Positive change is impacting on agriculture at an exponential rate. As a consequence, farming is fast-becoming a very exact science.

A case in point was Wilson’s Country’s unveiling of the company’s new anaerobic digestion (AD) plant in Co Armagh last week.

The 250kW facility will produce all the green electricity needed by the potato packer and processer from a combination of potato peelings, slurry and grass silage.

Significantly, though, the additional heat produced by the system’s combined heat and power plant will be used to maintain both the digester and digestate tanks within the plant at a temperature of around 50°C.

By taking this approach, additional volumes of gas will be produced from the stored digestate.

In turn, this will help to further convert this material into a bespoke liquid fertiliser for use in growing potato crops. It’s all very ‘high tech’.

Science

Meanwhile students at Grasten Agricultural College in Denmark have access to a robotic milking system that has a range of additional features, all designed to make cow management so much more effective.

These include auto drafting, a hoof-washing facility and the provision of real-time somatic cell count (SCC) data; not the standard milk resistance figures.

Driving all of this is the recognition that our farmers of the future must be able to do two things well – gather efficient data on the real-time performance of their businesses and, thereafter, to interpret what all of this means, from a management perspective.

Denmark is also looking at a number of technical developments within the tillage sector, focused on the use of enhanced satellite imagery of individual fields.

As a consequence, real-time assessments of biomass production levels within crops can be communicated to farmers.

This approach facilitates the compilation of more accurate advisory messages to farmers, again on a real-time basis.

The end result of all this is the more effective use of fertilisers and plant chemicals.

Rowers can avail of this service on the back of an agreed annual fee.

It’s an approach to crop production that makes available the very latest Global Position Satellite (GPS) satellite technologies to farmers at a realistic cost.

So yes, the appliance of science is very much the future where the development of production agriculture is concerned.

But it’s one thing to amass large quantities of data; the real challenge is that of making this information available to farmers in easy-to-understand ways that can allow them to make quick and effective decisions, where the management of their businesses is concerned.

The post Opinion: Agriculture is fast becoming a very exact science appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

The coming weeks will see large numbers of children exploring every nook and cranny of the farms they live on.

This puts an even greater onus on parents to keep them safe.

Farms are dangerous enough places at the best of times, but particularly so when the likes of large tractors, silage harvesters and trailers are being used around the clock.

Keeping our children safe

Earlier this year I was on a farm just after milking time and the man in question was trying to get the cattle fed as quickly as possible.

It staggered me as to just how fast a modern tractor can be put through its paces, even in reverse gear.

I was also taken aback at just how little warning bystanders get of modern machinery coming out of and going into sheds.

This was my perspective of what was going on around me as an adult. So what must it be like for young children, who see the farm yard as a place of adventure?

They have no real sense of what health and safety really means.

Young children cannot be expected to ‘think safe’ every time they are allowed out of the farm house. So it’s up to adults to ensure that they do this thinking on their behalf.

And one of the most effective ways of achieving this is to make sure that there are no children close at hand, when heavy machinery is brought into use.

The same principle holds when stock are moved into and out of sheds. It takes a few short seconds to check on the whereabouts of children once any particular job of work is about to be undertaken. But, surely, it’s time well spent.

Precautions

Farmers and contractors must also force themselves to slow down if they are carrying out work with children in the vicinity.

Again, it’s those extra few seconds that such an approach provides which will make all the difference when it comes to avoiding a farm tragedy.

There seems to be a growing trend for modern tractors and machinery to be driven at close enough to full throttle, even in the confined pace of a farm yard.

Seemingly, it could have something to do with a ‘macho’ image and the perceived need to get maximum performance from a piece of kit at all times.

This is total folly. What we need is for everyone to slow down and give a second thought to what they are actually doing.

The post Opinion: Keeping our children safe must always be a priority appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Moving Balmoral Show to its current location on the outskirts of Lisburn was a stroke of genius on the part of those who made that decision.

First and foremost, available space for the event no longer became an issue. The current site could facilitate three Balmoral Show equivalents and the requisite parking facilities to boot.

But more than this, the current show site is within touching distance of the main arterial motorway link between Belfast and Dublin.

Currently, it takes one hour to get from Dublin Airport to the Sprucefield slip-road off the M1 (Northern Ireland), which is about one mile as the crow flies from the Balmoral Show site.

After that, however, everything falls apart. Small country roads and lanes convey vast numbers of cars and buses from the motorway to Balmoral’s front gates. It was an unmitigated disaster.

Moving Balmoral Show

When the move from Belfast to Lisburn was made, now almost a decade ago, the vision was to turn Balmoral into an all-Ireland event in a truly meaningful way.

But from the get-go, the need to build a spur off the motorway directly into the showgrounds was identified as a key priority in this context. 10 years have passed and the new road has yet to be constructed.

Now I know it takes real money to get this type of project completed, but, given the potential prize on offer, I thought the powers that be within the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society (RUAS) would have made a real effort to develop some real traction on the matter.

And it’s not a case of the society coming up with all of the money. I am sure a strong enough business case could be made to target a fair degree of public funding for the envisaged project.

The need to drive synergies across Irish agriculture as a whole makes total sense to me. And the RUAS can and should be at the heart of all this.

The organisation is located in the heart of a very strong tillage area, encompassing parts of counties Down and Antrim.

That I am aware of, the National Ploughing Championships has never come north of the border. I see no reason why this should not be allowed to happen.

All the local ploughing organisations across Ireland are closely aligned to each other. So hosting the National Ploughing Championships at Balmoral would represent a very innovative way of joining up all these dots.

But without the aforementioned road, nothing of this nature is going to happen.

The post Opinion: Moving Balmoral Show was a stroke of genius appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

And, no doubt, there’s a whole lot more like them.

Grass growth rates have taken off across the country, and the frenzy to get all of this high quality forage into silos will be very intense – and that’s putting it mildly.

Yes fields have to be cut, yes crops have to be ensiled, and yes bales have to be made. But does it all have to be done at such a breakneck pace and incur such long hours?

To be honest, even the likes of junior doctors would find the prospect of silage contracting an uphill struggle, given the intensity and the duration of the effort required.

Silage season

Let’s be honest – modern grass-cutting and harvesting machinery are extremely efficient and sophisticated pieces of ‘kit’.

However, when put in the wrong hands or used by people who are extremely tired – the result of just too many continuous hours at the coal face – accidents will occur.

All it takes is one unthinking moment for a tragedy to take place. Nothing can replace the loss of a human life or the devastation caused by a serious accident.

Everything in life is about balance. So as another season of grass cutting and harvesting beckons, I would ask all contractors not to overdo it.

Apart from increasing the risk of a serious accident, tiredness will also reduce operator efficiently dramatically. So making sure that everyone gets their proper rest is just so essential.

Farm safety

The statistics confirm that farming is one of the most dangerous professions to be involved in. Both machinery and livestock constitute a serious health and safety hazard.

So why add to the risk by cutting corners and taking senseless chances?

Preventing accidents from taking place requires those involved in any farm-related activity taking that little bit of extra time to work through all the permutations with regard to what could and what could not happen.

No job is that urgent that an extra minute or two of preparation would not help the project to be completed more efficiently and safely, from everyone’s point of view.

All the regulations in the world will not improve farm safety levels on local farms. Mind you, any farmer found to be breaching any health and safety regulations must be dealt with vigorously by all the relevant adjudicating bodies.

What’s really required, though, is a concerted effort on the part of those involved within the farming industry to put their safety and the safety of others first at all times.

The post Opinion: Chequered flag dropped on 2023 silage season appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

This year’s celebration of farming and food takes place from Wednesday, May 10 to Saturday May 12, 2023.

For a body with no chief executive in place, it is interesting to note that the organisation is performing very well at the present time.

The recent 2023 annual general meeting (AGM) saw the confirmation of a surplus from ordinary activities coming in at approximately €650,000 (approx. £567,000) for the last financial year.

But, in addition to this, the society’s subsidiary companies generated a surplus of some €1.3 million (approx. £1.1 million). All of this adds up to a healthy state of affairs for the RUAS.

Not so heady times elswhere

However, the same cannot be said for the member organisations of the Northern Ireland Shows’ Association (NISA).

These are the societies that add so much to the ‘rural summer’ which so many people enjoy, year-in, year-out.

From Ballymena Show in May through to Fermanagh County Show in August, large numbers of volunteers help to put on a series of local agricultural shows that attract members of the general public in their thousands.

But there’s a problem. The pandemic stretched the financial resources of these organisations to the very limit. Many events did make a come-back in 2022, only to find life extremely difficult.

In the case of Newry Show, the decision was taken not to push ahead last year, for very understandable reasons – they didn’t have the available funds.

The good news for 2023, however, is that Newry is set to push ahead with its annual show on Saturday, June 24.

RUAS support for agricultural shows?

But let’s not kid ourselves; when it comes to the agricultural show season, we are dealing with the haves and have-nots.

The former of these two categories comprises one organisation – the RUAS.

Everyone else, if you will excuse the expression, is ‘sucking the hind tit’.

So why the difference? It would seem to me that it comes down to the fact that the RUAS owns and manages a very valuable portfolio of land and property in Belfast’s exclusive BT9 district.

Meanwhile, the other show societies have very little in the way of assets, apart from their myriad volunteers – who contribute so many hours of precious time at a ‘zero’ charge to their respective organisations.

Office bearers of the RUAS often issue statements which include details of the fact that the organisation has charitable status.

So in this vein, I would heartily propose that the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society should make a meaningful contribution to all the local show societies across Northern Ireland, as a matter of some priority. It would be to the benefit of all.

The post Opinion: These are heady times for the RUAS appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

This shouldn’t come as a great surprise. The aforementioned organisation has been calling for this step to be taken by London since Brexit got the green light.

At this point I would like to proffer the opinion that Brussels would not have given this ‘venture’ the green light in a month of Sundays. But more of this anon.

Not for one second would I question the scientific and academic prowess of the research staff at Rothamsted.

But I do have the right to comment on the grey areas contained within the myriad press releases and statements that they have issued by the organisation over the years, where genetic editing is concerned.

Gene editing

If one was to take on board the Rothamsted perspective on genetic editing, then one might quickly think that the myriad challenges facing humanity right now – climate change, global food security and widespread biodiversity loss to name but three – would be resolved by the immediate and widespread adoption of the technology.

I don’t buy into that view of life for one second.

But then there’s the other side of the equation. Rothamsted always seems to take a very long-winded way of confirming that genetic editing is not a standalone technology.

When we get back to the very basics of it all, there is still a requirement to genetically modify the DNA make-up of the starting cells from which a new plant variety can be developed.

So, in essence, we still need a genetically modified organism (GMO) to get us off the ground.

I wonder if the general public are fully on board with all of this. After all, this is the same science that brought us cloning and ‘Dolly the Sheep’.

And it is the link back to GM that ensures the ire of Brussels will be raised should the UK ever try to push genetically-edited crops in the direction of the European Union.

This may seem a very trite point to the scientists at Rothamsted. However, the fact is that the UK exports very, very large tonnages of wheat and barley to the EU on an annual basis.

So could the commercial development of gene-edited wheat variety put all of this export trade at risk?

The fact is that the EU has a ‘zero tolerance’ policy where all matters relating to GM are concerned.

And I sense that Brussels may well treat genetic editing in the same way.

The post Opinion: Gene editing and the law of unintended consequences appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

With private veterinary practices coming under more and more resource pressure, surely it’s time that we had a full and frank debate on how best to test for this absolute scourge of a disease in Ireland?

In the UK, approved tuberculin testers (ATTs) have been used to carry out on-farm bTB testing for the past decade and more. And this approach seems to be working well.

ATTs are para-veterinary professionals with the authority to carry out statutory bTB skin testing of cattle.

They were first introduced, as part of a pilot study, back in 2005. A public consultation followed and, as a consequence, ATTs are now widely employed by veterinary practices throughout England and Wales.

Significantly, the final responsibility for the interpretation of their test results remains with a qualified veterinary surgeon.

bTB in Ireland

So, should a similar approach to bTB testing be taken in Ireland? To me it’s an option that could deliver lots of advantages. In the first instance, it should speed up the entire bTB testing process.

Moreover, it would create additional career opportunities for people wishing to develop a career in the animal health sector.

However, a number of fundamental questions would have to be addressed in an Irish context.

The first of these relates to the overall cost incurred by the state – and the livestock industry – in committing to the current bTB testing programmes. So, would the introduction of ATTs help to reduce these costs? I am not sure.

And then there is the not insignificant issue of determining how consistent the results obtained using an ATT-based bTB testing approach would be.

The results from England and Wales over the past 18 years would indicate that professionally trained ATTs are more than proficient at their jobs.

But as we progress through the third decade of the 21^st century, I feel there is an even more fundamental question to be asked – why are we still reliant on a skin test to determine an animal’s bTB status?

Surely it’s long overdue that research scientists came up with a simple blood test option.

This question has been doing the rounds for years. And to be honest, veterinary researchers are running out of road on this issue.

Look at it this way, specifically targeted research programmes delivered an effective test and vaccine for Covid-19 within months of the pandemic breaking out.

The reality is that scientists can come up with the answers required of them when they really put their minds to it.

The post Opinion: Is it time to take vets out of the bTB testing process? appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

I was never a great fan of English, as a subject, at school. But that all changed when I was made aware of a poem, penned by the American poet Robert Frost – ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’.

It was written in 1922 and, from the instant of my reading it at the age of 15, the poem brought home an imagery and messaging around Christmas that will resonate inside of me always.

Christmas poem

There are many interpretations of the themes within the poem. Some say that it relates to a farmer returning home from market on the shortest day of the year, not having been able to secure the money needed to buy Christmas presents for his children.

Others believe it to be a version of the original Christmas story, centred on St. Nicholas as the narrator (the original Santa Claus). To be honest, that was the version of events that always struck home with me.

But I am not an academic. All I really know is that the wording of the poem chimes perfectly with the way that my brain works.

Mind you, I have walked through woods as the snow was falling and the eerie silence that accompanies the landing of the flakes is pretty amazing.

Maybe this is something to do with my liking for the poem. And let’s not kid ourselves, it also got me through the odd examination as well – back in the day.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

The post Opinion: What is your favourite Christmas poem? appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

They have a unique taste, which complements all types of meat.

As far as I am concerned the sprout is the vegetable that just keeps on giving.

My father was an avid supporter of this unique brassica, particularly as a regular feature within the kitchen garden.

And why was this? Obviously, the buttons are always worth a nibble. But when they are gone, what’s left includes the crown of the plant – the sweetest bit of cabbage that one could ever eat.

It’s always best to leave sprouts on the plant until Jack Frost has had his way. Come the cold, comes the sweetness. And, of course, the same principle holds where turnips are concerned.

The other amazing feature of a mature spout plant is the arrangement of the buttons along the stem.

To me, they resemble a mother-of-pearl configuration. Each one is a work of art in its own right.

And, just like honeycomb, every arrangement is different.

Recent years have seen many fruit and veg shops selling sprouts that are still attached to the stem, making for very attractive window decorations.

The only con to the brussels sprout

The one downside to spouts is the fact that they are not the easiest of vegetables to grow. They need plenty of space and demand a soil with quite a high pH value.

But the biggest challenge is that of keeping the roots stable, particularly during the autumn period. If the plants get too big a shaking, then the buttons will fail to close over.

Brussels sprouts are an excellent source of protein, minerals and vitamins.

They are a staple contributor to festive menus across Europe and North America. And long may this continue to be the case.

But sprouts just aren’t to everyone’s taste.

For the record, I have a bit of history in liking foods that may not go down well with others.

Back in the day, I was a big fan of tapioca (frog spawn) and the custard that came in a metal jug from the school kitchen. The thin layer of solid custard at the top of the ‘pitcher’ was to die for.

So, while everyone else was outside kicking a football around, myself and best friend John Nolan remained at the dinner table – gorging ourselves with top-end desserts…. I so loved school.

The post Hail the humble brussels sprout appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Throw in the oxen, sheep and shepherds – watching their flocks by night – and it’s hard not to develop warm feelings for farmers and the animals in their care.

But Christmas is a one-off. Somewhere along the way, the farming industry has lost that day-to-day contact with the consumers they serve and provide for.

And we need to get that back.

The reality, of course, is that Irish farmers continue to play the important a role within rural communities today, as was the case generations ago.

And the same amount of hard work is required to keep the food coming and the animals looked after as would have always been the case.

In fact, many farmers would argue that the pressures on them today are greater than has been the case heretofore.

The truth is that the growing rural-urban divide has brought about a scenario within which the vast majority of people living in our towns and cities have no concept of the work, toil and effort put in on farms throughout the country.

So maybe it’s time for a farming Christmas story: The 2022 version.

Christmas on a farm

It’s 4.30a.m on Christmas morning on a farm. The alarm has just gone off and a farmer, let’s say, in their mid-30s, leaves the comfort of a very warm bed.

