This Week in Farming: Groundswell, canoes and slurry

Welcome back to another edition of This Week in Farming, the quickest way to stay up to date with Farmers Weekly’s best content from the past seven days.

But first, here’s all your latest market prices.

Now, on with the show.

90^th anniversary celebrations

Thanks to all of you who have been in touch with kind words about our bumper magazine a week ago that included a full reprint of our very first edition.

We also stirred up debate online by adjudicating on which was the best tractor in each decade since the 1930s, and crowned one remarkable machine the overall winner.

Readers also shared some of their best farming memories with us, and we brought things up to the present day with a showcase of the best farming photos submitted by you for the recent competition to be in next year’s Rabi/Rsabi charity calendar.

Groundswell

Farming’s best festival of ideas returned under blazing Hertfordshire skies this week with crowds of folk eager to discuss regenerative agriculture (and quench their thirst in the Earthworm Bar).

Business editor Suzie Horne got an early look at consultancy firm Andersons’ figures for how the economics of a regenerative arable unit may stack up this season (hint: it’s tricky).

Meanwhile, David Jones filed this piece for the arable team on why it might still be prudent to establish a cover crop on land undrilled due to the challenging conditions in winter and spring.

In my editorial this week, I note that more than ever the festival is becoming a place where those who want to change farming from the top down can meet the farmers who want it to change from the bottom up, creating grounds for some great debates on the future.

Bedding dilemma

With smaller cropping areas this year and a long winter meaning low carryover, straw is set to be costly.

Is there a cheaper alternative that could suit your system? The livestock team have the answers.

And bedding is also a factor in tackling heat stress in calves in this timely piece on helping keep youngstock cool.

Slurry solution

Farmers in the south of England in need of extra slurry capacity have turned to contractors Josh and Helen Collins who are hiring out heavy duty storage bags with a 350cu m capacity.

Check out how the system works and what it’s costing.

Keeping the product safe is vital, with another reminder this week of the environmental damage, and court case that can follow, if permanent storage fails.

Who’s up and who’s down?

Feeling cheerful this week is columnist Will Evans after a tipsy bit of online shopping turned out to be a prescient purchase when a large group of cattle ended up in the river.

Less happy are a group of Italian scientists who were shocked and saddened after idiotic activists activists destroyed their field trial of a gene edited rice variety aimed at reducing reliance on fungicides.

More power to their future endeavours.

For more from Groundswell, check out this week’s podcast with Johann Tasker and Louise Impey.