Farm Life

Are you overlooking the passive improvement you could gain in your herds’ fertility? In combination with good management practices, a consistent focus on breeding for better fertility plays a critical role in improving your bottom line.

NFU deputy president Stuart Roberts has reinforced embracing low-emission farming practices will be ‘key’ to ensuring profitable and productive farm businesses.

Well, this is a funny one. We live in very strange times and now we are nearing the end of lambing time there is time to reflect.

My goodness, even my relentless cheerfulness is struggling as wave after wave of bad news on Covid-19 is broadcast each hour.

Diversifying income streams to negate falling direct payments will be an attractive option to many farm businesses, but small-scale projects can sometimes be just as lucrative, without carrying as much risk.

We have now almost completed the spring work, with spring barley coming through the ground fairly evenly and its top dressing of fertiliser being applied at the end of last week.

It is not always advisable to look to the United States for answers. Once a bastion of liberal democracy, it has become increasingly divided and politically erratic under the tenure of current president Donald Trump.

Miles and Halen Partridge established their Rowbrook herd of Galloways in the 1990s, but despite the history of the herd they have eyes firmly on the future.

Flo Giles, 27, is a pig farmer’s daughter from Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, and works for livestock trading company Meadow Quality. She recently represented Warwickshire Young Farmers Club (YFC) at this year’s NFU conference.

The Covid-19 nightmare may have handed UK farming an opportunity to resolve a major Brexit threat – loss of EU labour. Let’s make sure we give our new ‘land army’ a good experience this summer, says George Dunn, chief executive of the TFA.