This Week in Farming: Farmer inventions, IHT and carbon tax probed

Welcome to This Week in Farming, your one-stop shop for the best Farmers Weekly content from the past seven days.

It might be soggy, but the air is milder and the mornings are lighter. I even saw some cows out this week.

In this week’s markets (opens as PDF) there’s yet another spring for red meat prices, and another week going sideways for grains.

Now, on with the show.

Inheritance tax latest

It’s been another week of feverish activity for farmers and lobbying groups working to change the government’s mind on the changes to inheritance tax (IHT), but they have nothing to show for it thanks to political stubbornness. 

Union leaders emerged from a meeting with Treasury minister James Murray in a highly despondent mood after getting nowhere with a proposal to raise money for the government’s coffers vis a ‘clawback’ system instead of a death tax.

We’ve also had unhelpful hyperbole from the prime minister to darken moods further, but in my editorial this week I make the case that we must keep going.

And there is good news for the dwindling number of farmers on succession tenancies – they fall outside the scope of the IHT changes.

The next London protest will be a rally on 4 March – pancake day. No jokes about tossers!

Labour isn’t working

No, not the party – I’m talking about the difficulty farmers are having in accessing good staff.

Overcoming labour shortages in the dairy sector is a key topic of discussion in this week’s Livestock section, and there’s a separate look at labour-saving devices, including this new gadget for lifting downer cows.

Shepherds may also admire these in-field weigh crates to replace running flocks through the yard.

Inventions Competition results

And speaking of nifty kit, the makers of a woodchip blower trailer and a drill to establish beans and OSR have been announced as the top entrants in the complex category of this year’s machinery inventions competition.

There’ll be more winners revealed in the week ahead.

Professional machinery manufacturers have also unveiled how they’ve been tinkering with kit this winter, with Einbock set to offer a weed-killing stubble cultivator, and Weaving updating its Tine Combi Drill that can piggyback on power harrows.

Carbon conundrums

Buried beneath all the IHT coverage about the Autumn Budget was another mooted tax potentially coming – the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism – which could drive up the price of fertiliser.

Markets editor Charlie Reeve delves into the detail of how much more it may cost, with expert opinions currently quite varied.

The prospect is a key concern for the NFU’s combinable crops board, which has released a new sector strategy this week calling for solutions to this and the other issues facing growers, including improved regulation of herbicides and pesticides.

Amid it all, there’s some great research that aims to fill in the blanks on how sustainable arable farming is – including how a trial at the University of Leeds is putting regenerative agriculture’s credentials to the test.

Who’s up and who’s down

Feeling down this week are red deer after an academic study proposed reintroducing wolves to four areas in Scotland to help reduce numbers of the antler-clad tree munchers.

Needless to say, farmers aren’t very happy.

On the up this week must surely be 71-year-old farmer Richard Longthorp, who is celebrating leading a group of volunteers to complete more than 750,000 press-ups during January to raise funds for charity.

I feel sore just thinking about it.

Listen to the podcast

Don’t forget to tune in to the FW Podcast, with Johann Tasker, Louise Impey and Hugh Broom.

You’ll find it anywhere you listen to podcasts, or free to listen to on our website.