Harvest is over here in the east

Harvest is over here in the east, and as expected, it has been dry and hot ever since!  Too dry for the rape, and the potato land is too hard to lift without damage.  We won’t be drilling any wheat until it rains, which I hope it does soon or we will have to consider re-drilling some of the rape.

Since my last blog, my eldest has returned from Australia, with some money left, and is proving really useful to have about on the farm.  Well trained by someone else!  Nothing is too much trouble with the animals, but our tractors are still a bit out of her league.  It is great to have her home; she has learned a great deal and had a fantastic time.  I did a gap year, have always been an advocate, and am pleased we encouraged her to go.  Many life lessons learned.  I would encourage everyone to take the chance; you are a long time at home on the farm!  Shame she is of to uni just before we really get into the spuds.

Harvest was a mixed bag, poor second wheats, reasonable first wheats and good rape on the clay.  Spring beans were better than expected after they nearly died in the heat of June.  On the fen, wheats were excellent though Hereward suffered hagberg loss in the early rain; left us just at 250ish.  Mustard was okay, but relatively the best yield and quality for some time.  We have set up a growers group to supply Colman’s on a single contract.  EFFP have been assisting us and it has been and is an interesting exercise.

Costs are a frightening degree higher, both fertiliser and fuel.  You all know where prices are in combinables (I wish we had more lambs to sell).  I think margins will take a kicking this year.  I also turned down potato contracts at £110; enough said.  Rent reviews for the autumn should be interesting.  On rents settled at Easter, these may now be looking pretty expensive.

We have purchased a sumo trio cultivator.  This has been excellent for establishing rape and producing seedbeds in one pass, perhaps with a subsequent press pass on some of the heavier ground.  We are rolling everything pre-drilling as it is so dry.  I know this as our house built on oak beams on the clay has moved 35mm against the conservatory on a metre concrete foundation so all the doors won’t open.  Also, the sewer runs under it, an issue I resolved this morning.  Chairman back in the **** again.

I have a raft of meetings in November I am looking forward to; hopefully all will be drilled and gathered before then.  In this break between harvest and drilling, I have been with George to see Barclays Bank and we are meeting Dame Suzie Leather next week, who is Chair of DEFRA’s Food Policy Council about food security.  We also meet the NFU about cost and responsibility sharing.  We are lucky Richard Elliot has been selected for the advisory group Chaired by Rosemary Radcliffe. 

Richard Elliott chats to Rebecca Marshall and Stephen Wyrill at the Dairy Event.

Stephen your Vice-Chairman is at the Dairy Event and Livestock Show for both days with Rebecca Marshall our National Adviser, whilst Gemma Bumford our new National Adviser is there on the first day.  I hope you will take the opportunity to visit the stand in Cattle Shed 6 Stand 587.

“Stress and Loss”, a report on the impact of bovine TB on farming families by Farm Crisis Network

The Farm Crisis Network have just published “Stress and Loss”, a report on the impact of bovine TB on farming families. 

Volunteers for the farming charity interviewed 68 farmers in three hotspot areas, West Wales, the South West and Worcestershire and revealed a tale of financial loss, worry, psychological distress, physical illness and family problems repeated across the country.

The report can be read in full by clicking here.  Please be aware that the file is large so may take some time to download.  Your computer will also need to be able to recognise pdf files in order to download the document.

Enough rain, we need some sunshine!

In my last blog I was saying how dry we were.  Well it can stop raining now!  Down on the fen we had 82mm fall over the weekend and only 24mm at Ermine Lodge.  So good in one respect as no more irrigation, bad in another as all the low places in the heavy silt have puddled around the potatoes and big areas are water slain and look sick.  Some harvest weather would be good so everything can dry out.

We have however managed to snatch the rape over Saturday, Tuesday and today (29 July) with rain in between.  Only two combine bungs and a broken main reel shaft caused delays.  We do have a pretty decent crop in the shed (maybe 4t/ha in the best places, but I guess about 3.5t/ha as an average).  No drying required, so I am pleased with the crop, but not the present market.  I have sold no rape forward as we can store it, so hopefully the speculators that are pushing the price down and reports of good crops everywhere will flip and there will be an upside.  Time will tell.  I am however patting myself on the back for selling half my wheat forward, but with volatile times, that could all change.

