News

Making the switch from brassicas to a winter grazing crop of rape, ryegrass and berseem clover has given one Welsh farmer an income boost while reducing soil erosion.

Rachel and husband Stephen and family farm 66ha (163 acres) mainly tenanted at Baildon, West Yorkshire. They milk 85 pedigree Holstein and Jerseys, selling milk to Meadow Foods. They also have an on farm vending machine. Their son, Ben, works full-time on farm and daughters Felicity and Zoe also work in the agricultural sector. Rachel is a director of the local farmers’ market.

As I sit down to write this we are in the middle of some seriously wet weather.

A silent cull is taking place on UK poultry breeder farms due to the ongoing labour crisis, chair of the British Poultry Council Graeme Dear has warned.

A ‘silent cull’ is taking place on UK poultry breeder farms due to the ongoing labour crisis, chair of the British Poultry Council Graeme Dear has warned.

A lack of suitable abattoirs is one of the top three greatest barriers to growth for farmers and smallholders selling rare and native breed products.

The case for a network of local abattoirs has been well made, including in a recent report by The Prince’s Countryside Fund, but it may not be a realistic proposition, according to a retail butcher.

As world leaders gathered in Glasgow this week for the COP26 climate summit, the irony of their collective carbon footprint was lost on no one.

An extra 12,000 tonnes of Australian beef could be heading to the UK as part of the Australia-UK trade deal but the impact could largely be offset by reduced EU imports, according to calculations by AHDB. By Cedric Porter

Scientists have discovered the genetics inside legumes which control the production of an oxygen-carrying molecule, crucial to the plant’s close relationships with nitrogen-fixing bacteria.