Where is EU farm policy heading?

Due to the dependence of UK farming on EU subsidies, the referendum is critical for the sector. Where is EU farm policy heading? Does the EU Commissioner have the appetite to help distressed sectors? Has he any further plans to provide relief? 

The count-down to the EU referendum has begun and voters and politicians need to get real, put aside all the crazy facts and figures they have been throwing around, and make a serious assessment of what is round the corner - should we stay or should we go. 

Farmers probably have the most to gain or lose from the decision, as half their income is through payments from Brussels.  They have more that's directly at stake than any other sector. The NHS isn't funded by the EU, and neither are schools. Farmers need leaders, analysts and the national media to get real with the topic and tell them the consequences of their vote. Politicians need to do the same. Empty promises and distorted facts put out to get votes are not satisfactory.

Practical Farm Ideas (quarterly)    Website    www.farmideas.co.uk ;
Subscribe for £16.50/year    www.farmideas.co.uk/subscriptions.html

Hence 'Where is EU farm policy heading?' 

Last week I was in the Netherlands at the conferences and events surrounding the Dutch presidency of the Council, which gave me the chance to briefly meet Commissioner Hogan as well as ag ministers from other EU countries. He is enthusiastic for further CAP changes, even before the latest scheme has settled down. 'Innovation' was the word on his and other official lips, but nobody was prepared to define it. I mentioned the value of low tech but high return innovations but he gave me little more than a guffaw and a "try telling that to hi-tech Dutch farmers!" It seems to me he wants small farmers to have robots to milk cows and do other jobs.. so if you're a small farmer with new ideas, particularly any that involve electronics, you may be in luck!

Commissioner Phil Hogan and Minister Martinje van Dam provide a polished performance for agri journalists, both calling for farm innovation

Commissioner Hogan implied the EU had done what it could over the current crisis in dairy and pigs. He said that 23 measures to assist the dairy sector had been put in place by the EU, yet 8 of the 28 countries had yet to implement them - all which indicated to him a lack of national concern. It sounds  significant, but there are obvious reasons why some countries would not bother. The dairy crisis is hardly going to effect Malta, or Luxembourg, or even Croatia and Cyprus. Other EU nations with suffering dairy farmers may well not have the administrative mechanisms to implement his 23 measures. The Commissioner provided an answer that may be satisfactory in political circles, but was not what any UK or elsewhere being paid a pittance for milk wanted to hear. 

The EU makes national governments impotent to provide for their farmers

There is much which can be done at EU level to help the dairy sector, and in fact this is pretty much the only level which can provide help. The dominance of EU regulations makes national governments impotent in this crisis - other than supporting the farming charities which are asked to pick up the emotional pieces. Farmers with poor collateral - tenants, heavily mortgaged owner-occupiers - are finding it difficult to get medium term loans from their bankers.

Arrangement fees, surveys and relatively high interest rates put undue pressure on farmers who have been encouraged by the EU and national governments to turn on the milk taps. Many dairy farmers were rising to the challenge provided by the abolition of quotas together with generous targets provided by national governments. Farmers have risked their money on expansion on the basis of strong signals from governments.

It is also interesting to hear that 80% of Dutch dairy output is sold to Friesland Campagnia, a farmer's co-operative. UK milk marketing has been ravaged by 'EU regulations' and the result is chaos and miserable prices. The MMB was not acceptable to the EU.  Splitting it into regional businesses called Milk Marque was no good. Big plants, such as the one in Whitland, were closed - was this the EU, or other dairy companies wanting to reduce processing capacity, so screwing the farmers price a bit more? All was done with the approval of the great and good in UK farming. Dutch milk prices have been held up to around 24c, 20p/litre, a different league to what is paid to many in the UK.