The farmer has left behind their spouse and two young children, who are no doubt dreaming about the presents Santa Claus will bring them.

Five minutes later they quietly opening the back door of the farm house and head out into the darkness. It’s cold and wet, and Christmas cheer is pretty thin on the ground. The first point of destination is the milking parlour.

The lights are switched on, the parlour is set up and the two all-important generator buttons kick-in.

A prayer of thanks is muttered and then it’s off to a cubicle shed to gather up 100 cows for milking. One cow, though, is very slow to get up – note taken.

Slowly but surely, the cows are milked. Each one stripped before the clusters are put on: Thankfully no cases of felon this morning.

But the cow that was slow to get up has a very sore foot. Again, note taken.

All of this takes 90 minutes – which stretches out to two hours with the washing down of the parlour and the rinsing out of the milking plant.

Given that it’s Christmas morning, the farm help who usually around is on holiday. So the cows are kept in a collecting yard while the farm owner scrapes out their shed and puts fresh bedding down on the cubicle mattresses.

After that, it’s feeding time. That could be another hour’s job. Meanwhile, the cow with the sore foot needs attention.

By now it’s full light and it’s a case of getting back to the farm house for breakfast and the opening of the presents with the children.

The show is not over

But switching off for the rest of the day is not an option. The calves and the rest of the youngstock need fed and attended to.

Each calf is individually checked for any sign of dullness or scour. It’s all time-consuming work. And the same principle holds, were the weanlings are concerned.

The farmer will probably get back to the comfort and warmth of the house by noon.

It’s then a judgement call as to whether Christmas lunch is taken then or should the afternoon milking be brought forward with lunch to follow thereafter?

Either way, the dairy farmer and their family members have no option but to put their working clothes back on and commit to another spell in the milking parlour.

There is a fundamental principle must always be adhered to. And it’s this: the needs of the animals always come first.

With this in mind, the aforementioned cow with the sore foot is looked at again. The decision is taken to put her in a straw-bedded pen for the night with the option of getting the vet the next day a distinct possibility.

All of this is taking place while the vast of the Irish public spend Christmas morning in their dressing gowns, drinking tea and coffee in their warm and comfortable homes.

Farming over the Christmas period

I picked a ‘hypothetical’ winter milk farm for the purposes of this piece. But the same ‘commitment related’ challenges confront all Irish livestock farmers on Christmas Day – and every other day of the year for that matter.

Thousands of lambs will be born on our farms in the run-up to Christmas. Each ewe and newborn lamb will need all the care and attention that farmers can give them.

And the same principle holds when it comes to calving suckler cows. It’s all about that all-embracing commitment on the part of the farmer to try and make things right.

I sense the general public have lost touch with this reality. And shame on our farming industry for allowing this to happen.

In my opinion, farmers are the most undervalued members of our society.

If dairy farmers were getting €1/L for their milk, it still wouldn’t be enough to compensate them for the time, investment and hard work required to produce the food in the first place.

Farmgate prices, across the board, have not kept up with inflation for decades. Meanwhile, the amount of support available to agriculture continues to decline in real terms.

However, this has not stopped Irish farmers from producing more food than ever before.

This is an amazing success story, one that fails to get its fair share of publicity.

Farming is a 24/7, 365-day commitment on the part of those involved.

And, particularly at Christmas time, I think it would be more than appropriate for the rest of society to raise a glass in the direction of their ‘farming colleagues’ for a job well done.

The post Opinion: The story of Christmas on a farm appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

One point that did jar with me slightly, though, was the assertion made by numerous speakers and delegates to the effect that agriculture is now on its journey to carbon ‘net zero’.

But this is not so. Yes there has been lots of talk about what needs to be done. But, in truth, signs of real action being taken at farm level are pretty thin on the ground – up to this point.

Moving towards carbon ‘net zero’

I would suggest this will only start to happen when, for instance, all the meat plants take the decision to actually introduce a 24-month age specification on cattle presented for slaughter.

In other words, animals coming in at older ages will receive a price penalty.

Dairy processers could, quite easily, take a similar step by insisting that only farms with a carbon footprint below a specified value will receive the full base price for their milk.

In truth, the lack of active involvement by the various processing sectors in the climate change debate has been very telling. At the end of the day, the meat plants and dairies will be on the frontline when it comes to delivering real progress, where this matter is concerned.

And, I think at this stage, it would be very important to hear what they actually have to say on these fundamentally important issues.

Funding for climate measures

A key factor within the climate change debate is the future direction of support funding for Irish farmers.

The other big, unanswered question is the future balance between food output and future emissions levels.

I totally buy into the argument put forward by the likes of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) to the effect that Ireland must play its part in helping to secure future global food levels.

Where is the ‘climate change’ sense in Europe importing produce from the southern hemisphere when all of this food can be sourced locally?

Meanwhile agri-emission reduction targets set for 2030 start to take on real significance with every day that passes. Or will this turn out to be the case at all? The current stasis, where the establishment of a tangible pathway to net zero is concerned, represents the worst of all worlds.

It is certainly giving farmers the distinct impression that if they sit tight and do nothing the issue of climate change might quietly fade away.

Meanwhile the world might turn its attention to some other pending disaster that has no direct bearing on production agriculture at all.

The post Opinion: When does journey to carbon ‘net zero’ actually start? appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

But if it is even half as fundamental as many people are currently surmising, the knock-on effect for Irish dairy could be ‘earth shattering’.

The pan-European dairy processor indicated some weeks ago that it is about to launch a new farm price structure, one that will fully reward the principles associated with sustainable milk production practices.  

I have no idea as to what this might mean in a practical sense, but I can guess.

Irish dairy going ‘green’

It strikes that Arla’s producer base are about to become very familiar with the detail of what a carbon footprint value for their business actually entails.

Targets in this regard may well be set – and these may very quickly be tightened, in line with carbon ‘net zero’ targets that have now been set in countries around Europe.

Moreover, I sense that we are about to move from a discussion about the principles of sustainable dairy farming to a scenario which sees their full implementation. And the transition period in this regard could be quite short.    

Arla is, no doubt, taking these steps in order to gain an advantage over its dairy processing rivals across Europe and beyond.

But, in so doing, the Denmark-headquartered operator will be setting milk production attainment targets to new heights – a development that may well have direct consequences for the dairy sector in Ireland.

Milk pricing

Assuming Arla does break through the glass ceiling and introduces a fundamentally new milk pricing system, it stands to reason that retailers and food processers in all of Ireland’s export markets will expect other dairy suppliers to meet the same criteria.

Governments and farming organisations can do all the talking in the world, but when the world of commercial reality kicks-in, everything starts to become very serious altogether.

The last number of months have seen Ireland’s milk industry talk the talk, where the issues of climate change and future sustainability are concerned. But are we about to walk the walk?

Last week’s Agricultural Science Association (ASA) conference saw foreign affairs minister, Simon Coveney, tell delegates that Irish agriculture must meet its responsibilities, where climate change mitigation is concerned.

In the same breath, he expressed full confidence in farming’s ability to meet the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions targets set for 2030, without the need for reduction in livestock output.

He was basing his assertion on the belief that the various sectors will have the opportunity to adopt new, carbon-friendly technologies that can be implemented over the coming years.

But what if Arla, or some other food processing giant, comes forward with a climate change mitigation plan that shorts-circuits a transition period from years down to months?

Under these circumstances, it’s hard to see how Irish agriculture would theoretically not have to review downwards the output levels enjoyed currently by all its livestock-based sectors.

The post Opinion: Going ‘green’ about to take on real meaning for Irish dairy appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

But, fundamentally, ARCZero represents a message of hope for the future.

At a very strategic level, the project will deliver the framework, which will be used to contextualise the targets set down within the climate change legislation agreed by Stormont earlier this year.

But more than this, ARCZero will help identify fundamental management changes that can be introduced on every local farm in a very straightforward way.

And much of this messaging will be delivered under the banner: ‘Improving efficiency will deliver a reduced carbon footprint’. And, of course, improving efficiency will also help deliver improved profits within every farm business.

ARCZero farm walk

Approximately 300 people attended a recent farm walk, hosted recently by the Harbison family in Co. Derry. Their Aghadowey farm looked an absolute picture on the day.

But more than that, the visitors taking part in the event were provided with a unique opportunity to gauge what can be done to set meaningful targets that can harmonise both production and the factors that determine the size of the carbon footprint created by a farming business.

And all of this is being achieved in a very practical way and within a very modern dairying environment.

Paying for carbon

But ARCZero is also serving to profile another equally important message. Yes farming for carbon is the future, but governments and consumers/retailers will have to pay farmers for the carbon they manage.

Delivering on-farm efficiencies will only get agriculture so far down the road in its journey towards carbon net zero. To get us all the way there, farmers will have to be paid for the carbon they actively sequester within their businesses.

Government is already adopting this principle, where energy companies are concerned and the implementation of their policies towards future fossil fuel usage.

The fact is that farmers manage the largest carbon stores in the country; it’s in our soils, woodlands, trees and hedgerows. So the same approach must be taken by government, where production agriculture is concerned.

And no better man to espouse this principle than ARCZero chairman, Prof. John Gilliland.

To be honest, I have been very circumspect about the farming industry’s ability to respond effectively to climate change. However, I left the Harbison farm a very happy man.

As I headed for home, it dawned on me that climate change represents the greatest opportunity that has confronted local agriculture in my lifetime.

The post Opinion: ARCZero project – beacon of hope for agriculture in NI appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

The UK’s newly confirmed Prime Minister seems to be changing her perspectives on the importance of agriculture.

In the middle of an interview with the BBC yesterday, (Sunday, September 4), Liz Truss stressed her opposition to the development of solar farms on agricultural land.

When pushed on the subject, the new Conservative Party leader said she had no problem with solar panels being placed on the roofs of buildings, but felt that agricultural land should be maintained for food production purposes.

There followed a commitment of sorts on the need to make food self sufficiency a priority for a new government.

New Prime Minister

All of this seems to be at odds with Liz Truss, in her role as Foreign Secretary, pushing for free trade deals with the likes of Australia and New Zealand, two of the world’s agricultural superpowers.

And let’s not forget that the Conservative government of Boris Johnson committed to ending the principles that encapsulated the principles of the single payment support system.

Not surprisingly, this policy development went down like a lead weight with the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) and other agri policy stakeholder bodies in England and Wales.

The coming days will, no doubt, see the new Prime Minister coming forward with a host of government interventions, all designed to tackle the energy and cost-of-living crisis that face households and businesses over the coming months.

It is rumoured that £100 billion is to be set aside as a means of funding a furlough-like programme that will directly support homes and businesses.

So, within this, will farming be identified as a sector with specific requirements?

UK agriculture

The fact is that agriculture in the UK is soon to be caught in a perfect storm. Farmers continue to face escalating cost pressures on all fronts – feed, fertiliser and energy.

We also know that consumers have reached the point when they can no longer pay more for food in the shops. The so-called ‘glass ceiling’ has been reached.

This fundamental reality was confirmed courtesy of a report produced by the Anderson’s Centre two weeks ago.

Much has been talked about families not being able to pay their energy bills this winter. But of equal importance is their ability to pay for the food that they need to eat.

Making this a reality may well take the introduction of a food subsidy scheme covering the basic food items produced in the UK: Dairy; beef; lamb; pork; poultry; vegetables; and fruit.

The support measure could be structured to compensate primary producers at the farm gate.

There is ample evidence to show that intervention at the earliest stage within a production chain has the largest impact on issues such as final price and inflation. 

But is Liz Truss up for such a move? The coming days will tell the story.

The post Opinion: Will agriculture be supported by new Prime Minister? appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Everyone involved in all of the events can look back over recent months with a tremendous degree of satisfaction and pleasure.

My absolute highlight of the year was the culmination of the Beef Inter-Breed Championship class at Clogher. The event saw Herbie Crawford from Co. Fermanagh celebrate 71 years of showing cattle with a famous victory.

He won the championship with a seven-month-old Limousin bull calf Rathkeeland Tommy. Sired by the noted bull West Pit Omaha, the young animal was still on its mother at the time of the show.

But it’s time to look to the future. The Northern Ireland Shows Association (NISA) has clearly demonstrated that its society members do have a role to play at the very heart of the farming and food sectors. But they need support.

Support for agri show societies

Let’s hope the review of the local shows, now ongoing, concludes with firm recommendations on how these events can be adapted to further highlight the role of farming and food at the very heart of Northern Ireland’s economy.

In my opinion, this will require a strong commitment from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), one which officially recognises the need to core fund the shows in ways that complement their undoubted strengths.

Yes, agriculture minister Edwin Poots has already committed to a £200,000 pandemic-related support fund. But this is only a sticking plaster, in the grand scheme of things, where the needs of the farming shows are concerned.

The Royal Ulster Agricultural Society (RUAS) also has a strong responsibility to further promote and support all the local shows.

No one doubts that the annual Balmoral Show will survive and prosper into the future. But I would argue that such an outcome can only be achieved on the back of a vibrant local show network.

Symbiosis is the word that most immediately comes to mind in this context.

Some sceptics might suggest that the local agricultural shows should be able to stand on their own two feet, in a financial sense.

However, this perspective on matters is totally unfair. These same organisations already rely on hundreds of – totally unpaid – volunteers to help put on their respective events each year. The savings they make in this regard are more than considerable.

All of this comes down to a very fundamental point – DAERA must officially recognise the fundamentally important role played by NISA and then commit to supporting that organisation’s member societies on an equitable basis.

The post Opinion: NI agri show societies deliver in spades appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

I have seen no end of animals with mature sets of horns coming through a number of sale rings in Northern Ireland over recent weeks and months.

I wouldn’t have a horned animal about me.

First-off, they look unsightly. But, more importantly, I think they are a health and safety risk – both to other cattle and the human beings managing them.

These risks might be quite low during the spring and summer months when cattle are at grass, but the thought of having to go into a crowded pen and pick out an animal amongst others – some of which have full horns – has risk written all over it.

Moreover, the damage that a horned animal could do to its herd mates, again in a penned situation, could be considerable – in certain circumstances.

Rules on horns

Obviously, the previous rules in place to the effect that all animals must be de-horned have been relaxed.

Personally, I think this was a retrograde step. If I was Northern Ireland’s agriculture minister, I would it make it my business to reintroduce regulations that make de-horning a mandatory requirement in short order.

Some breeds of cattle are naturally polled. The Aberdeen-Angus is the most obvious breed that comes to mind in this context.

But the reality here is that breeders, over the years, have identified specific animals with this trait and preferentially bred from them.

And they did this for a reason:It is so much easier to manage cattle that do not have horns – full stop.

I think I am also right in pointing out that it is now possible to select naturally polled Holstein blood lines.

No doubt the animal welfare groups would make the assertion that de-horning is an unnecessarily painful process. Well it’s not, if the procedure is carried out properly when animals are young.

In my opinion, not to de-horn cattle is an example of ‘lazy’ farming.

Yearling plus cattle, with full sets of horns represent a welfare issue, both for the animals themselves and those who have to work with them.

Moreover, I get a sense that farmers putting this type of animal into a sale yard are also de-valuing their own stock.

No matter how good an animal is, in terms of its weight, flesh cover and general condition, I would always be of the view that people buying such stock will have fully accounted for the ‘horn issue’ as the cattle in question go through the ring.

The post Opinion: The horns of a dilemma appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

However, I feel that the company’s justification of hybrids on the back of the recent ADAS research needs further clarification.

From what I can see, the ADAS work amounts to not much more than a nitrogen (N) response trial for hybrid varieties.

But hold on a minute – was that work not carried out when Syngenta first brought six-row barley varieties to market some 20 years ago?

And I don’t remember being told about their ability to deliver ‘optimal’ yields from reduced nitrogen application rates back then. Another point worth highlighting is the comparison made of hybrid barleys relative to two-row options, receiving a higher than standard application rate.

So here comes the obvious question: Why would anyone want to use fertiliser above the standard rate of application on any crop? It is an approach that doesn’t make sense, to me at least.

Nowhere in the press statement issued by Syngenta is reference made to the actual varieties – two-row and six-row – used in the ADAS trial. I feel this information should be made available.

More information on hybrid barleys

The trial work also seems to show that the use of hybrid barleys can be used in the fight against blackgrass; it is all to do with the active root system of the cereals in question.

In my opinion, the only way to deal with blackgrass is to keep it out, if the weed is not a problem, or implement a very robust integrated pest management (IPM) programme on land where there is an issue.

Extensive trial work carried out in the UK and Ireland has verified the efficacy of this approach when it comes to dealing with what is probably the most significant grass weed challenge now facing the crops sector.

I note that Syngenta makes little or no reference to the disease-resistance capabilities of hybrid barley varieties in its most recent press statement.

