Puddles to dust in no time flat, June has been good for haymaking if nothing else. Volatility has been the only real constant in recent years, be it prices, costs or weather, but that is farming nowadays.

In June 2022, I bought a load of UK ammonium nitrate for £630/t, and by September, when the price was 30% higher, that looked a good buy.

By February, it looked very expensive, particularly after paying £268/t for the same product in 2021.

See also: Video: Mechanical hoes offer solution as herbicide resistance builds

About the author

Andrew Wilson

Arable Farmer Focus writer Andrew Wilson is a fourth-generation tenant of Castle Howard Estate in North Yorkshire. The farm supports crops of wheat, barley, oats, beans, sugar beet, potatoes, and grass for hay across 250ha. Other enterprises include bed and breakfast pigs, environmental stewardship, rooftop solar and contracting work.  

Contact:

Email: wilsonbrickyard@gmail.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpudSlingsby

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This June I bought a load at about half what I paid in 2022. Was that wise? Who knows. Coincidently, the nitrogen price seems to follow the wheat price, and I’d like that to rise, so I bought some fertiliser.

All the technical analysis in the world will never replace the gut feel of a farmer on the ground. Writing budgets these days is nothing short of a guessing game and increasingly pointless.

Recently, I have had cause to visit both south-west Scotland and East Anglia. I was shocked by how dry Scotland was, and conversely, how damp it was in Norfolk – it was the opposite to what we would see as normal.

Is this climate change, or just an odd year? It’s certainly making things challenging. Here in north Yorkshire we have had only 20mm of rain in the last six weeks, and things are thirsty, though not suffering too badly yet.

Unirrigated potatoes are a concern, but high temperatures tend to do us more damage than lack of moisture, and of that we have no control.

Risk and reward have got further out of kilter, particularly for roots and vegetables.

In my view there has seldom been a better time to share ideas and pull together, and to that end I threw my hat in the ring and attended a meeting of GB Potatoes in Wisbech recently.

There was a good cross section of sectors present, but there is a need for more growers to get on board and strengthen our corner.

The cost is less than one blight spray, but the benefits potentially huge. Waiting until we “see what happens” will be too late, the ship will have sailed.

I urge fellow growers to get on board and play a part in shaping the future of our industry – we are stronger together, for sure.