This Week in Farming: Harvest, farm sales and profit warning

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

But first, here’s your latest input and output prices.

Now, on with the show.

Harvest kick-off?

For most crop growers, the recent rainfall has put a dampener on any hopes of unleashing a combine from hibernation.

Yet there’s every sign that some growers in the South and East are now ready to get into winter barley or oilseed rape crops as soon as some decent sunshine emerges.

We spoke to one Suffolk farmer who already has some rapeseed in the shed on Wednesday (10 July), and a Hertfordshire grower that has cut some of the crop near St Albans.

If you haven’t swept some grain stores yet, or have any other dusty work to do, take a look at this latest review of half-mask respirators. Upgrading from a paper mask is surely money well spent.

Westminster latest

There’s been no surprises in the make-up of Labour’s new Defra team, with Sir Keir Starmer appointing Steve Reed and Daniel Zeichner his secretary of state and farming minister.

The NFU had its customary early visit with the new top team at the department’s Whitehall office before they travelled to the Great Yorkshire Show on Wednesday to meet farmers and set out their early priorities.

In my editorial this week, I note the similarities between being a good minister and a good farmer – although I’m not sure what the farming equivalent is of their impending battle with the Treasury.

Cash for grass

English livestock farmers have long ground their teeth over the lower number of options open to them in the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme.

If you are among that group and it has meant you’ve not taken a serious look at what is available, then this guide on how to make the most of multispecies leys under SFI is as good a place as any to start.

And for those brave farmers who normally house cattle but are considering a switch to outwintering this autumn, here’s a guide on getting started with that too.

If you’re looking for other inspiration on options for beef-rearing systems, look no further than our finalists for Farmers Weekly Awards Beef Farmer of the Year.

Cash to burn?

Warding off criminals and avoiding running dry are just two uses for the plethora of gadgets that can be tacked on to what used to be a humble steel cube for holding diesel.

If you want your bunded barrel to bristle with tech, then check out our round-up of retrofit options here.

And at the other end of the investment spectrum, our article on farming properties for sale features land on the market in Lancashire, County Durham and a whopping estate on the shores of Loch Lomond.

Who’s up and who’s down?

Feeling down this week…nearly all of you if the latest Defra report on the profitability of the nation’s farmers is to be believed.

Only the poultry sector saw an increase in profitability in 2023 as stagnating or falling output prices and the rising cost of inputs bit into margins.

On the up? Surely this group of 10 wide-eyed MPs who have each just been sent to parliament for the first time from rural seats.

Is a future Defra secretary among them? Only time will tell…

Listen to the podcast

Don’t forget to tune into this week’s FW podcast with Johann Tasker and other guests.

You’ll find it anywhere you listen to podcasts, or free to listen to on this page.