In my opinion, it all boils down to a fundamental fact – new barley varieties, or any other cereal varieties, should only be assessed on the back of official trial results, which encompass all relevant traits.    

There are no end of opportunities for this approach to be availed of in both the UK and Ireland.  

The post Opinion: Is new light being shed on 6-row, hybrid barleys? appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

If this is granted, it will represent a major step forward for the Irish cattle industry. In the first instance, it will help open up new markets for Irish beef and dairy exports.

But, in addition, it will also mean that farmers in the Republic of Ireland will, no longer, have to test every calf born in the country for the disease.

In my eyes, this constitutes a win-win scenario for everyone involved.

BVD in Northern Ireland

Meanwhile, north of the border, matters are not so positive at all regarding all matters that are BVD related.

Animal Health and Welfare Northern Ireland (AHWNI) has called on the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) to introduce additional measures to reinforce industry efforts to eradicate the disease locally.

The comments come as latest figures reveal the number of BVD tests carried out by Northern Ireland farmers, during the voluntary and compulsory phases of its BVD Eradication Programme, has passed four million.

Latest analysis from the BVD Implementation Group, convened by AHWNI, indicates that industry advice and actions have driven down numbers of BVD-positives being retained, with 43 BVD-positive animals alive at present retained in 34 herds for over five weeks.

A total of 193 positive animals were recorded as being alive on June 27, 2022.  

However, the figures also show that disease incidence increased for nine consecutive months in 2021.

Eradication

Kicking-in here are factors which get to the very heart of any disease eradication programme.

These include: Virus circulation within breakdown herds; transiently infected cattle being sold from breakdown herds; movement of virus contaminated material between herds; contact between neighbouring cattle; and fraudulent activity around the identity of BVD-positive calves.

It is also worth noting that all of the stakeholder organisations within the north’s livestock sector are playing their part in pushing to have BVD eradicated.

E.g., the retention of persistently infected (PI) calves, for the purposes of the BVD eradication programme, invalidate the relevant farmer’s membership of the Northern Ireland Farm Quality Assurance Scheme (NIFQAS).

This step was taken by the Livestock and Meat Commission (LMC) some months ago.

But the bottom line remains that BVD is a significant production threat to Northern Ireland’s dairy and beef sectors.

The good news is that it can be eradicated. The recent developments in Dublin represent confirmation of this reality. But the work must start now.  

The post Opinion: Northern Ireland in the BVD ‘slow lane’ appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Enter stage left the UK Conservative party and the ‘madness’ that is the Northern Ireland (NI) Protocol Bill.

But let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. Surely it’s worth analysing the detail contained within the aforementioned document before coming to any conclusions.

So here we go. It extends to 20 pages, contains a lot of superfluous waffle and where there should be reams of facts, the reader is left in a state of extreme disappointment.

The whole exercise that was followed through at Westminster earlier this week was, in my opinion, an absolute farce.

Britain playing politics with Northern Ireland

It suits the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson to play party politics with the NI Protocol right now. His priority is that of shoring up support within his base of Conservative MPs.

Does he really think that he is saving the Good Friday Agreement or putting pressure on the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to come back to Stormont?

I sense the answer to both of these questions is a very definite ‘no’.

Meanwhile, the European Commission is weighing up its response to all of this. Brussels has two options – to sit back and do nothing or to flex its muscles in a very meaningful way.

Border checks

The last six years have been marked by an agreement on the part of all those involved in the Brexit process to the effect that border posts will not be re-established on the island of Ireland.

But border checks would not be required for Brussels to simply announce, for example, that the UK dairy industry is not adhering to all required EU rules.

And if this were to happen, the flow of milk south across the Irish border – all 800 million litres of it on an annual basis – would stop instantly.

Concerns to this extent have already been flagged-up by the Northern Ireland Dairy Council.

And the same scenario could be played out, where beef, lamb and other food commodities are concerned.

The end result would be the absolute decimation of Northern Ireland’s farming industry.

Future for NI food sector

Such possibilities put the ardent protests of some consumers in Northern Ireland, unhappy that they can no longer procure certain food brands from UK supermarkets, into clear and sharp relief.

I get the sense though that Britain is simply using the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill as a bargaining chip to get more concessions from Brussels during a future negotiation process.  

Let’s hope this will be the eventual direction of travel. My only concern is that Brussels may get totally ‘hacked off’ with the entire project before that and start to play ‘hard ball’.

And under such circumstances, we could well find out that the EU has ‘zero tolerance’ for belligerent UK Brexiteers.  

The post Opinion: Is Britain about to become a pariah state? appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

I couldn’t disagree more.

To date, the matter has brought to light, issues relating to the entire animal traceability system (APHIS) that operates in Northern Ireland; the current bovine TB regulations; animal welfare issues; and, let’s not forget, the way that Dr. Bronckaers was treated at a very human level.

So far, so bad. But then adding insult to injury, we had last week’s further embarrassment associated with DAERA’s failure to make available video footage, allegedly showing incidents of animal cruelty, to the Bronckaers’ tribunal – information that was demanded by the judge in charge of the proceedings.

You couldn’t make this stuff up.

Edwin Poots

The excuse given by Edwin Poots not to intervene in these matters related to the legal issues that were and are, possibly, still in play.

But in truth, we are way beyond constraints of a legal nature, where these issues are concerned.

What’s at stake now is the overarching image of the north’s farming industry. Edwin Poots must come out and confirm that APHIS is fit for purpose and that farming in Northern Ireland is underpinned by animal welfare standards of the highest integrity.

He is the minister with overall responsibility for the entire industry; the buck stops with him.

Upon taking up his new position as president of the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU), David Brown said that agriculture in Northern Ireland must do a better job of communicating with consumers and the public at large.

I couldn’t agree more. So it’s worth asking the question – what signals were the steps taken by DAERA’s veterinary service with regard to its management of the Dr. Bronckaers’s affair, sending out to the public at large?

All my neighbours, who have no involvement in farming whatsoever, keep asking me about the case; and the same goes for many of the farmers I visit on a day-to-day basis.

The general public takes all issues relating to food production very seriously and rightly so. But, of course, we knew this before the Bronckaers’ affair kicked off.

In this modern day and age, taking a ‘no comment’ approach to any issue that relates to animal welfare and food safety holds no credibility whatsoever.

So it’s over to Edwin Poots to put the role of his department into a proper context. He also needs to confront, head on, the myriad of public concerns that now exist with regard to the state of livestock farming in Northern Ireland.

The post Opinion: Edwin Poots must intervene in DAERA debacle appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

And I sense that many farmers, particularly in England, Scotland and Wales, are now deeply regretting the decision to leave the European Union (EU).

And why should this be the case?

Well, let’s see – the coming year will see farmers in England and Wales losing their single farm payment. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has managed to sign free trade deals with two of the world’s food superpowers.

Adding to farmer frustration is the fact that Westminster has done nothing to help farmers cope with the merciless increase in feed, fertiliser and fuel costs that has impacted on every farm business over recent months.      

Brexit

Brexit was sold to the British public as this wonderful opportunity to regain full sovereignty from Europe.

But, from an agricultural perspective, this ‘freedom’ has resulted in almost every support plank being removed from the industry and farmers left exposed to a future of cheap imports from the likes of New Zealand and Australia.

Indigenous food security now means very little in the UK. And, as a result, farmers have been left with their futures hanging on the whim of consumers.

So here’s the real question – when the economic going gets tough, do mothers with young children opt for the cheapest foods available or will they pay that bit extra for what is produced on their own doorsteps?

I sense the answer to that question is pretty obvious.

Food prices and EU support

The only good news for UK farmers over recent years is the fact that food prices have held up pretty well in the shops.

Covid-19 saw to that and the ongoing unrest in Ukraine will serve to keep retail food prices high for the foreseeable future. But circumstances change. And when the food price indices start to fall, as they will at some future stage, what state will British farming be left in then?

The word precarious comes to mind in this context.

Meanwhile, the EU may not be the fastest organisation to react in changing times, but the fact remains that Europe truly recognises the importance of farming in so many different ways.

Last week’s decision by Brussels to offer farmers across Europe each a €15,000 lump sum payment, in light of the input cost crisis they are now facing, is a case in point.

Mind you, I thought the response of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) and the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) to the announcement was farcical.

Querying the source of the money, I would suggest, should not be a core concern at this point.

Back in the day when the ‘oul fella’ gave me the odd bit of required pecuniary support, I never queried the state of his personal finances; I simply said ‘thank you’ and went on my way.

From what I am hearing, the EU will be a major player in backing the €500 billion required to rebuild Ukraine (and rightly so). So, no shortage of ‘dosh’ there then.

The post Opinion: Brexit becoming an unmitigated disaster for UK agriculture appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

At least this means the weather is about to warm up. I spent two days at this year’s Balmoral Show and was foundered throughout.

A breeze kept blowing across the showground off the nearby Black Mountain. For me, at least, it all added up to a heavy pullover and coat being the order of the day at all times.

Balmoral Show

I never got the opportunity of visiting the livestock rings at this year’s show, there was just so much else going on.

Two overarching themes quickly became apparent as I picked up with the various farming leaders, who seemed to populate every trade stand at the event.

The first is that farming is in a pretty good state at the present time; the second is the very strong reality that farmers have not bought into this messaging at all.

This latter point is now obvious given the significant downturn in fertiliser sales so far this year.

And the powers that be are starting to get very nervous, regarding the possibility of a fodder crisis unfolding later in the year. The principle in play here is a very simple one. If the fertiliser isn’t sown, the grass just won’t grow.

Fodder woes

Matters came to a head at the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) stand on the first evening of the Balmoral Show.

Head of policy development, James McCluggage, truly lambasted both Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) and College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) officials for their non attendance at the organisation’s fodder update seminar.

There’s nothing like calling a spade a spade.

The other issue becoming ever clearer is the trouble that Irish feed compounders are now having as they source alternative maize sources for the coming months.

Ukraine has now been totally discounted as a source of feed raw material for the foreseeable future. But it now seems that the world’s other grain growing regions are coping with severe drought conditions.

North and South America, plus many parts of Europe, are all affected in this manner. And, if this continues to be the case, the impact on yields later this year could be very stark indeed.    

So is the option of rationing feed grains next winter on the cards? The next month or two will tell the real story in this regard.   

The post Opinion: Thank goodness for blight warning after cold days at Balmoral appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

And perhaps the most significant of these is the fast growing disparity between the support levels available to agriculture on both parts of this island.

The most obvious difference, in this regard, centres on the fact that a fully functional government continues to operate in Dublin.

Meanwhile, in Belfast, it could take months for the various political parties to agree a cohesive future for the Stormont Executive.

It is also evident at this stage that the Dublin government is willing to take on board the needs of farmers when the going gets tough.

Discussions at Balmoral Show

The recent announcement of a silage scheme at least recognises the fact that Irish farmers are currently under the cosh when it comes to buying fertiliser and committing to make sufficient silage for the months ahead.

The Tillage Incentive Scheme was another measure introduced by the Dublin government in the wake of the crisis in Ukraine and will probably be the topic of conversation amongst some at the Balmoral Show

And did politicians in Northern Ireland respond in kind?

Of course, they didn’t! The £300 million sent across from Westminster to Belfast to help the local economy deal with the current cost-of-living crisis remains frozen in a Stormont bank account, all because political leaders couldn’t get on with each other.

For the record, £70 million of this money should be coming to farmers by way of a much needed support measure for the industry. This amounts to almost 25% of the single payment budget paid out in the north each year.

Two months ago, the leadership of the Ulster Farmers' Union (UFU) held a protest rally at Stormont to sort out the then threat of a potentially damaging climate change bill.

Methinks, if I was the new UFU president, David Brown, I would be bringing the troops back up to Stormont in double quick time, demanding the immediate release of the aforementioned £70 million.

Future food security

Looking to the future, there is every indication that Brussels has, at last, taken the issue of future food security seriously. This reality is fast being reflected in the outworking of the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

In addition, Brussels has also recognised the virtue of individual member state governments having more flexibility in terms of the way they interact with their national farming industries.

There is little doubt that the Irish government will take full advantage of this evolving scenario.

Contrast this with the situation in the UK where the issue of national food security no longer registers at all within political circles.

The current Conservative government in London is hell bent on signing free trade deals with a selection of the world’s farming and food superpowers.

Securing cheap food from anywhere is now the mantra that drives the thinking of Westminster policy makers in my opinion – irrespective of what happens to the farmers on their own doorsteps.

It’s a scenario that may well have very direct consequences for the future evolution of farming policies in Northern Ireland.

Significant distortions in the farm support measures available to farmers across the island of Ireland have very negative consequences, for lots of reasons.

So, it will be interesting to see how Stormont’s politicians react to this challenge as they ‘try’ to plan a future for the north’s farming sectors in a post-election, post-Brexit world.

The post Opinion: What might farmers be chatting about at the Balmoral Show? appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

The renewed cynical, 'business as usual', mantra dressed up in the ‘emperor’s new clothes’ of feeding people cannot be allowed to deflect from the significant environmental challenges we face.

Neither the climate crisis nor the biodiversity collapse will wait for more favourable socio-political conditions to prevail. Whether we like it or not, it is essential to support a global transition towards sustainable food systems, within which organic farming and other agroecological approaches are key.

Climate concerns

The latest IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report says that global temperature is likely to increase by more than 3° C in the coming decades. Severe harvest failures will become common.

The UK is already one of the world's most nature-depleted countries - in the bottom 10% globally and last in the G7. The grim reality is that we have prioritised food above the environment for the last 60 years.

There is much talk of the need to intensify food production, but one third of food produced globally is going to waste.

Just 55% of the world's crop calories are directly eaten by humans, 36% is used for animal feed and 9% for industrial use. We need fundamental change in our diet, our food system and our consumption, not more food.

The continued promotion of intensification is detrimental to the rigorous debate needed around the issues of resilience, productivity, food security and their associated environmental and economic impacts.

The UK’s reliance on imported feed, fuel and other inputs is being magnified through the lens of Putin’s war but these issues within our food supply chain are not new. We need systems that rely on less intensive use of increasingly scarce inputs in large part derived from fossil fuel resources.

We are at a tipping point. Continued intensification will undoubtedly create an even greater long-term threat to UK food security, as our overall agricultural capacity will be undermined and irretrievably diminished.

From Roger Kerr, chief executive, Organic Farmers & Growers.

The post Letter to the editor: Conflict must not overshadow climate concerns appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

However, what we don't appear to know much about is the precise relationship between conditioning and gains in productivity, or the reduced costs of handling.

Conditioning costs energy

Up until now, these may have seemed rather academic questions, but with the dramatic increase in fuel prices the examination of the cost/benefit equation becomes more important than ever, yet academia itself seems somewhat oblivious to the question.

A search for recent papers on the subject draws a blank, although time prevented it from being too exhaustive. However, one advisory body did forward some research, comparing drying rates of perennial ryegrass and Italian ryegrass, with and without conditioning.

The results would certainly indicate that there is benefit to conditioning with the degree of abrasion affecting the rate of drying.

Many factors involved

It also indicated that species was an important aspect with the fleshier Italian ryegrass losing moisture quicker than the perennial sward.

A further paper suggested that steel flails were highly effective in reducing wilting time.

These papers are all well and good but they were published over 20 years ago and it is difficult to find more recent work.

A lot has changed over this period, heavier crops being one of the more obvious, but we now have more sophisticated machinery, and machinery that is quicker and more efficient with a greater amount of power available to drive it.

Theoretical results from the laboratory are a good start, but now it is possible to gain more precise results from tractors and harvesters capable of showing specific fuel consumption figures as well as dry matter (DM) content in real time.

Potential reduction in diesel use

From this sort of data it really should be possible to optimise the conditioning process to ensure the minimum amount of diesel is used, consistent with achieving a desirable result. It is just the sort of calculation that computers are good at.

It may well be that new mower designs offering a variable rate of conditioning will come to the market, rather than the basic two-speed choice available today, the setting of which is all down to guess work.

Conditioning and wilting are two fundamental operations in silage making, they need to catch up with the times.

The post Opinion: Calculating the value of conditioning appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

A recent press briefing, hosted by Ulster Bank in the run-up to Balmoral Show 2022, provided representatives of the aforementioned organisation with an opportunity to reflect on the current state of agriculture in Northern Ireland.

And to be very honest, I thought that the story related could have been a lot darker.

Bank borrowing levels for agriculture in Northern Ireland remain at around the £1 billion mark.

However, farm account deposits currently total around £500 million. So, for an industry that can turnover in the region of £4 billion annually, this is a highly acceptable level of ‘indebtedness’.

And the banks know this. Despite the current pressure on input costs, our financial institutions have no intention of walking way from agriculture. As it turns out, they probably view agriculture as a very good sector at the present time.

Importance of agriculture

Take all of the current challenges facing the world -climate change and food security to name but two. In all cases, agriculture is increasingly seen as a fundamental part of the solution.