I got my wish for a few days with the family before harvest.  Ate and drank too much in Southwold, swam in the North Sea (safe from Japanese whalers!) and had a great couple of days.  Returned Friday to have a very enjoyable day at the CLA Game Fair with my wife Rosie.  It was a brilliant event and a lovely setting at Belvoir Castle.  It was showery so no chance of combining, which meant that I was quite relaxed. 

Rosie’s love of chickens continues with her annual Game Fair purchase of another chicken house.  We are to produce our own meat chickens; personally I blame Harry Cotterell (CLA Vice President) who she sat next to at a very good CLA President’s luncheon who expounded the virtues of broiler chickens.  I expect his costs per bird housed will be substantially less than ours!  Thank you Harry.

Harvest beckons so let us wish for months of sunshine and light breezes, no breakdowns and no stress.  Hurry up wheat and get ripe (the glyphosate I will be applying tomorrow should help).

VIP visits at the TFA stand

Last week I was in at the Great Yorkshire Show in Yorkshire.  The week before I was at the last Royal Show, which was quiet and wet!  I had plenty to do on Tuesday (07 July), the first day of the Royal, and was expecting to hear the announcement on set aside mitigation from Hilary Benn and tackle him on the Wednesday about CRS.  He didn’t arrive until late Thursday, so reluctantly I went back to the farm Wednesday morning and I am grateful to

From left-right: George Dunn, Chief Executive Tenant Farmers Association, Jack Hopkins and Nicola Hamer, members of Gloucestershire Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs and winners of the 2009 NFYFC Farm Business Development Competition, Savills’ Director, Clive Beer

Clive Beer for presenting the awards for the Young Farmers Farm Business Development Competition and to George and Sarah for all their hard work in making it the success it is.  The standard was again very high and judging by the amount of young people coming on to the stand at shows asking about tendering, a very useful skill to develop.  The only positive to missing the presentation for me was that I was able to tackle my new RLR maps.  Only 29 mistakes, I await their return.  I do hope we are not back to square one with mapping, only time will tell and the indicators are worrying.

Despite the wet at the Royal we are very dry here.  Crops are dying rather than ripening, and today as I write we are having heavy rain, too late to do any good, and with mycotoxins and the thought of another wet harvest on this years cost base, a bit of a worry.

The Great Yorkshire show was as usual an excellent event.  We had two extremely busy day days with members and new members.  The third day was quieter with more general public in attendance.  The main issues were rent and tenancy.  Landlords, thanks in part to Burgess Salmon, have at last cottoned on to the surrender and regrant of tenancy that George ensured was in the Regulatory Reform Order which amended the 1995 Agricultural

Rebecca Marshall, the TFA's National Adviser talking to members at the Yorkshire Show.

Tenancies Act to enable tenants to expand their holdings without losing the benefits of their AHA tenancy.  Landlords are using this to obtain 100% IHT rather than 50%, as the higher rate is available on all new tenancies after 1995.  Be aware that it does not apply to just an FBT, and as the landlord derives significant value from this, there should be an advantage to the tenant as well.

Hilary Benn visited us on the stand and Stephen Wyrill and I pressed him on CRS and UELS.  Both are a worry to us.  With CRS, he implied there was all to play for, but I got the message that there was nothing to play for.  Despite our and 5 other sector specific organisations and the BVA writing to him saying we do not want an independent body and we are not happy with

Greg Bliss and Stephen Wyrill talking to Hilary Benn at the Yorkshire Show.

DEFRA’s costings for animal health (neither are the National Audit office) the Statement DEFRA released last week said that the industry were calling for the body.  WE ARE NOT!  We feel we shoulder our fair share of cost already.  I do fear DEFRA’s intention is to charge, we will do our best to mitigate this but be aware and any help you feel able to give, by getting your opinion heard will help.  Things would be different were DEFRA to get their house in order, but we neither want the cost nor the negative publicity that may be involved in binging disease in this country to the level where we feel we can fairly go forward together and in partnership.  The welfare issue is the trump card DEFRA cannot and must not hold against us when we move forward on the aforementioned basis.  Were all situations as the handling of Bluetongue then things would certainly be simpler.

