Arable

The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has confirmed that more than 3,800 bridging payments worth around £43 million have been successfully made to farmers and land managers.

We have seldom seen such diverse growth stages across our spring crops, much within individual fields. Especially where we have still had no meaningful rain.

TV chef Jamie Oliver has issued an impassioned plea to the Prime Minister not to undermine the UK’s high food production standards with cheap imports from the USA.

North East MSP Mike Rumbles has called for changes to be made to the Scottish Agriculture Bill to limit Ministers’ power over future policy.

As I write, it feels like the calm before the storm. Usually around this time we would be flat out with T2’s on wheat, but that will not take long this year and we are now playing a waiting game for the spring cereals.

NFU Cymru president John Davies has called on the Welsh Government to pause and review its work on post-Brexit policy as the coronavirus pandemic continues.

A physiotherapy career is not a natural precursor to farming, but Hannah Darby has brought insights from outside agriculture back to the family farm. Chloe Dunne reports.

At the beginning of the month a wise farmer told me if there is no rain in the first week of May then there will be none for the rest of the month. After a brief interlude of 8mm rain last Sunday he has not been far wrong.

Concerns about the continuing spell of dry weather are circulating the industry, with arable farmers reporting cases of patchy crop emergence and compromised yields across swathes of the UK.