Blogs

This month Roger Evans discusses the Milk Marketing Board, the importance of food security, and gives his opinions on the members of the Government

After starting my last article with ‘well the sun is finally shining’, this time I’ll begin by saying ‘hurrah it has finally rained! Farmers and the weather, eh?!

Lowlands farm, in southwest Birmingham, is home to Beth Withers and her husband, Tom. Here, she talks about bringing up her growing family at Lowlands, and the balance between motherhood and farming.

After many years of complaining about dry springs here in Sussex, I finally got my comeuppance this year, with March and April both delivering more than 100mm of rain.

You take for granted what you see every day. I think of this as I catch a glimpse of the Red Arrows practicing above me, which is so commonplace here during winter as to go almost unnoticed.

We are still shut down with TB. It is rumbling slightly, with one reactor in each of the past two tests. Obviously it is sod’s law that the best heifer had to go.

I think 2022 perfectly encapsulates the challenges we now face when planning out our year ahead.

Claire Eastham farms with her husband Martyn in Dorset, where they milk 120-spring calving cows. After gaining knowledge and experience working for other businesses, the couple started their own dairy farming journey in 2015 by taking on a share farming agreement before progressing to their current county council farm.

Fraser Jones milks 1,500 Holstein Friesians across two sites near Welshpool. As a Disease? Not On My Farm! ambassador, he works closely with his vet Oli Hodgkinson, of Trefaldwyn Vets, to prioritise animal health and welfare. Here he provides a farmer’s perspective on the recently launched National Office of Animal Health Livestock Vaccination Guidelines and considers their potential impact on the dairy sector.

Becky Fenton and husband Paul milk 180 pedigree Holsteins under the Springlebee prefix at Centenary Farm, a Cheshire county council farm. In 2021, they bought a farm in Staffordshire and they plan to farm there once the new dairy set-up has been built.