the idea of replacing his plough and power harrow policy, justifying his rejection of min-till and other techniques by saying that he's "a traditional farmer, in an locality that is made up of traditional farmers - we plough and have always ploughed", someone who considers his cultivation methods makes him a pillar of society and sobriety, giving him the highest agricultural standards, even though the comparative costs, both in terms of carbon footprint and ££s, are considerably higher.

The case of the calf shooting farmer came on the BBC Countryfile programme of Jan 22 2012. Presenter John Craven looked at humane 'rose' veal, and how it might provide a market for the surplus bull calves from dairy herds.  Going into the street with some ready-to-eat cooked samples to test consumer reaction, and getting approval; talking to the meat trade and recording positive comments, he then gets his boots on a talks to our commercial dairy farmer.

The interesting part of the interview was the farmers response to John Craven's asking what was stopping him rear the calves rather than shoot them at birth.

"It's not so simple," the farmer explained. "I don't know if I have the skills to rear these calves as veal. I'd need to find out the techniques, the costs and find markets for the finished rose veal calves." It sounded as if he was saying "I don't want to be bothered, my business is alright as it is." even when faced with the evidence that there might well be a better solution to his calf problem.

Which takes me back to the original question - is farming the trade that's most resistant to change? In what respect is farming different to other industries? The answer must be that some modern day farmers are very wary of new methods, and find they can afford to be so. For them, the risks of change are greater than the security of doing things the way they have been done for the past few decades. In a business which has such significant tax payer support - amounting to nearly half the Total Income From Farming, they have a financial buffer which other businesses don't enjoy, and one which allows older methods to remain financially feasible.

How good it would be to hear the dairy farmer tell John Craven - 'it sounds an interesting idea, I'm going to try rearing a few of these calves for veal and get in touch with people who can market them'; and from the arable man 'it would be worth while experimenting min-till on a field next autumn, even with some adapted machinery - I would like to find out more'.

"If you want to become richer than a banker, become a farmer" says top US investor

The message that the world of global food surpluses is coming to an end is now well understood. The news headlines might have recently been dominated by riots, the Arab Spring, phone hacking and Amy Winehouse, but food and energy supplies are an issue which be with for for many decades. 

Farmers are the people who know how to grow and harvest food, and, if we're all going to be eating in 20 years time, they will need to get even better at it than they are today.

From being a menial, low paid, dirty job with a bit of shooting or ferretting being the only perk, the business of growing crops and looking after livestock suddenly looks very different. 

Time magazine reports the legendary investor Jim Rogers as saying "if you want to become richer than a banker, become a farmer." They concluded that although being a farmer wasn't too sexy it will certainly make you rich.

It's starting to happen. While real estate prices in the USA are falling, the value of the average farm has doubled in the past six years. When you travel to farming country you don't see poverty, but prosperity. "The local banks in Grand Island, Nebraska, are sitting on a lot of cash, the Case combine harvester factory has a full order book, and the local GM car dealership says this is the best year ever, with customers who normally buy a Chevy Suburban trading up to a Cadillac Escalade. Prosperity is reflected in house prices as well, construction is good and Nebraska's unemployment is just 4.1%, a different league to the 11.7% in California. 

The same is happening in the UK, but perhaps with less publicity. Last year farm land prices in the UK rose 6% and have multipled by three since 2001. Land is attracting buying interest from farmers and investors, better grain and farm commodity prices are rising prosperity in farming areas, something which has not been seen for decades.

This bullish activity means there's value in knowing how to do farm successfully. The new issue of Practical Farm Ideas reveals a few secrets of the business, which when coupled with the other issues published each quarter since 1992 creates a total course in practical farming. 

Practical Farm Ideas in this issue shows farmers how they can reduce the time taken filling seed drills, fertiliser spreaders, and potato planters. It features plastic see-through tractor window guards which stops stones and debris breaking them; shows them how to make an extension for their pick-up bed so they can carry more stuff in the back; and how to make a lever handle for an electric drill which makes drilling awkwardly placed holes in building uprights easy to do. Altogether there are 45 workshop ideas which will help farmers do jobs easier, cheaper and better - ideas that are particularly useful now that we really do need the food they produce. 

Dairy farmers face tough winter

Numbers of farmers in the dairy sector face a tough winter, and the shortage of fodder and bedding for their stock will only add to their troubles. The article suggests that the situation could be helped if those farmers growing crops would bale more of their straw, and even bale straw from oil seed rape. In this way farmers can be seen to be working together. 

To the arable farmer the straw from his crops of wheat, barley and rape is often a minor headache. He wants the field cleared to get in with the cultivator. Chopping and spreading adds some nutrient and saves some fertiliser, and means the next task can be done directly. Baling straw spells delay, albeit  some extra income. The bigger the corn acreage the greater the headache created by straw. 

To the livestock man, straw adds fibre to the diet, and makes the silage go further. It keeps livestock clean, helps reduce disease, is 'inspector friendly'. Buying, and paying for it is also a headache, particularly in years like this when supplies are tight and prices sky high. 

Farming unions and other groups should be able to help pull the two sides together, though ultimately the decider is, of course, the costs and returns. It's not just a job for the farming unions, there are machinery rings and agricultural societies which can do their bit as well, and magazines and the media can play their part too. 

Baling rape straw is not as daft as it sounds

Promoting the use of alternatives to wheat and barley straw is another useful activity. Oil seed rape straw is routinely chopped and incorporated, but some farmers have experimented with using it for bedding with considerable success. OSR straw has its problems: it can be too green and sappy for baling and so many agress it is best got rid of by chopping and spreading on the field; unlike barley straw it has no feed value so not worth the bother; as a bedding material it remains an unknown quantity for many farmers. 

Yet some livestock farmers have found it a good substitute, and some mixed farms manage the job of baling so it is usable in the winter as bedding. Rape straw can also be used in cattle rations made in a mixer wagon, and Jennifer Picken, ruminant nutritionist at Keenan systems, says it helps maximise the feeding value of silage - something which is all important for dairy farmers this year.  Don't use too much and mix it well, is the advice. Rape straw is best as feed when not too stemmy and baled dry. These qualities are less important when the straw is  used as bedding. 

Baled rape straw can also be useful as fuel in a big bale incinerator. 

Another alternative are rushes. One Practical Farm Ideas contributor cuts and bales the rushes on his low lying wet land and saves £60 on the cost of wintering each bullock. Instead of using the topper he mows, turns if necessary, and then round bales the 'crop', which provides the cattle with good aftermath grazing - all the better for having the trash removed. 

These are positive practical ideas which can be implemented by the farming community.

With the rising price, and shortage of inputs, NFU Cwmru calls for a 26% rise in the price of milk, from the present 26p average to 33p a litre. David James who chairs the Pembrokeshire NFU says feed prices have risen sharply, with compound feed some 30% over last year, ammonium nitrate up 50 % and fuel 25%, while the price of milk at the farm gate has lifted just 11%.  A number of farmers are going to find forage supplies tight this year, though not all is grim news as silage quality is good. 

Hoping for a price increase is no way to plan the future of the business. In love, war, and farming, there's always the need for action as well as hope. When unions join together to promote action which results in one farmer helping another - even if there's no profit in it - there's evidence that all are trying to resolve a problem. This is surely feasible when it comes to straw. For while arable farmers keep the straw choppers going, livestock men are wondering where on earth they are going to get supplies. 

Providing practical help for the sector under pressure underlines the urgent need for economic action, and shows that the farming industry as a whole is ' doing all we can to help'.