Farmer Focus: Getting hard to justify investment as a tenant
© Angela Waites Photography Volatility. Be it weather, fertiliser or commodity prices, every sector of UK agriculture seems to be riding a rollercoaster at the moment, and it’s not much fun.
After the driest February in 25 years, we experienced the fourth-wettest March. April is already well on towards exceeding its average. Will a drought follow? Who knows?
See also: Crop Watch: Disease and lodging are priority in soggy spring
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What I do know is that a month ago, we were a fortnight in front of normal, and now we’re a fortnight behind. Hey ho, there’s always been a seed time, and always a harvest. We must be patient.
It’s infuriating how the price of fertiliser tracks the wheat market. Both are about 60% of where they were last summer.
Phosphate and potash have both dropped about £50/t this week, which is typical – we were bought up a fortnight ago.
While I’m moaning about input prices, I’ll add concrete to the list.
We put some footings in for a shed recently and discovered that at £133/cu m the concrete price has risen by a third in two years – fortunately it’s to be a machinery shed with a hardcore floor.
Justifying investment as a tenant has certainly got harder recently. A farmer’s eternal optimism only goes so far.
There must be a payback and return in sight to justify any significant infrastructure investment.
Our home-built potato seed dresser project came to fruition last month and saw us dress Royal seed potatoes with Maxim (fludioxonil) for rhizoctonia protection on the way into Blackburn crates for chitting.
It broke dormancy a fortnight later and should get off to a decent start once soil conditions allow. Innovator will be planted first and is in cold store, eyes open and ready to be off.
Last year’s potato crop has now all been delivered and it looks like it will be a breakeven year as an average across all varieties. We need future crops to perform financially much better to keep us in the game.
Last week, we put the 800s back on a light tractor to keep it afloat and topped the N up on the winter barley to its total of 160kg/ha.
The wheat varies according to field situation, but is about 130kg N/ha, with a view to a 50kg top-up in about three weeks’ time.
The sprayer has made a bit of a mark applying tidy-up herbicides, fungicides and trace elements, and we’ve flattened a bit of crop, but at least we were up-to-date by the time more rain came.
On a brighter note, winter cereals do look terrific (ignoring the OSR) and machinery is poised for spring planting action. Here’s to a productive May.
