With this week’s critical Parliamentary vote against the Agriculture Bill amendment, a challenging growing season and harvest, plus a global pandemic influencing shoppers and their buying habits alongside the continued debate around climate instability and biodiversity loss, farm businesses are in a potentially precarious position economically and ecologically.

After a truly fantastic September that felt more like May, the seasons have definitely changed here in Dorset.

The British Farming Awards will take place tonight (October 21) at 7:30pm. For the first time ever the awards will be hosted virtually due to Covid-19 restrictions. 

Looking for a more capable loader tractor with greater visibility to suit traditional livestock buildings, one Somerset farm opted for Claas’ Arion 400 Series, complete with panoramic cab option. Geoff Ashcroft reports.

This month’s column takes the the form of an open letter to MP Lucy Frazer, who represents south east Cambridgeshire.

Martha Hayes, 24, is manager of media and communications at Innovation for Agriculture, which she does alongside running her herd of Lincoln Red cattle and helping out with the family farm in Lincolnshire.

Defra’s new Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme must stop the uplands from being destocked and wilded by stealth, says Phil Stocker, chief executive of the National Sheep Association.

Farming is a resilient industry, but there is still much work to do on issues such as export certificates, trade deals and future policy to prepare us for Brexit, says Matt Legge, a sheep, beef and pig farmer from the Isle of Wight.

Farmers already do so much to preserve our countryside, and there is more they can do, but they must be given the tools they need by Government, says High Peak Conservative MP Robert Largan.

A useful discipline to maximise the probability of your farm business surviving the next 10 years is to make some safe, though unpalatable, assumptions, then plan accordingly.