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This week's letters from Farmers Guardian readers

Helen is a fifth-generation farmer who farms with her parents, David and Anne Shaw, husband, Craig, and their children, Alfred and Hattie, at Grey Leys Farm in the Vale of York. The farm comprises 162 hectares (400 acres) of grass, maize and wholecrop for the herd of 240 pedigree Jersey cows and more than 200 followers

At long last we are enjoying some warm, dry weather here in Somerset. We have been lucky enough to grab some weather windows to do our first and second cuts on our Italian lays, and our first cut on everything else

This month Roger Evans talks about some of the latest agricultural technology and also discusses an icon of the dairy farming world; the scraper tractor

The 83 words mentioned in the Labour manifesto aren't enough for us to understand the detail of their policies

This week from Farmers Guardian editor Olivia Midgley

'When facing a challenge, it is helpful to look back and review what happened at the start'

Kate farms alongside her husband Jim on their farm near Abergavenny, Monmouthshire. Farming 122 hectares (300 acres), the main enterprise consists of 800 breeding ewes and cider made on-site from their orchards. She is a mum of two, runs Kate’s Country School on-farm and is the woodland creation officer for Stump Up For Trees.

Joanna Brookes, 21, from Wilmcote in Stratford-upon-Avon, is a student at the Royal Agricultural University who has plans to work in agricultural policy making in the future

Ian farms in partnership with his family near Knutsford, Cheshire. They manage 700 commercial pedigree Holstein/Friesians on 445 hectares (1,100 acres). Replacements are homereared and cows are on a composite system. Ian is a representative for Sainsbury’s Dairy Development Group and sits on the AHDB Genetics Advisory Forum