And, in turn, this makes farmers pretty important people in the grand scheme of things.

There is also a growing recognition that as 2022 progresses, energy-driven inflation within the economy converts to a food-related scenario. There is also an expectation that the rising cost of food in the shops will not be a ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ phenomenon. 

There is now a real prospect that consumers, not just here, but around the world will be confronted with the challenge of fast rising food prices for a considerable period of time into the future.

Driving all of this is the fact that Russia and Ukraine combined, account for one in every eight food calories exported around the world.  

In such circumstances farmers throughout Ireland can look forward to fast increasing prices for their milk, beef, lamb and grain.

The downside, obviously, will be the management of input costs in ways that allow primary producers to balance their books.

However, challenges are always accompanied by opportunities. And I would strongly suggest that for those local farmers who can drive efficiency within their businesses, the prospect of actually improving profitability is a very realistic target to aim for.   

The industry that has been most exposed to the spiralling hikes in feed costs that have impacted the market is the pig sector.

I am fully aware of the losses that farmers have accumulated since the beginning of the year – through no fault of their own.

However, it is to be hoped that the market for pigs will start to turn in the right direction in the very near future. And there are some signs this is happening already.

The post Opinion: It’s not all bad news, where agriculture is concerned appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Last month saw the organisation getting the changes that it wanted to the proposed climate change legislation for Northern Ireland.

This was added to by last week’s decision, on the part of Northern Ireland agriculture minister, Edwin Poots, to introduce new bovine TB (bTB) testing and eradication measures.

Essentially, we now have a scenario unfolding within which wildlife will be included within the bTB testing net.

Changes to bTB regulations

UFU president, Victor Chestnutt has centred his entire term of office on getting changes to the bTB regulations.

At least now, he won’t have to chain himself to railings at Stormont in protest at what he regarded as the totally inept series of eradication measures that had been in place up to this point.

So hats off to him for having the courage of his convictions and not giving up on an issue that creates so much additional stress within large numbers of farming families every day of the year.

However, I sense that the reprieve offered by Edwin Poots may only be temporary in nature. To put it in very simple terms, the new eradication measures must be seen to be working.

And the clock is ticking in this regard.

If tangible reductions in bTB levels are not recorded within months, never mind years, I sense that every animal welfare organisation in the country will be baying to have badgers and other wildlife removed from the test and capture requirements.

And when this happens, other organisations with a jaundiced view of modern farming practices will also jump on the bandwagon, no doubt encouraging consumers to stop eating meat.

Understanding?

Everyone agrees that bTB must be eradicated from the countryside. I sense there is a strong degree of sympathy out there amongst the public at large for those farmers who have lost so much because of the disease.

But this mood could change very quickly in the other direction if it was felt that the active control of wildlife was having no impact at all on bTB levels within our cattle populations.

Farming has always had to tread a fine line, where these matters are concerned.

Gone are the days when most beef and dairy output was destined for an intervention store or was pushed in the direction of private storage.

Today the consumer is king. And animal welfare, in all its guises, determines which products members of the general public actually purchase.

The post Opinion: UFU surely welcomes changes to bTB regulations appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Yes, I know that we are living in fast-changing times. But the aforementioned question keeps recurring.

I’m tired of being told that farmers must accept that the only scenario coming down the track for them is one that sees food prices getting ever cheaper – in real terms.

In response to this, producers will be expected to ‘get their act together’ in a two-fold manner - increase productivity and improve efficiency levels.

All of this is fine and dandy, up to a point. But with increasing bureaucratic, environmental and administrative challenges continuing to impact on local agriculture, surely farmers must get paid a price that reflects all of the ensuing investment that will be required to ensure compliance, where these matters are concerned.

Cheap food prices and sustainability

The reality is that we don’t do cheap food in this part of the world.

Further evidence of the increasing bureaucratic pressure on farmers is the recent confirmation of increasing numbers of cattle being discarded at meat plants, because of issues relating to their identification.

A recent survey confirmed that farmers get more vexed when it comes to securing compliance with animal identification and traceability measures, than would be the case with any other facet of their businesses.

It’s also worth pointing out that, had redmeat prices kept track with inflation over recent years, the producer price for beef now would be in the region of €5.50 per kg deadweight.

This figure knocks for six the notion that food is expensive. In reality, all the staple food items are cheaper now, in real terms, than they were a generation ago.

Support for agriculture

It’s also worth remembering that the amount of aid available to agriculture, courtesy of the basic payment, is reducing every year. And who knows what’s coming down the track, once Brexit is finally sorted out.

All of this serves to highlight the need for our farming industry to get a strong and clear message across to consumers, highlighting the need for a proper and constructive debate on the way food is now produced. Farmers cannot be expected to work for nothing.

There is a clear and strategic need for the maintenance of a strong indigenous farming industry in Ireland. However, this will not be secured on the back of a cheap food policy.

Production costs have doubled on many farms over the past five years. This development has not been reflected in retail outlets across the EU, which means that farmers are taking most of the pain.

Retailers and consumers must, therefore, be reminded in the strongest possible terms that farmers can only take so much, particularly when it comes to covering the cost of sustainability.

Back when Phil Hogan was EU Agriculture Commissioner, commitments were made to the effect that farmers’ ‘exposed’ position at the very beginning of the food chain would be fully recognised by Brussels.

Unfortunately, this story seems to have run out of steam since the new commission took office.

The post Opinion: What does future sustainability look like for Irish farmers? appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

This was one of the recurring themes discussed at a recent spring webinar hosted by The Andersons Centre i.e. the strong probability of beef production levels falling-off considerably in England.

The Leicestershire-based consultancy provides one of the most insightful perspectives into developments taking place within UK agriculture as a whole.

Driving the move out of beef on the part of English farmers will be the termination of the basic payment. The value of this support measure will be halved in 2024. It will be completely terminated four years thereafter.

Impact on the sector

English livestock farmers share one very important aspect to their respective business models: In most years, the basic payment accounts for 75% or more of the profits that they generate.

Assuming that English beef production levels start to decline, it makes sense that Irish meat can help fill the gap in the market that will be created.

But it may not be that straightforward of an opportunity to avail of.

Recent trade deals signed by the UK with New Zealand and Australia leave the door open for significantly enhanced imports of beef coming into Britain from the southern hemisphere.

The volumes of such imports are hard to predict at this time. If demand for beef continues to grow in China, then Australia and New Zealand will not need the UK market to meet their respective goals.

However, if this turns out not to be the case, then our Antipodean friends will come knocking with some vigour.

Marketing Irish beef in the UK

Given these circumstances, the role for Bord Bia to up its marketing and promotional game in the UK seems obvious.

Other developments, including the widely talked about Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status for 'Irish Grass Fed Beef', will help this cause significantly.

Fundamentally, the British beef sector does not fear imports from Ireland. This cannot be said for imports from the likes of New Zealand and Australia.

Here, the concern would be that the two southern hemisphere countries would flood Britain with cheap beef - meat that had not been produced to the same standards as those demanded of British producers.    

One very effective way of Ireland further cementing its presence within the UK beef market would be for Red Tractor and Bord Bia to officially recognise both of their farm quality assurance schemes as being mutually compatible.

I doubt if Red Tractor would take the lead on this matter. But there would be no harm at all in Bord Bia asking the pertinent question.

The post Opinion: Beef export opportunities will beckon in the UK appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

And I just wonder if statistics for the rest of the island relate a similar story.

Looking ahead, the latest projection is that GHG emissions in NI will reduce by 32% between 1990 and 2030. However, the official figures also confirm that agriculture, as a standalone sector, is bucking this overall trend significantly.

NI greenhouse gas emissions

From 1990 to 2019, NI’s farming sectors increased emissions by 8%. With the current projections, emissions for this sector are expected to reduce by 3% between 2019 and 2030.

This gives an overall projected increase in emissions from the agriculture sector of 4% between 1990 and 2030.

Agriculture was the largest source of emissions for NI in 2019 at 26%. This share is expected to increase to 31% in 2030 as other sectors reduce emissions at a faster rate.

Dairy farmers tackling emissions

On the upside, the north’s processing sectors keep pointing out that dairy farmers, in particular, are becoming more efficient.

The most recent figures indicate that 1.12kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) is created per litre of milk produced. The comparable figure for the UK as a whole is 1.23kg.

But in reality, this is just papering over the cracks.

The last few weeks have seen farmers protesting at Stormont, demanding climate change legislation for NI that would recognise both the food production capacity of farming and the industry’s ability to deliver for the environment.

I totally buy-in to the principle of production agriculture being at the heart of a food security narrative, particularly given the actions of the Russian state in Ukraine over recent days.

There is no reason why food production levels in NI should be reduced. And the same principle holds for the rest of the island.

But, from an environmental perspective, it’s now obvious that the talking has to stop. Farming has to start delivering in spades, where climate change is concerned. And the clock is ticking.   

However, the industry cannot do this with one hand tied behind its back. It must be supported in ways that will make change at farm level real and tangible.

The good news is that we all know what the final end game will be. As farmers become more efficient, GHG emission levels will drop accordingly.

Making this happen will require the better implementation of the improved management systems that we already know about, while also making provision for the ‘fast implementation’ of the new technologies that are coming down the track.  

The post Opinion: NI greenhouse gas emission projections tell a shocking tale appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

The scenes broadcast by the BBC earlier this week of footage shot on a UK dairy farm were truly shocking.

I was absolutely repulsed at the sight of grown men brutally kicking and beating mature dairy cows.

Anyone with even the slightest grain of humanity within them would have been horrified at what was caught on film.

And, of course, all of this will reflect so badly on the image of every dairy-farming business in the eyes of the general public.

Animal cruelty - call it out for what it is

As I understand it, the owner of the farm featured claimed he knew nothing of what was going on prior to the video coming to light.

Weak apologies of this nature don’t cut it for me. What does stand up is the old adage: ‘the buck stops here’.

In my opinion, the people featured in the video should be sacked instantly and then brought up on animal-cruelty charges.

In addition, all the animals should be taken off the farm in question and new homes found for them and that farmer should never be allowed to own livestock again.

Animal cruelty should be called out for what it is and farmers should be leading the charge to ensue this is always the case.

The footage given to the BBC was taken by a farm worker who was actually an undercover volunteer for an animal-welfare group.

And let’s be real here, none of this came about by accident. The guy who shot the damning video was placed on that farm for a particular reason.

Obviously, there had been some prior indications to the effect that the management standards practised on that unit were not up to scratch.

Could something like this ever happen here in Ireland? Of course it could.

Deep in our hearts, we all know what constitutes animal cruelty.

Rather than ramble on with a list of dos and dont’s, I would prefer to make the following statement: anyone who is not prepared to treat animals as pets or extensions of the family group should not be livestock farming!

It really is as simple as that.

For the record, dairy consumption trends have been rocketing up throughout the UK over recent months, and this is really good news for the Irish milk industry.

However, it wouldn’t take too many exposes of the type featured on the BCC earlier this week to put these trends into sharp reverse.

The post Farming must have ‘zero tolerance’ for animal cruelty appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politician currently represents the Lagan Valley constituency in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

However, the decision by DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson to transfer from Westminster and stand in Lagan Valley for Stormont in May gave the party an immediate headache.

It meant that three of the most important members of the DUP would have ended up fighting for what many consider to be a potential two-seat haul in the elections. The other member of the group is Paul Givan, currently Northern Ireland’s First Minister.

The Future for Poots

It was made known earlier in the week that Edwin Poots had made the decision to seek an official  DUP nomination in the South Down constituency.

But this initiative has fallen by the wayside, in the wake of DUP party officers opting to support Diane Forsythe last night (Friday, January 28).

A 38-year old accountant, Forsythe is from the South Down area.

Meanwhile, speculation mounts as to what Edwin Poots will do next. He might still push to secure a DUP nomination in South Down.

The possibility also exists that Poots could be put forward as the DUP’s candidate in an upcoming Westminster by-election, held to fill the vacancy created by Donaldson.

But given the current political climate in Northern Ireland, this will be no easy push for the DUP. The Alliance Party, in particular, would currently see themselves as having a very good chance of taking the Lagan Valley seat.

EU Audit

Meanwhile, Edwin Poots’ current ministerial inbox continues to fill.

An EU audit report to assess whether the system of controls in place for animals and agri-food products entering Northern Ireland at points of entry met the EU requirements, has recently been delivered to the minister’s officials

The report details the findings of the audit, which took place in June 2021, by officials from the European Commission and outlines a range of concerns which were substantially directed towards resourcing and infrastructure, as well as the lack of a functional customs control system.

The report made eight recommendations to address what it sees as the most significant shortcomings.

The timing of the report is significant as Edwin Poots has said recently that he wants to see all Irish Sea Border checks halted. Significantly, the minister believes that he has full legal justification to make this assertion.

This matter may well end up in the courts over the coming weeks.

The post Opinion: Poots fighting for his political life appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

I sense that quite a number of molecular scientists in the UK are ecstatically happy right now, given the recent decision by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to green light the technology for plant breeding purposes.

I know little or nothing about the techniques involved where GE is concerned. However, Rothamsted Research scientists have previously confirmed that the initial genetic modification of a plant’s DNA is required to make it all happen in the first place.

And that was enough for me to conclude that GE should have no role to play within the field of plant breeding science.

Gene editing as 'Frankenstein science'

Mary Shelley makes it clear in her book that Baron Frankenstein set out to do good. But he still ended up creating a monster.  

The parallels between that story and what the gene editing fraternity of today are getting up to, seem pretty obvious to me.

Traditional plant breeding techniques have served production agriculture well over many generations. I see no reason why these processes cannot be allowed to continue in ways that complement what nature is all about.

The role of big tech agriculture and its reliance on genetic modification (GM) in places like the United States (U.S) and South America is an abhorrence.

Who knows what madness they have set in train? It may well take us years to find out.

Damage to the environment

But the use of genetic modification to develop crops, which are resistant to a herbicide that causes total devastation to the soils and general environment within which they are grown, does not rank as mankind’s ‘greatest hour’ in my book.

Don’t get me wrong - I am all for progress when it comes to production agriculture being able to produce more food per acre.

But I sense the real challenge here is that of getting farmers to make better use of the conventional science and management systems already available to them.

Take the current fertiliser situation as a case in point. Over the past month or so, I have sat in on countless technical webinars hosted by advisors and others, pleading with farmers to get back to basics, i.e. soil test and use lime as required to get soil pH values up.

I have to say... all of this science was known about back in my grandfather’s day.

The post Opinion: Gene editing is Frankenstein science appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

I was also taken aback at just how little warning that bystanders get of modern machinery coming out of and going into sheds.

Young children cannot be expected to ‘think safe’ every time they are allowed out of the farm house.

It takes a few short seconds to check on the whereabouts of children once any particular job of work is about to be undertaken. But, surely, it’s time well spent.

Take it slow

Seemingly, it has all to do with a 'macho' image and the perceived need to get maximum performance from a piece of kit at all times.

The post Opinion: Stay safe on farms over the festive period appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

The cold facts of the affair are as follows: The EU wants a deal and the UK does not want to initiate a trade war with Brussels.

The former Brexit negotiator, Lord Frost, had become an impediment to progress in all of these matters. Sorting out deals of any nature is all about giving and taking. Lord Frost never seemed to have the ability - nor desire - to see the EU’s perspective on most of the issues that got to the very heart of the protocol.

Truss joins Northern Ireland Protocol debacle

While UK environment and rural affairs minister, she did very little to support production agriculture.

Both of these arrangements have the potential to see large quantities of cheap beef and dairy products heading for the UK from the southern hemisphere over the coming years.

Trade deals and cheap food

But Boris Johnson and his team of ministers seem to think this is a ‘price’ worth paying, despite the opprobrium vented upon them by environmental groups in the UK and beyond.

The post Opinion: Sorting out NI Protocol should be a ‘slam dunk’ affair appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Later in the afternoon, a quick review of the results notched up in the show ring further confirmed the truly all-island dimension that reflected every facet of the event’s competition schedule.

All-island Winter Fair

No sooner had this deal been settled when Fane Valley went and secured a 50% share holding in Drummonds, one of the biggest grain and fertiliser trading operations in the Republic of Ireland.

Northern Ireland Protocol

This solely based on the fact that these industries are so much more reliant on exports than is the case in England, Scotland and Wales.

Meanwhile the RUAS is sitting on a piece of prime real estate that is only a few hundred yards away from the M1 motorway and the opportunity to access all parts of Ireland without impediment.

The post Opinion: Winter Fair is a truly all-island dairy spectacular appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

It comes in the form of poultry litter, vast tonnages of which are produced by the broiler industry in Northern Ireland on an annual basis.

What a waste of an invaluable fertiliser resource!

As a result, transporting it by road throughout Ireland should not make it an uneconomic proposition for most farmers here, irrespective of how far away they operate from the heartlands of the broiler industry north of the border.