My thanks go to the team at Head Office and all the regional Chairman who have worked so hard to make the show season so far the success it has been.  Well done to you all.  I won’t be at any more shows this year unless harvest or the weather allows, but Stephen will ably take my place, and I thank him for that.  It has been a pleasure to meet you all even if some of the issues we have had to discus have not been that convivial.

Anyway, I’m hoping harvest is a week away as I want to spend some time with the family and go to the Game Fair.  I wish you a successful harvest and assure you of our best efforts on your behalf in our negotiations going forward.

Back to reality after a busy Cereals

Well, Cereals is over for another year.  It was an even bigger show, and I saw less this year than last as we were busy meeting you all on the stand.  It may have been wet, but the rain was welcome unless you had hay on the ground.  Whilst there I was filmed by both the Farmers Weekly, talking about the new-season fertiliser prices (click here to watch the video) and but also by Country Channel TV.  There will be a short piece on the TFA out later in the year.

Talking to Ian Bell from the ARC Addington Fund whilst at Cereals

It was back to reality on Friday, spraying ear wash.  The wheat on the heavy land looks poor so to avoid too much cost they have had Riza(tebuconazole) @ 0.6l/ha.  I can only hope they yield better than they look when the combine starts to roll.  Mustard is getting Riza too to keep it shorter/standing (I hope) and take it through to harvest.  In the spring beans bruchid eggs are on the first pods, the mildew is back, so octolan, phorce, and Hallmark Zeon will be used in 200l water and very early in the morning as we have a resident beekeeper with 5 hives on the beans and mustard.  The crop looks promising though.

In the two weeks before the last ever Royal Show and then the Great Yorkshire I am taking a break with 2 pals to do some more of the Normandy WW2 sites.  We did some at the 60th anniversary and still have more to do.  It is an experience that really puts it into perspective on how well off we are, and I would encourage you all to make the effort and take your children; it has proved very levelling for us.

I hope to have a draw of lambs for the 25 June, the same day as I will be interviewing for the new adviser at Theale so I will have to be organised.  Had the sheep all in today and jabbed the ewes for BTV8 and gave the lambs a dose of wormer as there is evidence of worm load in the dung.

Irrigation starts again on Tuesday if it doesn’t rain.  I will be in France, phew, if nothing else at least I am keeping as far away from the irritator as I can!

Busman’s holiday in Cornwall

The announcement of Dairy Farmers of Britain (DFB) going into receivership was hardly the best start to the Royal Cornwall Show.  We are meeting the Receivers on Monday along with the Chairman of the DFB Board so watch out for a briefing on Tuesday. 

Royal Cornwall is still a proper show and we saw many members on the first day.  Today we are expecting many more as the weather was forecast to break and many were busy with silage yesterday.  As usual there is a huge turnout of stock (even our vice chairman for the region, James Willcocks, is showing this year) and lots of machinery – very different from cereals next week or the arable east that I am used to.  Apart from the DFB issue we are taking about TB, succession and rents as usual with most people having reviews or notices served.

Chatting to Wessex TFA Chairman Jeremy Walker and his wife Helen on the stand at the Cornwall Show.

This is the county of Mason v Boscawen and I have now met two tenants from the estate where this materialised.  I have enjoyed meeting everyone at the Cornwall show and look forward to meeting many more at Cereals next week.

The show season has started

The show season is finally upon us.  So is summer, with a blisteringly hot bank holiday weekend, with some heavy rain.  15 mm has just disappeared, so applying liquid N was sticky to say the least, but as soon as the rain stopped so did I, and it dried up so soon you could hardly tell it had rained. 

It’s currently half term and Chris is away so I am back on the sprayer.  The wind only drops when I am off the farm or in bed!  There are two nice days forecast for Thursday and Friday, which could be busy as I am helping set up for Rosie’s parents golden wedding anniversary.  No chance of conflict there then, though they are having it on the farm so I should be able to slip away for the odd load!

