Title: R&D and stance on EU membership are vital
to prevent us blundering into a dark future
The biggest issues facing us as farmers concern competing in
the volatile world market, availability of crop protection products and
building sustainability into our businesses. Producing grain and other products
at a price to compete globally is tough, and in order to do so we need access
to technology, we need to improve profitability and we need to build organic
matter into our soils. For those of us with blackgrass, we need to manage
grassweeds much better than we are.
We are also facing a lot of uncertainty over our membership
of the EU and CAP; what is our domestic agricultural policy if we leave the EU?
We must know to plan for the future. And, on a macro scale, we are potentially
farming in a world with more extreme weather events in store.
An added need – and responsibility – is to keep the general
public on side so that we can talk – and ensure higher food prices. It is a
must for our industry going forward. Linked to this, it’s our responsibility to
demonstrate that we can produce food with care – farming and wildlife can, and
do, go hand-in-hand.
Looking ahead, my ambition is to farm more acres, but not at
unsustainable rents. If I could rent or buy land locally within my reach, I
would.
Precision tools are a part of the future for me – we have fairly
standard systems like guidance on the two tractors, yield mapping on the
combine and have also made the very recent move to auto section control on the
sprayer. In terms of renewables, we have solar PV panels on the shed rooves.
Soils are a key area of focus for me going forward – we have
soil audits carried out by Soil Fertility Services. The results show what
nutrients are available or locked up in a great amount of detail compared to
the standard availability tests on the market. This information has been
invaluable in helping me plan fertiliser, manure and organic matter
applications.
Industry R&D is absolutely vital as farmers gear for the
future and keep pace with other parts of the world – we are already way behind
in my humble opinion. With an even smaller number of crop protection products
available to us, and with the wheat yield plateauing – we are blundering into a
dark future. Also, it would be great to research better understanding of crops
with more vigour and scavenging ability – maybe we need to do more to exploring
wild relatives in our heritage seedbanks.
As farmers we need to have very close ties to people doing
the R&D, it’s a two-way dialogue that must take place for each party to
understand the problems encountered by the developer and the user. The bright
light will be when R&D results are implemented – Agri-Tech strategy is a
really good example of this.
I’d like to see more work on targeted spray applications –
to minimise the impact on non-target areas. Also, I’d love to see the
development of anything that makes it easier to remotely monitor disease
pressure in crops. The list of what I want is endless, and I haven’t mentioned
blackgrass yet!
I really believe that the future us bright for British
farmers, but this will not be without some radical ‘out of the box’ thinking –
and there will be casualties along the way; but food and energy will always be
needed.
CropTec 2015:
Want to find out more about solutions for successful spraying, R&D and the latest innovation and technology? make sure to visit CropTec 2015.
In addition to the free advice on offer in our topical and technical seminars, there will be numerous exhibitors you can talk. We have introduced a new Spraying Technology Hub area of CropTec which is designed to help you boost yields further and reduce those all important unit costs of production
To encourage knowledge exchange among the British farming community further, this year’s event is FREE for farmers to attend. You MUST pre-register online to ensure you receive your free place.
General pre-registered admission: £12, all visitors will charged £15 on the gate on the day of the event.
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