At the press conference there was, as always, a choreographed procedure which allowed for minimal actual investigation - something which I and many other authorised journalists find frustrating. The 10-15 minutes allocated time passes with the Commissioner, and others on the podium (in this case the Dutch Minister) giving detailed answers to sometimes obscure questions. It's just what they like. The time soon passes and the slick MC in charge soon calls time and the big wigs file off stage. Which is where they get caught for 'off-the-record' statements. Does the Commissioner really have such a packed schedule that he can only take 15 minutes of press questions? Or is he following the performance of David Cameron who was spirited off the stage at the 2006 Royal Show, refusing to take a single question from the press?

More CAP changes likely even before the current ones get established 

Farmers who believe the Basic Payment is secure for the next few years are likely to be disappointed. It will be chipped away, the conditions will become tougher. The sharper reduction in Basic Payment (Pillar 1) will be in favour of an adjusted Pillar 2 which will have not only further environmental incentives but also include payments for innovation and science, but no-where is this explained. The ministers, and us journos, were shown a high tech dairy making maximum use of robots but, after spending €1.3million, it was losing money. Then there was a factory farm growing herbs and tomatoes under artificial lighting from Philips, which was never a project that would fill supermarket shelves. Lastly there was a precision arable farmer who was working closely with Bayer. 

Do these farms point the direction of farm innovation?  Are they projects which will attract EU subsidy? Will pillar 2 have grant payments for selected high tech improvements? 

These official farm tours contrasted sharply with farm visits I made after other media went home. Here were farmers that are innovative in a practical way. They focussed on feeding with conventional mixer wagons measuring the value of all ingredients; good ventilation with adjustable curtains; clean water with innovative troughs; quality bedding; good foot management.  Their silage system is simple and low cost. 

I came away with a quiver-full of innovations, not only for dairy but also some useful tips and ideas for arable as well. It was, furthermore, interesting to experience the attitude and stance of an EU Commissioner when on duty and faced with an audience who want to ask probing questions. The Commissioner is an unelected appointee for a term of five years that started in 2014. 

   
Innovation but no profit from this Dutch €1.3 million set-up. Is this the innovation which Commissioner Hogan is wanting to promote?

Practical Farm Ideas, now in its 25th year, is published quarterly. It carries no advertising and remains totally independent of government or other organisations. Issues focus on cost-cutting ideas devised by farmers in their workshops

Practical Farm Ideas (quarterly) Website ;   Subscribe for £16.50/year Click 

Contact the author:  editor@farmideas.co.uk     (+44)   07778 877514

Attention:  all practical farmers

Practical Farm Ideas reaches 25 years, and it's a real feeling of achievement. 

Those years have not been without incident, yet the publication never missed a deadline, has always been the the right number of pages (44 for the first ten years or so, and then 48), has had a loyal and growing readership. It has had no subsidy or support, official or commercial, but relied entirely on the income from readers. Just like a Penguin book. Each issue has had more plaudits than critics, and more so since the start of the Soil+ cover cropping section.  

              

'Made it Myself remains the bulk of pages

Over the years a number of readers have said the smaller tips and ideas we put in each issue are really valuable. They'll be happy with this issue, even though, like many impressionable teenagers, I have a fascination with the huge projects, like the home-built self propelled six row potato harvester based on a pea viner which we featured in Vol 1 - 3 Autumn 1992, or, later on, a self propelled Hesston baler.  

Ifor Williams jack: A puncture on the trailer can wreck the day. If you have a functioning spare, do you have a jack - and the spanner - to fix on the roadside? So often it's a equation of leaving it on the roadside, or calling out the tyre fitters. So a standard scissor jack from a large car modified to fit an Ifor Williams chassis makes a lot of sense. It's small, can be stowed under the trailer floor or in the truck. Making it fit the trailer is not too difficult - the pictures provide a design detail that works.

Trailed road brush gets front mounted: Mud on roads is a constant problem for farmers, and motorists. This trailed, ground wheel driven brush worked well, but tied up a tractor when there wasn't one spare. Modifying it to go on the front of a handler, and remaining wheel driven, has meant cleaner roads around the Kent lanes where the job was done. He bought the trailed brush for £150 in a sale. Nobody wants ground drive today, preferring hydraulic and small caster wheels - which puncture. 