We are pretty well up to date, just the balance of N for protein to go.  As it was so dry I managed to buy AN @ £185 which was half the price of the liquid in the tank!  It did make it rain though so it had the desired effect, nice to have the choice.  It does make you realise the difference to margins purchasing and selling can now make in these volatile times.

The potatoes are emerging well, recent rain has really helped, but more would be good.  Beet and mustard are well established and clean.  Spring beans look a picture despite early powdery mildew.  I sprayed this with Octolan (chlorothalonil and cyproconazole) and Phorce to avoid the high cost of Folio Gold (metalaxyl m and chlorothalonil).  Phorce is a phosphate nutrient with apparent benefits in controlling powdery mildew in beans.  I must say I am impressed as the new growth is spotless and they are flowering well. (Don’t you just love the smell?)

George Dunn and I catch up on paperwork at Beef Expo before the early birds visit the stand.

We had a good day at Beef Expo in Malvern last Thursday, and are off to the Royal Cornwall Show next week where you will find us on stand 412 near the Pavilion Centre.  I look forward to seeing you there.  It will coincide with the start of irrigation and all its grief, but I should be far enough away in Wadebridge!

Thank goodness it’s raining!

As I drafted this blog last night I started by saying we could do with some rain.  Happily as I typed it this morning we have had 3mm and it is still raining.  No need to organize a BBQ to get what we are having now!  Every thing on the farm is well established (including the weeds!) so this much needed drink should help underpin it.

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in London.  Tuesday was spent at the CLA seminar ‘Private solutions to public problems.’  The idea here is to harvest the value of the landscape and biodiversity within an environmental market.  This may be a way off.  The market needs creating; this will involve legislation to create a cap on production of environmental harm.  It already exists as offsets within the planning law.  There are also models in Australia (Bushbroker) and America (Conservation banking).  If you are interested check out the CLA website: http://www.cla.org.uk/. (Not often I give them a plug!).  We at the TFA will be monitoring the situation to make sure the tenant as a land manager can benefit from this type of scheme.

The next day (Wednesday) was all TFA business, firstly Appointments and Governance followed by the Executive Committee.  The situation of cost and responsibility sharing has come to a head since the last exec, and on the basis that the TFA had still withdrawn from discussions your Chief Executive met with DEFRA representatives to tell them why.  They were shocked at the strength of feeling and offered to meet the Executive Committee.  They attended our meeting for a vigorous hour before lunch.  It would be true to say that we were soon in an animated discussion as to the detail.  What DEFRA don’t seem to understand, and it is difficult as people soon get down to the proposals themselves, is why we were not engaged in discussions in the first place.  DEFRA’s failure to police imported disease, the debacle of Pirbright, the bad handling of foot and mouth and treasury pressure to shift cost caused by them straight on to the industry.  We did say that Bluetongue had been handled much better.  The TFA will be submitting a written response, as we do worry the plan will be driven through regardless, and in the present situation, what a new administration would do by 2012 is anybody’s guess.

On a more positive note you will, I hope, have seen the advert for a new TFA Agricultural Policy Adviser (click here for the advert and job description).  Workload at Head Office has become such that this is imperative.  I look forward to the interview process and the installation of the new officer.  This will give us some significant advantages day to day.  It will universally remove some of the workload each and every one of the team at Head Office shoulder, particularly when someone is working out of the office.  It should provide everyone with more time for their specific discipline.  It is also great that we have been put in a position to justify a new post.  If we keep pushing membership up, then this new appointment is vital to our progress.  I thank members for their support, which allows us to make this improvement.

Also, I look forward to the show season, meeting you all and welcoming new members to the Association.  Please bring your friends and neighbours when you come to the stand, the more we are the bigger influence we can have for everyone’s benefit.  We start next week at Beef Expo.  Watch the website diary for other events.

April has been a busy month

April has marked a distinct lack of blog due to lots of work.   I have been stuck on a tractor or sprayer and plagued with IT problems.

On the farm, seed potatoes arrived and we are still planting.   We should finish planting them this week, weather permitting, but we really need some rain.  Top dressing, drilling beet (we are growing again this year), drilling mustard, which especially needs a drink.   The rape has all been sprayed and late wheat is due T1 this week.   