This would allow tillage farmers south of the border wanting to use poultry litter as a fertiliser source to get in touch with broiler producers in Northern Ireland with product to offer.

Now, I know that livestock farmers have a major concern with the nearby spreading of poultry litter, given the risk of cattle contacting botulism.

I know a number of cereal growers currently using poultry litter who offer to fund the cost of a botulism vaccination programme for dairy and beef farmers who directly march their ground.

The post Fertiliser – as it turns out, Ireland is awash with the stuff appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

We have seen first-hand how climate change can lead to more frequent severe weather events, such as the northwest flooding in August 2017, and we face numerous other challenges asides from tackling climate change including improving air quality, tackling plastic pollution, achieving zero waste and the development of a circular economy.

COP26

The UK Government, in supporting the UN, has outlined four key aims: secure global 'net zero' by mid-century, keeping a 1.5°C temperature rise within reach; adapt to protect communities and natural habitats; mobilise finance; and work together to deliver.

Green Growth Strategy

This cross-cutting multi-decade strategy will set out the long-term vision and a solid framework for tackling the climate crisis by balancing climate action with a clean environment and the economy.

This strategy represents a significant step forward for Northern Ireland as we move from a high to a low emissions society and as we balance climate action with environmental and economic considerations.

Climate Change Bill

It is steeped in science, is evidence-based and takes a common sense and realistic approach to what is an extremely complex issue, that can only be addressed successfully by bringing those who can make the change along with us.

Consumer demand

Across all sectors, businesses, organisations and as individuals, we will have choices ahead of us where we must decide on how our decisions impact the environment around us."

We must create green jobs, end our reliance on fossil fuels and find less harmful ways of heating our homes and businesses and fuelling our cars, and provide opportunities through investment in innovation to help us develop new ways of working.

Government cooperation and COP26

I look forward to being able to engage with other members of the Under2 Coalition at COP26 to listen to their experiences.

COP26 will be a key moment for all governments. The eyes of the world will be on Glasgow over the next fortnight – we need to show that we are committed to tackling all these vital issues head on."

Collectively we must lay the foundations for a more sustainable society before irreparable damage is done - through innovation, research and development; and investment we can lay the foundations for a green revolution, which can rejuvenate our economy following the Covid-19 crisis.

The post Opinion: ‘The eyes of the world will be on Glasgow’ for COP26 appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Advertising opportunities

In my opinion, getting into bed with commercial sponsors was a total abandonment of the UK government’s moral obligations, where climate change is concerned.

UK government and COP26 'partners'

I sense this has everything to do with the way that the real movers and shakers in London go about making decisions across so many areas of government policy today.

But it’s not all bad news. During the recent finals of the UEFA European Championships, Cristiano Ronaldo took part in a very well profiled press conference. As he was taking his seat, the renowned footballer moved two very prominently placed bottles of Coca-Cola to one side. While doing this he was heard to say ‘agua’.

The post Opinion: Has COP26 too many commercial backers? appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

• Improved standards relating to livestock traceability and animal welfare;
• Health and safety of both livestock and farm workers;
• More effective use of farm inputs;
• Impact that cattle and sheep farms have on the environment around them;
• More effective use of veterinary medicines.

All of these improvements have impacted positively on both farmers and consumers in equal measure.

As a result, the vast majority of Northern Ireland’s cattle and sheep producers appreciate the impact that FQAS has on the final price they receive for their stock.

Red meat stakeholders

Recent months have seen the principles established relating to the attainment of protected geographical indication (PGI) status for Irish grass-fed beef.

Participation in PGI promotion

But, already, it is clear that collection of the on-farm information, which FQAS can deliver, will be critically important in delivering the success of the project.

LMC cooperation with schools

The current academic year will see the commission hosting 375 school cookery demonstrations in post primary schools across Northern Ireland.

The 375 figure is significant in that it represents the maximum number of cookery demonstrations that the commission can logistically cater for, in any single academic year.

Recent years have also seen aspects of FQAS referenced at GCSE level, and the scheme is included as a formal element of the curriculum for A Level students studying nutrition and food science.

Credibility of LMC

And in a modern world where such a virtue is as hard to find as hens’ teeth, this is a state of affairs that should give farmers and processors tremendous assurance regarding the role that the commission plays on their behalf.

Projects of this nature have always been developed in conjunction with other industry stakeholders, including the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) and the Northern Ireland Meat Exporters’ Association.

The most recent initiative of this kind was LMC’s commissioning of the Andersons Centre to review the post-Brexit support options for Northern Ireland’s beef and sheep sector.

LMC and price reporting

As part of this remit, the organisation was responsible for computing and communicating Northern Ireland’s official deadweight cattle prices to the European Commission in Brussels.

The last decade has seen significant new opportunities open up in Hong Kong, Canada, the Philippines, Japan, South Africa and US.

Not only did the commission pay the submission fee to the accrediting body – the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) – staff also played a key role in developing the overall submission that was officially presented on behalf of the local beef industry.

The post A decade of success for LMC in Northern Ireland appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

I make this point, not based on my extensive research credentials in the field of plant genetics, but rather on the back of the confirmation by Rothasmsted scientists that genetic modification is the essential first step in a process leading to ‘so called’ genomic editing.

Genomic editing trials removing asparagine

Personally, I believe that plant breeding techniques based on the likes of genetic modification and genomic editing are leading us up a blind alley.

The post Genomic editing: Genetically modifying – what’s the difference? appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

But the question then becomes: What will farmers actually do with the results they receive from the testing work that is carried out?

Ultimately, it is soil pH values that drive the efficient use, or otherwise, of the nutrients that we put on our crops.

Soil testing has been with us for 'generations'

Again, this is science that we knew about back in my grandfather’s time. But back in the day we all conveniently forgot about it on the back of cheap, bagged nitrogen and the aggressive advertising campaigns commissioned by the fertiliser companies.

The post Soil testing in new NI measures is a great stepping stone appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

A shortage of HGV drivers is one of the main contributors to the current issues in the supply chain.

The lack of drivers has seen a reduction in deliveries, and companies are feeling the pressure as they deal with the lack of availability for products.

The number of HGV drivers in the UK has dropped by 8% between 2019 and 2020 and while the Covid-19 pandemic has been responsible for some of the impact, there are still other issues that the sector currently faces.

Brexit and retirement

Brexit has ended the ability to hire HGV drivers from within the EU and the government has rejected calls to allow EU truck drivers to be employed on temporary visas.

The Road Haulage Association (RHA) estimated that around 100,000 more HGV drivers are needed in the country and that an estimated 2,000 drivers a week are leaving the haulage sector.

The shortage of drivers has reached such a point that Tesco is reportedly offering HGV drivers £1,000 to join the company, while Marks and Spencer is offering £5,000 for drivers that stay with the company for an extended period.

Some older HGV drivers have also taken the option of early retirement due to extended periods of inactivity.

The government has promised support for the HGV sector, but as things stand, it does not look to be enough as products continue to disappear from shelves in stores across the UK.

Driving test shortages

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in March 2020 it caused a complete shutdown of vocational driving tests.

Both the theory and the practical element of the test was unable to be completed, resulting in the loss of over 30,000 driving test slots.

Since then, only approximately 15,000 drivers have been able to complete the necessary training.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has said that 40 new vocational examiners will be recruited, made up of existing DVSA employees and external candidates, to help get new drivers on the road.

A late response?

However is it a question of acting too little too late?

The government seems to have underestimated the reliance it had on EU workers for the food supply chain and by leaving the EU at the end of 2020, it appears it has cut itself off from a massive pool of potential HGV drivers.

The driving test delays caused by Covid-19 are something that countries across Europe are still dealing with.

It is unclear how long it will take the UK to clear the backlog but it is becoming apparent that it will not be done anytime soon.

Brexit has left the UK with a shortage of qualified truck drivers and due to the backlog in driving tests, it is struggling to replace those drivers with newly qualified ones.

Was the fact that the UK was in various states of lockdown for the first six months of 2021 masking the problems for the supply chain, as demand for food was down due to the closure of the hospitality sector?

The government has pledged to help the industry by increasing the number of driving test examiners available, but as products continue to disappear from shelves, will the UK supply chain be able to keep going or will the wheels fall off the wagon?

The post Are the wheels about to fall off the UK supply chain? appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

The Irish hare is one of the most prolific species on the planet and has survived for hundreds of thousands of years for a number of reasons: its ability to evade capture; its adaptability to an ever-changing environment; its speed and agility; it can turn at right angles in one stride; its stereophonic hearing; its 360° vision; and its ability to swim up to a mile voluntarily.

Conservation by coursing clubs

The Irish hare achieved the highest possible rating across all four measurement criteria, demonstrating that the conservation work is effective.

Ban on hare coursing

This is validated by DEFRA [Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs], as it reports a significant decline in the hare population and an escalation of serious levels of wildlife crime sitting at 36%.

The rabbit centric virus, RHDV2, first reported in January 2016 (All-Island Animal Disease Surveillance Report), is not impacting the Irish hare and following extensive surveillance and testing over the last two years in particular, there is no scientific evidence to support the alarmist views of the letter writer.

The post Letter to the editor: Hare coursing clubs aid conservation appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

What happened next constituted, for me, one of the most important lessons in practical farming that I have ever received.

The adaptability of Irish farmers

This meant that the fork could then be placed behind the end post with the required tension created by me levering against it.

But to say that I was given food for thought on that very wet morning would be an understatement.

The post Opinion: Fixing a wire fence and seeing farmer adaptability firsthand appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

But, by far, the most significant impact of EID tagging will be the technology’s ability to improve traceability within the cattle sector. By their nature, EID tags are harder to remove and tamper with.

Will EID tagging impact TB testing?

First off, objecting on the grounds of increased cost makes no sense, given that a financial subvention from government will be available to facilitate the procurement of the new tags at farm level.

Northern Ireland

Currently, store cattle exported to Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland, are not eligible for farm quality assurance in Northern Ireland at time of slaughter.

The post Opinion: EID tagging of cattle is the future, north and south of the border appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Losses in wool sector

Since other government support measures are also available, the rates of compensation for losses incurred have been set at 80% to avoid over compensation of loss.

Irish support scheme

And the farmers who took the brunt of all this were hill flock owners. These people had no lambs to sell last spring but still had to incur the cost of shearing their sheep.

Lobbying for wool support

Wool is, by no means, Ireland’s most important agri-business sector. But it is a commodity product that still resonates strongly within Ireland’s sheep industry.

The post Irish wool sector deserves a Covid-19 support package appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Meat tax and think tanks

In other words, the conclusions seem to have been put in place first with the ‘so-called’ research specifically structured to arrive at a prescribed end point.

UK government on food policy

Where the specifics of a proposed 'Meat Tax' are concerned, one has to read through almost 600 words of commentary before any reference is made to the benefits of maintaining any vestige of a beef industry in the UK.

I should add that the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) seems to be doing very little to actively counter the insidious commentary that now fills out airwaves, where livestock production is concerned.

The post Could a ‘Meat Tax’ be on the cards in the UK? appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

I was also taken aback at just how little warning bystanders get of modern machinery coming out of and going into sheds.

'Think safe' on farms

One of the most effective ways of achieving this is to make sure that there are no children close at hand, when heavy machinery is brought into use.

Contractors and farm safety

There seems to be a growing trend for modern tractors and machinery to be driven at close enough to full throttle, even in the confined pace of a farm yard.

The post The school holidays are here – keep children safe on farms appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

To begin with, all of the cattle and sheep normally destined for Balmoral Show will, come September, be either sold or being prepared for some form of breeding programme.

Timing of Balmoral Show 2021

Meanwhile, events that would normally take place in the late summer / early autumn period continue to be cancelled.

The only exception to this trend that I am aware of is ‘UK Dairy Day’, which takes place in Telford, Shropshire on September 15. However, this is very much a trade event and offers the scope to provide strict controls on the number of visitors attending.

Revenues from shows

And I can’t see Balmoral 2021 being a great money spinner for the society. So why go ahead with the event at all?

The post Balmoral Show in September – many factors to consider appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Limited by legislation

Dr. Horstmann went on to say that his company can already see the benefits in operator and machine efficiency that digitalisation can bring. Indeed, he is quite clear in stating that many customers will not buy machines if they do not have the electronics which a competitor may offer.

People and professionalism

Tractor and implement - a digital relationship

ISOBUS as the industry standard

ISOBUS is the generic name for ISO 11783 and is managed by a working group within the German mechanical trade association - VDMA.

Despite the fine intentions of the AEF, Dr. Horstmann warns that there is a lot of politics involved in attempting to get manufacturers working together to a common standard.

Data collection and transmission

Auto guidance and the collection, recording and utilisation of data generated in the field, is the other half of the digital revolution.

Only the beginning of connectivity?

The post The future of connectivity for farm machinery appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Electric farm machinery?

Setting targets

Just because a tractor or a combine is heavier than a family car doesn’t mean that electrically powered versions of these items cannot be designed.

Wind and tidal sources can be developed to give us all the green electricity we need, while the electrolysis of sea water makes hydrogen production a more than feasible alternative moving forward.

The post Climate Change: How is the farm machinery sector stepping up? appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

This seems like an inordinately short period of time, given that the parties involved only started talking to each other less than a year ago.  

But what’s important about all of this, from an Irish perspective, is the confirmation that the envisaged deal will involve food products to a significant extent.

Truss gave an assurance that Australian farmers would have to meet the same production and welfare standards as those of their British counterparts, where directly competing products are concerned. The issue of lamb imports into the UK was then discussed at some length.

Time will tell if all of this will come to pass.

UK / Australia trade deal as template

The reality is that the deal struck between the UK and Australia will act as a template for other trading arrangements that Britain would like to broker with other countries around the world.

Australian lamb exports into the UK would do little, I think, to directly hamper the prospects of Irish sheep farmers. But beef imports from Brazil most certainly would.

And it is in this context that the issues of animal production and welfare standards come into play... big time.

If Brazil is absolutely forced by the UK authorities to export only beef that is in line with the farm quality assurance standards set by the Red Tractor organisation, then the actual quantities of meat that the South American beef giant could place on the British market would be relatively small.

However, if such a requirement is conveniently overlooked by London, then the potential for large quantities of cheap Brazilian beef to come onto the British market is immense. Such a scenario would, most definitely, hurt the Irish beef industry.

In my opinion, the UK / Australian trade deal is a harbinger for what might follow. If London sticks to its word and ensures no disparity in production standards, where food imports are concerned, all remains rosy in the garden.

If this is not the case, then trouble might well be looming for Irish agriculture.

The easiest way to get a sense of this is to gauge the public utterances of the National Farmers Union (NFU). If ‘cheap’ Australian lamb is coming into Britain, that organisation will be the first to tell the rest of the world about it!    

The post Well worth keeping an eye on the UK / Australia trade deal appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

The UN-hosted event will, I hope, provide members of the general public everywhere with the opportunity to pause and think about the importance of the top six inches of the world’s surface to us all.

If our soils are not kept in optimal condition, then we can say goodbye to any hope of feeding the world’s fast-growing population into the future.

Importance of soil management

Farmers often get criticised for not managing soils in a sustainable manner. For me, however, this is a case of total misconception.

The reality is that farmers should be praised for doing such a good job in managing our soils sustainably, given the continuing pressure put on them to produce unending quantities of cheap food.

Every farmer worth his or her salt knows that proper soil management must go to the very heart of their business plans. If they fail to address this core issue, then they have no future.

It must also be articulated that hard experience down through history has taught farmers this very salutary lesson.

History of soil management

The first people to grow crops were the Garamantes in what was modern day Libya. They harnessed the idea of cultivating plants for food-producing purposes but fell foul of the problems caused by the continuing erosion of their soils.

Flash forward to the twentieth century and farmers in the United States got caught in the same way – the end result being the Oklahoma Dust Bowl.

So yes, farmers do have prior form when it comes to the mismanagement of their soils, but one should also point out that they have always been able to learn from their mistakes.

For example, the Dust Bowl experience created the impetus for what we know today as ‘min-till’ cultivation.

Loss of agricultural land

Our land is a finite resource. Looking around the world today, it is not soil mismanagement that is causing the genuine concern that exists regarding our potential to grow food on a sustainable basis for the future.

Rather it is the ever-increasing rate at which developers continue to build on prime agricultural land.

Once this resource is taken away from us, it can never be replaced. Sustainable intensification was a phrase coined by Ireland’s former agriculture minister, Simon Coveney, as he chaired the negotiations that led to the settlement of the previous Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform package.

In essence, this means achieving higher crop yields in ways that ensures the future sustainability of our soils.

Farmers are more than happy to buy into this principle. But it comes at a price, one which consumers around the world will have to pay. The days of cheap food are over. Farmers cannot be expected to work for nothing.

