Arable Farmer Focus FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Major flood erodes soil and flattens fencesWith blue sky, sunshine and hard, frosty ground providing a pleasant view through the office window, it’s hard to believe we have endured more than two months of absolute weather… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: SFI 2026 set to be a shadow of its former selfThe taps have been turned on since Christmas, with no field work done for some time and water falling from the sky daily. What type of growing season will we… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Questions which may leave me without a jobI am aware that my last article reported back on a recent conference I attended in Oxford. And as it hasn’t stopped raining in Shimpling since then, I have no… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Short tenancy timescales not fit for purposeThe Norfolk weather has been its usual fickle self this month – temperatures hovering around 6C with enough rain to keep the soil tacky, and us off the land. The… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Maybe it’s time to give sap testing a goThe current state of weather means there is very little to be excited about. With 250mm of rain during January, and February trying its hardest to keep up that pace,… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Why Canadians call wheat 'poverty grass'I started the new year with a trip across the Atlantic to speak at Canada’s South West Agricultural Conference about improving wheat yields. This was a difficult gig as Canadians frequently… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Gut feeling is our best decision-making toolOne of the best decision-making methods in my experience, is gut feeling. Sometimes a decision doesn’t even look all that sensible, but it’s rare that following one’s inner being doesn’t… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: AHDB Recommended List not giving me what I needWith luck and a little bit of judgement we have managed to improve the grazing of the cover crops after not getting it right last year. We got the sheep… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Grass more profitable than good field of wheatJanuary has come and gone in the blink of an eye, and as we move into February our thoughts naturally turn to the upcoming growing season. We don’t grow any… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Arable outlook as bleak as 10 years agoAfter a nice dry spell over Christmas and New Year, we have had nonstop rain for the past couple of weeks. It's a chance to plan for the year ahead.… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: Defra delivers another stewardship conundrumIn typical Defra style, literally weeks after it left me in a conundrum over our Countryside Stewardship (CS) extension – and I chose not to extend – it announces that… FARMER FOCUSFarmer Focus: We should call subsidies 'government contracts'We’ve had news that a form of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) will be coming out this year, with the potential introduction of capping. If it does come in, I… More articles