We've been hard at work getting the last of the potatoes in the ground.

The last of the piper will be out of store by the end of the month, and the last of the wheat will have left by year-end (April 5th) as planned.  Valuation was done today, and of course there is SPS to return.   I like to do that when all crops are established.

The TFA has seen me at the Smith Institute lecture on Feeding Britain (we move up the agenda).   Can Tesco do it without us?   Where is the ombudsman?   I think there is a chance some change is on the way. 

Mason v Boscawen has occupied a fair amount of time.  It culminated with a last minute dash to get it in the budget.  The TFA are not happy that the ruling is retrospective, but had to concede to get a resolution that we hope will be fair.  The result is that (if) and when the amendment is enacted VAT changes that have happened and may happen in the future will no longer be deemed to be a change in the rent.  An arbitrator may now be appointed, so where you have been negotiating where an arbitrator cannot be appointed because of Mason v Boscawen, one can now, so think ahead, make a settlement or have a good case to put before the arbitrator.

We had an office trip with partners to Highgrove, Duchy Home Farm and the house garden; this was a great day and blessed with good weather.   We had an informal chance to get to know one another outside work.   Your Chief Executive features on a security camera struggling with the minibus, never known you to cut corners George!

I have managed to sail once, attend Whittlesey NFU 100th anniversary dinner and take the family to see “Oliver” which excused me the melee that was the 17:00 hours deadline for the Mason v Boscawen amendment to the finance act.   When George rang me to check if I had kept up with the 50 emails, I had not so only had to read the resulting brief!   Often a good ploy with “reply to all emails”, just read the last one!

The other thing I should commend to you is OPTION B; there has been plenty in the press about set aside mitigation.   The NFU and CLA are on the high-level group, but we have done our bit.   Firstly, we need to convince DEFRA to take option B.   We definitely do not want option A that cannot and will not deliver what DEFRA want.   The double jeopardy is the only corrective measure is more of the same, increased area.   Option B also safeguards the opportunities and benefits that ELS and HLS have to offer.

Finally, don’t forget the SPS deadline on May 15th.

Second Forum for the Future of Agriculture

Last Wednesday I was in Brussels at the Second Forum for the Future of Agriculture (FFA) as a guest of Syngenta, who was one of the principle sponsors.  The theme was “Financing and governing food and environmental security - the new challenge.”

It was a long and interesting day, with many eminent speakers.  Experts included Paul Krugman (Professor of Economics & International affairs, Princeton University), Franz Fischler (former EU Agriculture Commissioner), Marianne Fischer-Boel (EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development) and John Atkin (COO Syngenta) were all part of an impressive lineup of leading speakers from EU institutions, European Governments, Industry, NGOs and organizations including the FAO and OECD who attended the event.

It was clear that everyone now sees the enormity of the task of feeding a population that will double by 2050 from a decreasing agricultural area, whilst safeguarding the environment.  The present credit crunch is taking everyone’s eye off the ball, and the experts are particularly worried about the lack of production due to increased cost and the subsequent cost of food itself.  Food and environment are firmly in the basket of public goods we as farmers deliver.  Mikhail Orlov from Black Earth Farming in the Russian Federation said they could increase the production of combinable crops by 16% if they were given the infrastructure to do it, but that needs finance, so will it happen?

Farming is needed more than ever; it is the glue that holds the EU together.  There is no environment without agriculture, and food security is racing up the agenda.

Mariann Fischer-Boel summed up with four ingredients in her cake (developed from the theme of the Marie Antoinette quote):
1.  To provide a safety net for farmers. (Not the old cap but perhaps a strategic reserve of food, how much of what was not mentioned)
2.  The right incentives to address environmental issues. (How about NVZ grants and set aside mitigation measures I hear you ask.)
3.  A need to deliver renewable energy. (The economics will be interesting)
4.  A science based approach to new technologies. (Drought and heat stress etc; best use of resources.  So hope for GM.)

Having got home, what is it about having lambs about that makes you just smile?  It must be one of the joys of farming and a sure sign that spring is on the way!