The post The importance of soil – our roots have taught us appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

I make this prediction on the back of one very obvious fact: Since leaving the European Union (EU), the UK has had the absolute freedom to develop its own farm support policies.

We now know the direction of travel this is going to take; over the next five or so years, direct payments to British farmers will be phased out, to be replaced by environmental support grants.

The reality here is that planting trees does not put money in your bank account. Like their Irish counterparts, British beef farmers have been heavily reliant on the single payment, simply to get by.

So if this is removed from them, then they must look at other alternative income streams. In other words they need to get better prices for their produce.

Beef prices in shops

I sense that the coming months will see organisations like the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) embarking on a sustained campaign to get beef prices up in the shops.

And, in truth, the retailers will have to play ball with them. No doubt, the powers that be will use the Red Tractor farm quality assurance scheme as the ring fence mechanism to ensure, as they would see it, that only British beef producers get the direct benefit of any price increase that is injected into the system.

But, as the old saying goes, a rising tide floats all boats. So if UK beef prices start to take off, the Irish beef industry will benefit accordingly.

The UK is only 86% self sufficient in beef. Irish beef is well recognised and well accepted in that market. Moreover, UK retailers and meat wholesalers view Irish beef as having an exceptionally strong heritage.

Significantly, the NFU is already starting to push the line that ‘inferior’ quality beef should not be allowed into the country on the grounds that it will only erode the position of British livestock farmers.

It is imperative that Irish beef is not targeted for such criticism. The need for the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) to develop the warmest of relationships with all of its UK counterparts is obvious, given what’s coming down the track.

The need for Bord Bia to actively promote Irish beef on the British market during the period ahead is equally evident.

Beef prices and consumer demand

Finally, I need to address the issue always flagged up by many farmers when retail beef prices are discussed. The point in question centres on this strongly-held view that consumers are not prepared to pay more for food in the shops.

What absolute rubbish! The reality is that food prices have not kept pace with inflation for the past three decades or more. If farmgate beef returns had kept pace with cost-of-living increases, farmers would be getting around €7.00/kg for their cattle today.

Food has never been cheaper in the shops, in real terms, than it is today.

As far as I am aware, all the Irish beef processers are privately-owned businesses. However, if it were the case that they were publicly-listed operations, the purchase of a few shares would seem like an attractive option… that’s assuming my predictions on the future shape of the UK beef market are valid.

The post UK beef prices could well take off over the next few years appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

In the meantime, the UK’s agricultural industry faces being eviscerated by a lack of meaningful support and risks being left increasingly vulnerable to the whims of an unstable, imbalanced world food market.

The UK government and the commission should be supporting sectors ‘of strength’ in UK agriculture; those that deliver added value; have clear standards set in international law; represent export opportunities; support rural jobs; and deliver environmental stewardship, such as organics – a proven system which is by and large overlooked in the report.

‘The platitudes presented start to unravel’

Sadly, on closer scrutiny, the platitudes presented start to unravel.

The report appears to support maintaining standards and liberalising trade through the reduction of tariffs, so long as the food imported is equivalent to UK standards.

However, it states the government is continuing to negotiate a number of free trade agreements, such as with New Zealand, Australia and the US.

That changing course with these negotiations would bring up challenges, so the aspiration to ensure imports are produced to an equivalent standard to the UK has to be a medium-to-long-term goal.

This is simply a case of ‘shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted’, given the US is one of the world’s largest agricultural exporters with wildly diverging standards – in some cases – to ourselves and shows how hollow the whole thing is.

It’s a thinly veiled attempt to suggest food import and export standards will be maintained in the longer-term.

By insisting UK farmers must maintain standards and compete globally without any trade protection appears to be throwing UK agriculture to the wolves.

By Roger Kerr, chief executive, Organic Farmers & Growers

The post Letter to the editor: TAC report ‘is a fig leaf for government to hide behind’ appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

My AHDB horticulture levy cheque is £20,000, which was more than our operating profit last year, that’s a lot from a family business operating in a sector where margins are around 1-2%.

And it’s money that, in many vegetable growers’ opinions, is not needed for the crop – this is based on my first-hand involvement on the Carrot R&D committee for the last 10 years.

Field vegetables is a mature sector with limited scope for academic and theoretical research.

‘A bizarre one-sided ballot campaign’

So we have just witnessed a bizarre one-sided AHDB horticulture ballot campaign with double page adverts backing “Yes” in all the trade press, together with direct mailshots to all voters about why to vote “Yes” and town hall meetings to endorse “Yes”.

This Putinesque media campaign was paid for by our own levy contributions.

Notwithstanding this, on Monday, my field vegetable growing colleagues and myself were delighted to discover that the levy paying electorate had voted 61% to 39% to end this punitive and unconstructive tax; however, the AHDB’s announcement immediately pointed out that, by re-weighting the votes [by levy contribution and amalgamated across sectors], then they could prove the opposite result. A fellow carrot grower remarked “I think they have been watching Trump”.

Clearly it is now time for the Growers and Grower Associations to take back control of our research programmes making them more relevant and more valuable.

We have the means to fund them autonomously. In this way we will show a commitment to the environment and food security through applied research.

It was always flawed to combine such a diverse range of crops and businesses under one autocratic organisation.

I commend to the farming minister to respect democracy, the letter of the vote and dissolve AHDB Horticulture and the punitive levy.

From Rodger Hobson, chairman of the British Carrot Growers Association.

The post Letter to the editor: It’s now time to ‘dissolve AHDB horticulture and punitive levy’ appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

The pitch from London will go as follows: we can deliver a wide range of financial and other services in return for whatever you would like to offer us in return.

Now, it so happens that the aforementioned countries constitute a pretty significant chunk of the world’s food production capacity.

Food imports

So when it comes to the UK finalising deals with these ‘new’ trading partners, the issue of food imports will be very much on the table.

But what has all this got to do with Ireland? Well, as it turns out; quite a lot. Britain is the destination for most of the beef and cheddar cheese produced on this island. It is also an extremely lucrative market for both of these commodities.

So can we look to a world in which cheap beef from Brazil and Australia, in tandem with chlorinated chicken from the United States and every imaginable form of dairy product from New Zealand, succeed in switching the lights out for every beef, dairy and poultry farmer in the UK and Ireland?

In theory, this could happen. However, China may be the reason for such a calamity not coming to pass.

China’s location

Let’s consider the geography associated with these various options. If the Chinese economy remains healthy and food demand in that country remains strong, it makes more sense for New Zealand to deal with Beijing, as opposed to London.

We are seeing evidence of this already. Currently, New Zealand is not filling its agreed lamb export quota to the EU, because it makes sense to put all of its available sheep meat in the direction of China. Prices there are strong and it’s a much closer market to service.

The same principle holds for Australian beef. No doubt the United States will up its food exports to China, once President Biden improves the mood music between Washington and Beijing.

Brazil is also supplying China with large tonnages of beef at the present time. But, I sense, the Brazilian beef industry would bite off its hand to get wider access to the UK market, whatever the number of hoops it had to jump through.

Post-Brexit

Ireland has every right to demand that Brussels puts clear ‘quality’ beef production standards in place when it comes to the EU agreeing a Mercosur trade deal. But in a post-Brexit world it can’t take the same approach with London.

So why not support the UK’s farming organisations to that end? The likes of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has already flagged up the need for a level playing field when it comes to the UK agreeing the management standards achieved in the production of the food imports that are included in future trade deals.

The reality is that the British farming unions, UK consumers and the likes of McDonald’s do not fear Irish beef. In fact, the opposite is the case.

But the spectre of beef from Brazil getting unfettered access to the British market is, no doubt, providing NFU president Minette Batters with more than the odd sleepless night at the present time.

I would have thought this fact alone would have given all the Irish farming organisations tremendous common ground to develop a strong, post-Brexit working relationship with their UK counterparts.

But this is only part of the solution when it comes to ensuring that the UK remains a premium market for Irish food.

In the new, post-Brexit world, there is a strong need for Bord Bia to communicate all that is good about beef, lamb, dairy and all the other exemplary food products produced in Ireland. And the clock is ticking!

The post China will control the tenor of the UK and global food markets appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

With Brexit now complete, I agree we need to position ourselves as international leaders, utilising the latest technology to keep British produce at the forefront of the global market.

We welcome genetic advancements in the seed sector. Elements having been embraced previously, with the introduction of Clearfield technology in oilseed rape (OSR) and specific disease resilience, such as Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus (BYDV) in wheat varieties.

What’s important to remember is advancements like gene editing are not about profiteering but rather providing an extra layer to the security and sustainability of food production.

With an ever-growing population, and additional influential factors on crop performance such as weather, which is out of the grower’s control, this advancement in technology will undoubtedly offer more protection against external influences.

Benefiting existing species

For our customers, we envisage this benefiting existing species, to better combat disease pressure, as well as providing new marketable opportunities.

As an industry, we’re striving for sustainable alternative protein sources and the use of gene editing in the future may enable UK growers to produce viable alternatives here on British soil, putting the UK agricultural industry at the cutting edge of sustainable food production.

Gene editing is certainly an exciting prospect, but still, we face questions on how this can work, and what this will mean at the farm gate.

For now, let’s embrace the fact that we’re looking to utilise technology and innovation, to maintain the UK’s position as a global leader in responsible and sustainable food production.

From Toby Reich, head of seeds, Wynnstay.

The post Letter to the editor: ‘Let’s embrace the fact that we’re looking to utilise technology’ in UK farming appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Coronavirus (Covid-19) has created a greater awareness amongst the public about how important farming and the local agri-food industry is to their daily well-being.

We are hopeful that once we come out the other side of this pandemic, government will rediscover the rationale for homegrown food production.

There is little doubt that prior to Covid-19, agriculture had taken a hit due to misrepresentations in the media and a lack of understanding from consumers about the vital role farmers play in society.

‘Covid-19 could change the way our country looks at food security’

However, the pandemic put our farmers in the spotlight for all the right reasons when they were recognised as key workers producing high-quality produce to feed the nation.

Covid-19 could change the way our country looks at food security and what it means in terms of maintaining and developing UK food production so we can become more self-sufficient.

From January 1, the UK not only needs to be able to compete against 27 European Union (EU) countries in our local food market, but it will also have global competition.

With that said, Brexit has presented opportunities that we must take advantage of too. It’s vital that the Ulster Farmers’ Union brings farmers together to look outwards, to understand the threats and embrace the opportunities that leaving the EU has given us.

Helping the UK define its post-Brexit food policy is one of the biggest opportunities that only comes around once in a generation.

The government needs to introduce policies that support the profitability and expansion of local food production within the UK.

In doing this, we need to consider how important food security is over free-market liberalism, how do standards and regulations protect and increase differentiation or lead to extra bureaucracy and cost?

To what extent should the Government lead, as they do in other countries, on investment in research, technology and science to help make the UK an efficient and a distinguished leader?

How do we acknowledge and reward the public service which farmers provide in protecting and preserving the countryside and maintain the vitality of country communities?

After defending its people, a Government’s next priority is to feed its people and these questions need to be answered to create a solid food policy that delivers for everyone.

Northern Ireland’s agriculture industry has proven that we can be a leader in the face of great political upheaval and increasing climate challenges.

‘The potential to be the supplier of choice for the UK’

We are a driving force within the NI economy, building food and farming’s contribution to over £1 billion and employing more than 40,000 people.

We have the potential to be the number one supplier of choice for the UK population – not just in retail but in relation to out-of-home eating as well.

We need to continue building on our world-leading reputation, to be ambitious and transparent. Now is the time for our farmers to promote their fantastic story like never before from the value we put on animal welfare and environmental protection to the great lengths we go to produce high-quality, nutritious food that we are proud off.

Over the next year, let’s make it a priority to show politicians, the supply chain and the public what they can gain from backing NI farming and from investing in its future.

I would like to wish everyone a peaceful, prosperous and blessed 2021 and urge farmers when working on-farm throughout the new year to make their safety a top priority.

Always take a moment to stop and think before working with livestock, slurry, machinery or from heights to ensure you are doing so in the safest way possible and if there are young children in the family, have preventative measures in place to help protect them from farm dangers.

Victor Chesnutt

Ulster Farmers’ Union president

The post Chestnutt: Let’s use 2021 to show what the public can gain from backing NI farming appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

However, he has also indicated that the Republic of Ireland would support the PGI being extended on an all-island basis, when a grass-fed verification system is in place in Northern Ireland.

This is a very positive development and behoves all stakeholder groups within Northern Ireland’s beef sector to come together and make PGI a tangible reality across the island. Research confirms that the bestowing of PGI status can lift producer returns within the sectors involved by up to 20%.

With a Brexit trade deal struck and the Northern Ireland Protocol kicking-in over the coming days, it makes sense to have the attainment of all island PGI status for Irish beef a priority for the early months of 2021.

Similarities across the border

The good news is that the beef industries on both parts of this island mirror each other, in terms of their structure. Suckler beef is critically important to both industries – as is grass utilisation.

In fact, McConalogue’s commitment to make PGI work on an all-island basis comes at a time when the pressure to have grass utilisation levels increased within Northern Ireland’s beef sector has never been greater.

A case in point is the ongoing CAFRE (College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise) trial work, looking at the sustainability of 24-month calf-to-beef. This work is already highlighting the critically important role which grazed grass must play within these systems.

The other factor that must be brought into play is the role of the farm quality assurance schemes, managed by the Livestock and Meat Commission (LMC) and Bord Bia.

Almost 100% of the clean cattle slaughtered in Northern Ireland are farm quality-assured. This fact alone should give Dublin and Brussels total assurance when it comes to assessing the management standards applied in the rearing of these animals.

It must also be pointed out that Northern Ireland’s beef industry has a BSE (commonly knowns as Mad Cow Disease) ‘negligible risk’ status. This was achieved back in 2017. On the back of this very positive development, the sector was deemed eligible to export beef to the USA earlier this year.

So it shouldn’t take a massive effort to gather up all the information that will be required to underpin a PGI ‘grass-fed beef’ application on behalf of Northern Ireland. The sooner this is done the better.

It strikes me that LMC is the organisation best placed to undertake this work. Farmer margins are pretty low within the beef sector, even at the best of times. So the case to get the PGI application over the line as soon as possible is pretty obvious.

The post The work to secure PGI status for beef from Northern Ireland must start now appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

There has been a sharper focus on provenance in recent years, both in relation to food standards and sustainability.

Following last week’s vote, British consumers will likely demand greater accountability and insight from producers and grocers from January onwards.

The UK already has some of the highest standards in animal welfare and environmental protection. It’s in the interests of stakeholders across the agricultural supply chain – from chemicals manufacturers, to product distributors and retailers – to not just maintain these standards, ensuring greater protections for consumers, but to enhance and expand traceability and the provenance of the food we eat.

All of us would benefit from greater collaboration and data transparency across the food network. The technology exists, all that has been missing is the impetus.

Ultimately, it will be increased consumer scrutiny that will drive this change, with visibility from seed to fork.  

From Graeme McCracken, managing director, Proagrica, Surrey

Agriculture Bill rejection

The Agriculture Bill was defeated in a vote in Westminster by MP’s on October 12.

MPs voted down Amendment 16 by 53 votes (322 votes to 279).

Farming organisations across the country reacted with dismay at the news as the Bill would have safeguarded animal welfare laws for food imports.

National Farmers’ Union (NFU) president Minette Batters said:

“Once again the Commons has debated the Agriculture Bill without any binding commitments on how to safeguard our farmers’ high standards of animal welfare and environmental protection in our trade policy.

The future of British food and farming is at stake. Without proper safeguards on future trade deals we risk seeing an increase in food imports that have been produced to standards that would be illegal here.

“I hope the Agriculture Bill returning to the House of Lords gives a new opportunity for the Lords to put forward an amendment that will give the Commission more teeth and enable MPs to have their say.”

The post Letter to the editor: Rejection of Agriculture Bill feels ‘out of step with both industry and public sentiment’ appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

A wide range of information, videos and advice has been provided across all media by NFU Scotland, the Farm Safety Foundation, SAYFC as well as HSE and others in an effort to consolidate and continue the welcome reduction in Scottish farm deaths and injuries recorded this year compared to last.

As Scottish farmers, we are justifiably proud of our industry and the farming methods we employ to supply top quality food produced to the highest standards and with great attention to the welfare of our livestock and care for the environment.

Unfortunately, our past record on health and safety shows we sometimes do not exercise the same care for ourselves and those around us.

Along with the rest of the UK, Scottish agriculture’s enviable reputation has been tarnished by the high incidence of accidental death and serious injury occurring on farms and crofts, leaving us with the worst safety record of any industry by a considerable margin.

A recent comment described agriculture as ‘the only industry in the UK which kills children in the workplace’ – a harsh and cruel statement and certainly not how we want to be perceived, but difficult to deny.