Need a 60mm socket? Then make one! Fixing his power harrow meant undoing the 60mm bolts which go up through each rotor, and there was nothing like a 60mm socket in the tool kit. Using a scrap bolt as a form he fashioned some heated steel plate around the hex and welded it together. Having removed the form he welded a plate on the top with a nut that fitted a socket in the toolkit. The job worked. I thought of wheel hub dustups, the big nut in the Zetor oil filter that gets undone with a chisel, and there are many more. 

The EU debate:  a useful trip to Brussels as part of a select agri journalist group from across the EU was memorable.  We were there just before their airport was bombed, and there was high security already in place. We saw all three sections, the commission which introduces ideas for new initiatives as well as laws, the council which considers them in greater depth and involves all members, and the parliament where the issues are debated. UK farmers are wanting out, according to a Farmers Weekly survey. There's a lot which is wrong, sure, but the UK also seems to want to keep its distance, which is not a good approach in any club or society. We could, I am certain, have greater influence if we participated a bit more, in the areas where we are active. It was good to get a page on the visit in this issue of PFI. 

Finally, for all who need a new pair of workbooks, there a competition with three winners each who will get a pair of Dr Martens work boots. I tried a pair in the shop, and they make the ones I've been using for years feel very uncomfortable. So have a go - details are on the back page.

Followup:

Practical Farm Ideas Vol 25 issue 1         Soil+ cover Cropping InternationalSubscribe to Practical Farm Ideas (£16.50/year)          Email the editor

Zero-till becomes the norm worldwide

This low-cost, environment friendly farm method fits the bill

Farmers across the globe are parking up their big machinery and moving to a system that gets nature to cultivate their soil for them. Instead of steel and diesel they use worms and biology to do the work for them. They save a huge amount of fuel and other costs and get yields which are equal to those they were getting before. Unfortunately the UK farming establishment remains wedded to fighting nature with chemicals and steel. 

This USDA graph shows just how far no-till has progressed in the USA

Over the past four years I have reported on dozens of farmers who have made the change to zero-till. They include people farming 4,000 acres as well as 100, people with heavy land in Essex and Scotland, on Cotswold brash, in wet West Wales and dry Kent and Essex. One 4,000ac contributor saves enough in diesel alone to buy a new Range Rover each year and is getting better yields than ever. He'd very much like a better price for his wheat, but can still make a margin on what he's being paid. 

Maryland and Delaware largely drain into Chesapeake Bay, which some years ago was a soup of farm pollution. State and federal incentives have resulted in half the acreage in these states now under no-till and the water quality in the bay is improving as a result. 

It's regrettable that so little has been done to help UK farmers learn about this exciting agri development which is now is used on 154 million hectares across the globe.

    Virtually all the info about zero-till and soil conservation is coming from farmers - there's very little from agri colleges, little from the media, which depends on advertising from machinery.

Soil management

"Editorial has included articles on soil management for the past three years in a section called Soil+ Cover Cropping International," explains Mike, "and in this issue the lead article is 'Start Simple with Cover Crops' and the article provides the farmer with a cropping strategy which builds soil condition at least cost."

There's another section on making and using compost on the farm, including how to build your own compost tea machine. 

Looking after natural pollinators, using environmental grants to support the farm instead of cropping, and growing herbage mixtures are also featured. 

About Practical Farm Ideas magazine

Aims and Purpose

1. Promotion of low-cost farming

  -  share useful tips and ideas that save money

  -  maximise use of assets

  -  protection of farm soil, building fertility and condition, erosion control

2. Lifting farmers' business knowledge

  -  financial - budgets, performance

  -  forecasting, measuring and controlling risk

  -  legal - company structure, succession

The only farming magazine that focusses on methods and innovations devised by farmers. 

No advertising, no bias - truly independent. 

Best wishes,    Mike Donovan, editor  

PS  If you have any problems please email me   Mob:  +44  07778 877514

Subscription (£16.50) by post pay by cheque, PO or cash. 

There's a form you can download and print off and post with your cheque 

from here