Arable

NIAB has opened its new Cambridge headquarters following a two-year, £25 million redevelopment and construction project.

The Labour Party has voted to block the Agriculture Bill’s passage through Parliament because it does not include measures to protect farmers from being undercut by low-standard imports.

This year has started on a much more positive note than its predecessor. The more settled weather has improved soil conditions no end and in some cases has even prompted some drills to awaken from their post New Year snooze and re-enter the winter sowing campaign.

With increasing pressure to retain the performance of current actives, and a tight year expected financially, disease control this season requires a rethink.

Campaign group Wild Justice has branded Defra’s latest General Licences ‘unlawful’ and threatened to take the Government to court if it attempts to extend them at the end of February.

The Government’s failure to include binding targets to improve soil health in the Environment Bill has left a ‘gaping hole’ in UK legislation, the Soil Association has warned.

Independent trials have shown more than £70/hectare can be saved on fertiliser costs for virtually the same wheat yield by using solid ammonium nitrate rather than nitrogen in a liquid format.

The latest safe sowing dates for the various winter crops I had optimistically hoped we would get an opportunity to drill are fast approaching and will soon be a distant memory, probably without a wheel ever turning.

With the weather having being kinder to us since the turn of the year, significant progress has been made on two fronts.

NFU vice president Stuart Roberts has said the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) is not the right body to oversee supply chain issues.