This is unacceptable and great efforts continue to be made to help us to improve our record. This seems to be having the desired effect. Ultimately, though, lasting improvement will only come about through a change of culture on the part of every individual working in the industry.

It is encouraging, therefore, and a credit to a great many farmers and farm staff, to see a reduction in the number of farm fatalities in Scotland this year compared to last, but let’s not fool ourselves. There is no room for complacency and still a long way to go if this improvement is to be sustained.

As SAYFC’s valuable contribution to Farm Safety Week shows, it seems likely that the younger generation’s more sensible approach to farm safety is a factor in the fall in Scottish farm deaths.

In contrast, the statistics show that those most likely to suffer accidental death or injury on-farm are self-employed older males – a category which includes me!

Many people on farms do take this subject very seriously, so in writing this column I’m uncomfortable and aware that I may seem unfair, soft or ‘holier than thou’ to some who, like me, have been going about their business relatively unscathed for years – even if that’s some times more by good luck than good judgement.

It’s very tempting to turn a blind eye, ignore the problem and avoid rocking the boat. It doesn’t help that I know I may have sometimes taken unnecessary risks or done things in an unsafe way out of habit, or to avoid spending money, but if we don’t change workplace injuries will continue to happen.

The harsh reality is accidents don’t just happen to ‘other people’, they can and do happen to the likes of you and me and that will continue if we don’t change.

It’s all too easy to think you are only responsible to yourself in taking a risk, especially if you’re self-employed, under stress or worried about costs, but if you are killed or injured you put an enormous and lasting burden on your family and those close to you.

We don’t have to look far on many farms, or in pictures in the press and on social media, to see examples of risky behaviour. We must recognise what is really important and take our heads out of the sand.

The immediate future may well prove a time of increased mental, physical and financial stress for many in farming because of the fallout from Covid 19, the uncertainty over trade deals, markets, future support and many other things.

Under that pressure, it’s all too easy to make mistakes, cut corners and take risks which may have tragic consequences. We owe it to ourselves to stop, think and keep things in proportion. We must take safety seriously and help others to do the same.

Let’s all do that and build on the improving trend we’ve seen this year.

NFU Scotland vice-president Charlie Adam

The post Farm Safety Week: ‘It’s hard to deny farming is the only UK industry which kills children in the workplace’ appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Indeed, during recent weeks, Boris Johnston’s strategy for the UK’s economic recovery from Covid-19 has been likened to Roosevelt’s New Deal [1933-1939] during the Great Depression in the US. The New Deal involved the idea of creating mass employment through giant infrastructure projects – thus spurring on job creation right across the nation.

‘New Deal’

The project ran for a period but wasn’t delivering, thereby prompting the government to re-examine what the real problem was; ‘experts’ said that it should have worked.

It took a Lurgan man – George William Russell – to tell Roosevelt that the problem was that he hadn’t put money in farmers’ pockets.

We believe that the current situation in the UK is no different. Northern Ireland has the opportunity to discuss legislation on farm-gate prices – an idea borne out of the Roosevelt-era experience – at high levels in Stormont.

We need everyone to encourage politicians to support and progress this. In Northern Ireland, farm-gate prices should – ultimately – deliver a minimum [for farmers] of the cost of production (inflation-linked) plus a margin at the farm-gate. 

We believe that discussions encompass a climate change mitigation clause. Farming needs this; it was agriculture and the Northern Irish agri-food industry that pulled us out of the recession caused by the banking crisis.

Covid-19 crisis

Yet again, during the Covid-19 crisis, family farmers have kept people fed when other industries ground to a halt.

Farmers and dwellers across rural Northern Ireland can do no more; nor can they continue without getting paid properly for what they produce.

Legislation on farm-gate prices is the only ‘show in town’ to deliver fairness at the farm-gate – to protect our interests against growing corporate juggernauts like Tesco.

Please encourage – by phoning, texting or emailing – your local member of the legislative assembly to support such legislation…to help Northern Ireland to flourish.

For long enough, consumers and farmers alike have been asking why primary producers can’t be paid adequately for their produce. It’s time for change at the farm-gate.

From William Taylor, Coleraine, Northern Ireland, Farmers For Action

The post Letter to the editor: ‘New Deal’ – from the Great Depression – needed for NI farming appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Life on Northern Ireland’s farms is not getting any easier, as Covid-19 tightens its grip. Nevertheless, credit must go to front-line NHS [National Health Service] workers, carers and all of the cleaning staff trying to fight this invisible enemy – with every ounce of dedication and commitment they have.

Down on the farm nature waits for nobody; lambs and calves are born; spring work in the fields is in full swing…and must be done to establish new crops and tend to crops already growing in the ground.

The NHS is bringing retired doctors and nurses back to work, which is great to witness in an emergency such as this.

However, in the farming world, our over-55s would have never retired in the first place. The average age of a farmer in the UK is now approximately 58 years-of-age.

‘People have to eat to live’

These individuals, their families and their staff put vast quantities of food on our tables – on a daily basis. A few of the older ones – still at work – started off with horses and milking their cows by hand.

They have many stories to tell and many experiences to share…to a dwindling number of young farmers. One such lesson is that: People have to eat to live; therefore, food will always be needed and should never be taken for granted.

However, just like the Second World War, farmers across Northern Ireland are finding it hard to purchase daily farm necessities – such as repair services. Moreover, many of their local livestock markets [marts] have closed – leading to additional cash-flow problems.

As always, farmers are resilient. However, their families and workforce are also vulnerable to Covid-19 – as the evidence of new cases bears out. They, too, need staff to replace them; nature doesn’t wait!

The problem is; they are finding it difficult to recruit and pay staff of the right calibre – people that are capable of attending to robotic milking parlours; people that are able to operate modern tractors with computerised controls; people with the ability to spot a sick animal across a field; and so on.

Nor should we forget the haulage industry, which – amidst Covid-19 – collects milk from dairy farms for our kitchen tables. They, too, are trying to carry on amidst staff shortages. An army of hauliers and drivers move our food each day.

‘Hats off to farmers’

Food and drink – whether destined for a fork, spoon or cup – is the gift that farmers deliver to the masses 24/7; 365 days a year, while an NHS army tends to those who are sick. We must take our hats off to all of these people!

From William Taylor, Farmers For Action, Northern Ireland

The post Letter to the editor: ‘Our over-55 farmers would have never retired in the first place’ appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

As a nation, we are facing the biggest health crisis we’ve seen for generations.

The worry, stress and changes that we’ve all had to endure over recent weeks have been difficult. There should be no doubt that there will be more challenges ahead.

In the midst of these challenges, I want to say a heartfelt thank you and pay tribute to everyone working so hard to keep food on our tables.

‘Now we fully grasp…’

In the past, people may not have realised the work and effort needed to fill our cupboards and stock the shelves, but now all of us fully grasp the complex, high-quality and dedicated supply chain that lies behind our favourite foods.

While some people are unable to go to work for a range of reasons, many of you are working on farms, on production lines, transporting produce, working in our greengrocers, butchers and supermarkets…and you are working harder than ever to feed the nation.

You’ve adjusted the way you work, responded to major changes in demand and transformed your systems to ensure food is produced and to ensure that supplies keep moving.

You are feeding our vital hospital staff and their patients; our elderly relatives in care and residential homes; our children; and some of the most vulnerable people in society who are reliant on food banks and voluntary food deliverers.

While people all rightly recognise the health service heroes, who are looking after us in our time of need, I must also recognise and applaud you. Some might say that you are the unsung heroes, but I can see clearly – and I fully understand – the contribution you are making to the fight against Covid-19.

‘Helpful conversations…’

In my department, all of us continue to listen and will support you as much as we can. We are in regular contact with agri-food industry stakeholders; we’ve had really helpful conversations about pressure points and solutions to emerging issues.

We’ve also undertaken a range of actions to free up the food industry – to be more flexible to keep up with demand.

There’s a need to continually come up with new solutions and answers to questions never considered previously. We face a fast-paced, unfamiliar and invisible enemy – but we face it together.

I am immensely proud of the grit and determination of all those involved in our food supply chain to keep food moving and to keep our country fed. People everywhere owe you an immense debt of gratitude.

The post Opinion: ‘We face a fast-paced, unfamiliar and invisible enemy – but we face it together’ appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

In a special guest column for AgriLand, Jason McMinn of FarmGate Consultancy reflects on how the costs of milk production compare with milk pricing over what has been a difficult year for the industry. He writes:

This year (2019) has been a difficult year for many dairy farmers in NI. Our average clients’ break-even milk price (27.8p) is above the actual milk price this year (around 27p).

Many of the costs (wages, contracting, workers pensions) will not come down again, and other costs are ticking upwards all the time (for example, drugs, hardware, vaccines etc.).

With so much talk about milk prices and pricing, I looked into our average fat and protein and milk prices compared to other European areas. Graph 1 (below) shows that we are well behind in terms of milk solids % constituents.

Source: Eurostat and Daera

When we look at this graph we can see that our processors are paying fairly competitively for milk on a per kg solids basis, as we were slightly ahead of ROI and Belgium in 2018, and just behind Holland and Germany.

Milk solids are what we export in the form of powder, butter and cheese, not litres.

Our problem is that we have been concentrating for the last generation on producing more litres, and we now find ourselves as an industry taking a milk price which is below the break-even point of 27.8p/L (all costs, drawings, tax and bank/hp payments included).

Costs are rising all the time, and many dairy farmers have no further room for expansion.

The implications that this has for milk processors in NI is that their suppliers are on structurally lower prices than other regions in Europe. Over time this leaves our local dairy industry less competitive, which is worrying. This should cause concern amongst our milk processors.

This is why I, and others, have been calling for a change to solids-based pricing. The new payments may not be A+B-C, but the price increments for Fat and Protein need to be market-linked, and not based on an old model which was devised when milk price was 18p-20p on average.

Give our farmers the signal to produce higher milk solids and they will respond. In the South, they have increased from 3.83% fat and 3.33% protein to 4.1% fat and 3.58% protein in 10 years.

This is the way to add value to our milk pool as an industry. Marginal litres has been the strategy for many years, but with feed price/kg being so close to the milk price/L (known as the feed price to milk price ratio), it is doubtful whether marginal litres are delivering extra profit at current base prices.

Source Eurostat

The post Top NI dairy advisor calls for move to milk solids based pricing appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Given the scope of the COP24 agreement recently secured by the United Nations (UN), dealing with the fast-changing demands on how the world produces its food will be the real nut to crack for farmers as they plan ahead.

Worryingly, the UN is calling for a move away from animal-based food production systems. 

This is a policy shift that does not fit in with the production model followed in the UK, given our farmers’ strong reliance on beef, dairy, poultry, pig and lamb production options.

But, at the same time, it’s far from bad news, given our reliance on grass-based systems. In fact, it could be argued that we have always hidden our light under a bushel, where this is concerned.

The reality is that long-term pasture represents a ‘carbon sink’ of immense proportions.

However, I am now certain that we will have to tell the world just how good our grass-based production model really is, from a climate change perspective, if we want to continue on as is – where farming is concerned.

The other reality, of course, is that we do not have an alternative to grass. It is our greatest asset and one that we must develop further over the coming years. All the research shows just how much we can add to the value of our farming output, simply by making better use of grass and silage.

All of this can be achieved in ways that do not in any way compromise the targets set within the latest climate change recommendations from the UN.

But, unless we tell the world this is actually the case, our cause could be lost amide the general clamour that will surely follow to put further pressure on animal-based production systems.

Production agriculture employs many thousands of people right across the UK. Moreover, the sector underpins the entire food processing industry, another key component of the economy.

There is too much to risk by not actively participating in the climate change debate. And the time to start arguing these points is now, not in a decade’s time when the horse has bolted and the real decisions on how the world reacts to global warming have already been taken.

The post Is the climate change debate heading in the wrong direction for UK agriculture? appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

The belief is that such an approach would benefit the suckler beef sector.

But surely all the research and development work carried out to date indicates that a Friesian bullock will produce as much saleable meat as a prime suckler-bred steer on a weight-for-weight basis.

Consequently, the current pricing system operated by all of the factories favours the bespoke, beef-bred animal because of its inherently better shape.

I am all for supporting the suckler industry. It has a proven track record in keeping production agriculture a way-of-life in myriad rural areas across the country. Undoubtedly, the bolstering of prices paid for suckler-bred stock is much needed.

But, will it help prevent the haemorrhaging of suckler cows that is currently taking place in this part of the world? I doubt it.

Beef, no matter how good its quality, is treated as a commodity product. And this reality places a ceiling on what the market can deliver.

EU Farm Commissioner Phil Hogan has been talking about the need for greater transparency within the agri-food chain and getting more money back to the primary producer.

But, so far, we have seen no real action on the ground. And I sense this is because every member state within the EU is committed to a cheap food policy.

Moreover, the European supermarkets bring tremendous political influence to bear when it comes to them running their businesses. They see give-away food prices as a core driver of footfall into their shops. And they are unlikely to change their view on the matter.

What’s needed to keep suckler beef production a viable, mainstream production option across the UK is a support package that really reflects the needs of those farmers involved within the sector and, what’s more, fully recognises the public good they engender.

And there are serious problems coming down the track, where this issue is concerned. The UK’s departure from Europe puts a real question mark on the support systems that will be put in place for the industry as a whole, never mind the beef sector.

So the real challenge now facing all of our farming organisations is that of coming up with detailed proposals on how support measures for suckler beef production can be ring-fenced, or even increased.

If London fails to move on this issue at a national level, beyond Brexit, its significance is so important for agri-food as a whole across the UK that the scope to introduce tailored, regional support measures should be called for.

The post Paying for cattle on the basis of meat yield just doesn’t stack up appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

So here’s the fundamental question: Why is it necessary to import cattle from countries like France? The continent is rife with animal diseases that we don’t need, as the recent Bluetongue debacle has, once again, confirmed.

If we want to improve the genetic potential status of our cattle and other livestock species, then surely the route to go down is either the greater use of artificial insemination (AI) or embryo transfer.

As far as I am aware both techniques come with the clear re-assurance that they do not spread animal diseases. If anything, they act to improve the animal health status of our livestock population.

As a region with a fast-growing food export sector, the United Kingdom (UK) must be ‘squeaky clean’ when it comes to the animal health and disease status declared by the country while doing business with other parts of the world.

All it takes is a sustained outbreak of a disease, such as Foot-and-mouth or Bluetongue, to knock the country’s hard-earned animal health reputation for six.

Despite this week’s developments, the UK remains officially free of Bluetongue. But who know what impact the confirmed disease outbreak – albeit in a single, imported animal – might have on the country’s food export opportunities further down the line?

Securing the business

One potential upside of Brexit is that it will give the authorities across the UK the opportunity to legislate on the terms and conditions under which live animals are imported into this part of the world.

In cases where pedigree breeders can make an argument for the importation of live animals, then this must go hand-in-hand with the introduction of a quarantine arrangement, which an independent body would manage.

Moreover, importers would be expected to pay for all the costs associated with the quarantine and testing arrangements put in place.

For Brexit to work, food processing businesses around the UK will want to export their produce to countries in many other parts of the world.

It would be catastrophic for the economy as a whole if they could not secure this business because of an inadequate animal health status.

Recent confirmation of Bluetongue in a heifer imported from France should act as a warning for the entire livestock industry. Importing live animals from abroad is playing with fire. And, if we are not careful, some day we will get more than our fingers burnt.

The post Bluetongue is the last problem we need appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

If our soils are not kept in optimal condition, then we can say goodbye to any hope of feeding the world’s fast-growing population into the future.

Farmers often get criticised for not managing soils in a sustainable manner. For me, however, this is a case of total misconception.

The reality is that farmers should be praised for doing such a good job in managing our soils sustainably, given the continuing pressure put on them to produce unending quantities of cheap food.

Every farmer worth his or her salt knows that proper soil management must go to the very heart of their business plans. If they fail to address this core issue, then they have no future.

Hard experiences garnered over many centuries have taught farmers this very salutary lesson.

‘Min-Till’ Cultivation

The first people to grow crops were the Garamantes in what was modern day Libya.

They harnessed the idea of cultivating plants for food producing purposes but fell foul of the problems caused by the continuing erosion of their soils.

Flash forward to the 20th century and farmers in the US got caught in the same way – the end result being the Oklahoma Dust Bowl.

So yes, farmers do have prior form when it comes to the mismanagement of their soils. But one should also point out that they have always been able to learn from their mistakes. For example, the Dust Bowl experience created the impetus for what we know today as ‘min-till’ cultivation.

A Finite Resource

Our land is a finite resource. Looking around the world today, it is not soil mismanagement that is causing the genuine concern that exists regarding our potential to grow food on a sustainable basis for the future.

Rather, it is the ever-increasing rate at which developers continue to build on prime agricultural land. Once this resource is taken away from us, it can never be replaced.

Sustainable intensification was a phrase coined by Ireland’s former farm minister Simon Coveney as he chaired the negotiations that led to the settlement of the last Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform package.

In essence, this means achieving higher crop yields in ways that nurture the future sustainability of our soils.

Farmers are more than happy to buy into this principle. But it comes at a price, one which consumers around the world will have to pay. The days of cheap food are over. Farmers cannot be expected to work for nothing.

The post Farmers are the true custodians of the soil appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

If our soils are not kept in optimal condition, then we can say goodbye to any hope of feeding the world’s fast-growing population into the future.

Farmers often get criticised for not managing soils in a sustainable manner. For me, however, this is a case of total misconception.

The reality is that farmers should be praised for doing such a good job in managing our soils sustainably, given the continuing pressure put on them to produce unending quantities of cheap food.

Every farmer worth his or her salt knows that proper soil management must go to the very heart of their business plans. If they fail to address this core issue, then they have no future.

Hard experiences garnered over many centuries have taught farmers this very salutary lesson.

‘Min-till’ cultivation

The first people to grow crops were the Garamantes in what was modern day Libya.

They harnessed the idea of cultivating plants for food producing purposes but fell foul of the problems caused by the continuing erosion of their soils.

Flash forward to the 20th century and farmers in the US got caught in the same way – the end result being the Oklahoma Dust Bowl.

So yes, farmers do have prior form when it comes to the mismanagement of their soils. But one should also point out that they have always been able to learn from their mistakes.  For example, the Dust Bowl experience created the impetus for what we know today as ‘min-till’ cultivation.

A finite resource

Our land is a finite resource. Looking around the world today, it is not soil mismanagement that is causing the genuine concern that exists regarding our potential to grow food on a sustainable basis for the future.

Rather, it is the ever-increasing rate at which developers continue to build on prime agricultural land. Once this resource is taken away from us, it can never be replaced.  

Sustainable intensification was a phrase coined by Ireland’s former farm minister Simon Coveney as he chaired the negotiations that led to the settlement of the last Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform package.

In essence, this means achieving higher crop yields in ways that nurture the future sustainability of our soils.

Farmers are more than happy to buy into this principle. But it comes at a price, one which consumers around the world will have to pay. The days of cheap food are over. Farmers cannot be expected to work for nothing.

The post Farmers are the true custodians of the soil appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

But beyond all of this, the establishment of these new trade links with India is further confirmation that the farm quality assurance schemes, which flockowners throughout the UK fully commit to, are working to help the sheep industry here secure the new markets it needs to guarantee its future sustainability.

But the home market must never be overlooked.

Recent press reports highlighting the fact that lamb consumption levels in some parts of the UK languish behind other meats are worthy of comment. In the first instance, headlines can be totally misleading.

The reality remains that British sheep farmers produce, possibly, the best lamb in the world. It is a meat produced almost completely from grazed grass, making it a consumer’s dream.

UK-produced lamb ticks every box. Exquisite taste and quality are guaranteed, traits that are further embellished by the traceability, welfare and other guarantees provided for courtesy of the various farm quality assurance schemes.

As it turns out, lamb is one of the most versatile meats that we can enjoy. Nutritionally, it contains all the mineral and vitamins we need. Research has confirmed that lamb is an excellent source of high-quality protein.

It is also an ideal source of iron. An average portion can provide 20% of the recommended daily intake for men and 12% for women.

Significantly, the iron found in lamb is in a form that is easily absorbed by the body. Lamb can also provide 45% of the daily requirement of zinc plus trace elements, including copper, manganese and selenium.

And, of course, the meat can be prepared for the table in many ways. Lamb mince, for example, is delicious and can be included in a host of different dishes.

There is tremendous support for locally-produced food right across the UK. And this sentiment is likely to gain further momentum.

The good news is that the sheep industry has a tremendously positive story to tell. And, no doubt, this message will sink home with British consumers to an even greater extent during the period ahead.

The post India is turning out to be a good news story for the UK’s sheep industry appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

A case in point is the fact that large numbers of locally-produced cattle present with significant liver fluke infestations at time of slaughter.

It immediately struck me that problems of this nature represent a genuine welfare problem for the livestock industry.

But more than that, they will lead to significant reductions in daily growth rates, while also predisposing the affected cattle to a host of disease challenges.

It’s now evident that British farmers are sitting on a mountain of animal disease and health-related challenges.

Most of the time these issues are ticking along in the background, not visible to the naked eye. But every now and then factors kick-in to bring these matters to the forefront of farmers’ minds.

For example, if something happens to increase the stress levels encountered by animals in any way, their ability to defend off disease just melts away. And the end result is carnage.

The other reality which livestock farmers will have to accept is that the days of using antibiotics as a convenient get-out-of-jail card when treating sick animals are fast coming to an end. The real game afoot for the future is that of ensuring that animals do not become ill in the first place.

Dr. Georgina Crayford, a senior policy advisor with the UK’s National Pig Association, claims that it will take a fundamental mindset change to get farmers weaned off the use of anti-microbials.

She points to the need for pig farmers to significantly improve hygiene standards while also ensuring that animal stress levels are kept low at all times within pig units. She also stressed the need for disease prevention to be the number one management for producers, as they look to the future.

All of this made perfect sense to me. And, no doubt, the same principles hold for all the other livestock sectors in this part of the world.

There is universal recognition to the effect that farmers must become more efficient.

I used to think that preparing a farm animal health plan was a cosmetic exercise, required only for the purposes of a quality assurance inspection.

That was then. I now believe that putting preventative health measures in place must be the over-arching principle for every livestock farmers.

Healthy animals really are the key to securing meaningful production gains for the future.

The post Preventing animal disease is the next frontier for agriculture in the UK appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

And it’s a very simple one, encapsulated in the very direct question: Where’s the money?

Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson gave the game away, courtesy of his recent speech to the Democratic Unionist Party’s (DUP’s) annual conference in Belfast.

On two occasions during his presentation he made it perfectly clear that the UK will be seeking trade deals with countries around the world that will help ensure a copious supply of cheap food for the direct benefit of British consumers.

One thing British farmers can’t do is produce cheap food. But the farming sector has an amazing track record in producing food of the highest quality. And this comes at a price.

Consumers can’t have it every way. If they want wholesome food with full traceability, they will have to pay for it. This can happen in one of two ways: either through the till at the supermarket; or courtesy of the tax monies allocated to support production agriculture.

The retailers will always act to ensure that they are seen as purveyors of cheap food. This then leaves the farm support route as the option to guarantee the future sustainability of agriculture in the UK.

Clearly, this is a message that must be delivered by the NFU to Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) Secretary Michael Gove MP. And the clock is ticking.

I have always had a problem with the fact that the department of government, which deals directly with farmers, does not have the word ‘agriculture’ in its title.

This state-of-affairs has always left me with the impression that Westminster does not put production agriculture high up its list of strategic priorities.

It’s interesting that political developments of recent weeks have brought the issue of food security to the fore as a clear media focus. Dare I suggest that the NFU use this opportunity to ram home the clear message that farmers must be supported effectively in a post-Brexit world?

And simply accepting a finding package that might be on a par with what’s available from the EU at the present time isn’t good enough.

Given the challenges coming down the track for British agriculture, the future funding levels made available to the industry must be at least a clear measure beyond where we are at the moment. Put it this way, a combination of Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the US could flood the UK with cheap food of all sorts in a heartbeat.

Given the potential impact of this scenario, farming in the UK will need all the support it can muster from Whitehall.

The post NFU has gotten its principles all wrong appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

The past number of years have seen the UK’s farming industry receive some good news courtesy of European Union’s PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) status.

But the agri food sector must now push on and convert all this potential into ‘fruitful’ reality for farmers and growers.

This means that every facet of our society – including the public sector – must be made totally aware of the quality produce available on their doorstep.

The sums are quite simple. More and more people across the UK are eating out. In turn local restaurateurs are committed to sourcing high-quality food, which they can serve to an increasingly discerning public.

Significantly, the margins that can be realised by farmers servicing the hospitality and catering sectors are realistic – provided the quality of the produce on offer is consistently good.

In the US consumers are already spending half of their annual food budgets eating out and the prospects are that the UK will following suit over the next five to 10 years.

Add in the fact that visitor numbers to this part of the world are increasing and one can project with a degree of certainty that the catering industry will continue to expand.

The response at farmer level should make the various farm quality assurance schemes more meaningful. It will also see farmers producing new and novel crops for which there is a strong demand and which can be grown successfully under local conditions.

And then there’s the public sector. It spends vast sums of money on food procurement.

Three years ago, the UK Government announced a major review of the way food and catering services are purchased by public bodies.

Since then the review has been looking at whether small and medium-sized producers are being given a fair chance to compete for contracts with public sector bodies such as schools, hospitals and prisons.

The investigation was stimulated, in part, by claims from Prince Charles that many publicly-funded organisations are not buying enough British produce.

But, unfortunately, the situation remains that there is a lower proportion of locally produced food bought in public sector contracts than is the case on the High Street. 

Over the years, government ministers have not been slow in projecting that local farmers will get a fairer crack of the whip when it comes to the procurement of food by public bodies. It’s about time that some of these predictions started coming true.

The post It really is time to support home-grown produce appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

And this is particularly the case, where beef and lamb are concerned.

No other group is as dependent on the current EU’s influence as are livestock producers. Moreover, these farmers – for the most part – operate within management cycles that are up to four years’ long.

For example, it will take a minimum of three years for a beef calf conceived now to reach maturity as a beef animal. And, on many farms, this period could be stretched out to a full four years.

In the meantime, the UK is moving ever closer to the leaving the EU on March 29. Given this backdrop, the need to provide future certainty for livestock farmers now is obvious.

There is little doubt that the basic payment system of support, as we know it today, will fall by the wayside – once London takes over policy regulation.

But the core priority that must not be overlooked is the actual level of financial support that must be made available to the beef and sheep industries. It’s all about keeping these sectors on a sustainable footing.

Currently, the vast bulk of the profits generated by beef and sheep farmers are accounted for by the direct payments made available from Brussels.

There is no certainty at all concerning the future of food commodity prices in the UK, once we leave the EU. They could go up. But equally, they could move in the opposite direction.

This is why it is so important for farmer funding levels to be maintained at current levels, once Brexit becomes reality.

There is also a need for Whitehall to prioritise the fundamental importance of family farms in regions like Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The other reality that must be recognised is the fact that our beef and sheep output underpins a food processing industry that pumps billions into the UK economy, while also employing many thousands of people.

Beef and sheep in the UK have a lot going for them. The Red Tractor farm quality assurance scheme is helping to drive export sales at the present time. This must be built on for the future.

Many people point to the prospect of British agriculture restructuring itself over the coming years. But beef and sheep farmers must be given the time and scope to allow this happen in a smooth and acceptable fashion.

This is why it is so important for the current support levels for livestock farmers to be maintained well into the future.

In my opinion, the UK Government has taken far too long on settling its Brexit policy objectives. But now that the matter looks like coming to a head, the clear need to agree long-term policy priorities for beef and sheep becomes very obvious.

The post Beef and sheep farmers need Brexit certainty now appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

The run-up to Christmas is traditionally a time when the various regions of the UK host their respective winter dairy fairs.

The English and Welsh have already held their events while Northern Ireland is gearing up for its big day out later this month.

One common theme that can be identified from all these get-togethers is the tremendous optimism that exists within the milk sector at the present time.

Despite all the talk of Brexit, dairy farmers across the UK continue to invest heavily in the future of their businesses.

They are meeting the challenge of volatility – a factor that has so badly hampered their sector in the past – with a combination of resilience, the recognition that new technologies can help drive efficiency within their businesses and the common sense to realise that fixed price supply contracts are the future.

Helping the cause of dairy farmers has been the approach taken by the banks. It is one that recognises the tremendous potential of the milk industry moving forward.

The world has woken up to the tremendous boost which dairy proteins and fats can contribute to everyone’s diet.

And with the global population set to rise inexorably over the next number of years, the prospect of dairy demand rising at comparable levels should give every milk producer and processer in the UK great cause for confidence in the future of their businesses.

So much for the good news. The only downside to this glowing scenario is the UK government’s continuing commitment to a cheap food policy.

I am deeply concerned that post-Brexit London will push to secure trade deals with the likes of New Zealand, the United States, Australia, Canada and Brazil. These are among the world’s food superpowers.

If given the chance, they could swamp the UK with produce at prices which farmers in this part of the world could not compete with. And this is not because UK farmers are not good at their jobs. The exact opposite is actually the case.

However, UK farmers are severely hampered by the fact that excessive bureaucracy remains a critical challenge for them, an issue that tends not to confront food producers in many other parts of the world.

In these circumstances, it’s up to the UK supermarkets to demonstrate loyalty to those farmers and food companies on their doorstep. Red Tractor must be the farm quality assurance mark that makes a genuine difference when it comes to retailers paying a realistic price for food.

And the supermarkets must also play a key role in telling consumers about the exemplary quality of the food that is produced in all regions of the UK.

If all of these ducks were placed in a row then could genuinely arrive at a win-win scenario for farmers, food processors and consumers.

Just think of what a powerhouse the rural economy would be for the country as a whole under those circumstances.

The post Dairy fairs are a winter wonderland for milk producers appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

These are astonishing figures, given that the rural economy will be hardest hit by any Brexit deal that is finally arrived at between London and Brussels.

As far as agriculture is concerned, the worst of all outcomes will be a ‘no-deal’ scenario.

Under these circumstances, the farming and food businesses that underpin so many rural areas will immediately find themselves facing stringent World Trade Organisation (WTO) tariffs, should they wish to wish to export their produce beyond March 29.

Equally, the communities in these regions tend to vote Conservative, which makes it so surprising that so many Tory Members of Parliament want to vote the Prime Minister’s Brexit agreement down.

We live in very strange times. All the economic predictions published over recent days point to a cataclysmic impact concerning a no-deal Brexit.

Those who oppose Mrs. May’s plans continue to tell us that alternatives do exist. However, we have yet to hear these options fully fleshed out.

For his part, the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker says that the current deal is the only one on the table. No re-negotiation of its fundamental tenets will be considered. And I believe him.

With all the hullaballoo created by the Brexit negotiations, it seems to have been over looked that the EU would never contemplate giving the UK a final deal that puts it in a better trading position with its European neighbours than is currently the case.

After all, if you leave the club and are no longer paying the membership fee, then there have to be consequences.

Let’s not forget that it was London who told Brussels to ‘Foxtrot Oscar.’ And, no doubt, this has been a hard pill for the bureaucrats that drive the entire EU project to swallow.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has been on the road over the past few days, extolling his vision of a UK free from the ‘controlling influence’ of Brussels.

In his speech to the DUP party annual conference in Belfast last Saturday, he twice mentioned the principle of free trade and cheap food for UK consumers…in almost the same breath.

Surely this is a message which UK farmers neither want, nor need, to hear.

But let me come back to the fundamental point made at the top of this piece. Rural businesses across the UK are totally unprepared for Brexit.

What they need is some form of a transition period in order to get their house in order. And, from what I can see, there is only one plan on the table right now offering this option.

The post ‘Guess what, rural businesses are totally unprepared for Brexit – but can’t blame them’ appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.

Throw in the additional challenges of market volatility increasing costs and ever-tightening bureaucratic requirements and one is left with the fundamental question: who would want to be a farmer in this day and age?

The real villains in this piece are, of course, the supermarkets.

There seems no end to their influence and power they can exert when it comes to keeping retail food prices at what can only be regarded as artificially low prices.

Yes, there has been some stability in milk prices over the past few months. However, milk producers need every extra penny they can get, in order to pay back the high debt levels that have amassed within that particular sector over the past number of years.

Prior to the last two general elections, the Conservative party promised to appoint a supermarket ombudsman, with the full authority to inquire into the buying practices of the multiple food retailers.

And, of course, we have also had similar views expressed repeatedly by EU Farm Commissioner Phil Hogan.  However, in the light of the recent inflation figures, the appointment of this person could not come fast enough.

Everyone says that there must be greater balance brought to bear with the farming and food chain.

As things stand, it is farmers who are doing all the heavy lifting and getting bugger all back in the form of genuine compensation for their efforts.

This situation must be changed. And the clock is ticking.

The reality is that all the input costs incurred by farmers – particularly feed, fertiliser and fuel – have increased dramatically, in real terms, over the past number of years.  However, the same trends cannot be identified when it comes to retail food prices.

Farmers produce the one commodity which we all need to survive – food. As businessmen, they are aware of the fundamental rule of economics: supply and demand will dictate prices.

However, when it comes to retail food prices in the UK, this law seems to break down.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that undue influence is being brought to bear at the top end of the agri-food production and sales chain – to the total detriment of primary producers.

And it will take a fully-empowered ombudsman to find out where the problems lie and how they can be fixed.

The post Government must appoint a food ombudsman with real teeth appeared first on Agriland.co.uk.