This Week in Farming: Red Tractor, FW win and land values

Welcome back to another edition of This Week in Farming, where busy people can smash through a round-up of what on earth has happened in the past seven days.

Here’s five unmissable topics from the Farmers Weekly website.

What fresh tractor is this?

You had to go a long way to find a friend of Red Tractor that wasn’t a retailer even before this week’s announcement that it is launching a voluntary scheme to broaden the scope of its work into environmental certification.

So it was little surprise to find Red Tractor’s usual critics out in force to decry its latest venture. And its reputational problems have been further compounded by an increasingly public spat with the NFU.

Tom Bradshaw, NFU deputy president and Red Tractor board director, criticised Red Tractor for not following the agreed process for scrutinising the standard by the assurance firm’s sector and technical boards before going public.

Scotland counts the cost of heavy rain

Severe flooding in Scotland has blighted farms in the catchment areas of the River Spey, the River Tay and Kelvin Teith after torrential rain, with farmers saying that crop losses will run to millions of pounds.

Scottish rural charity Rsabi has been quick to respond to those who may need support to deal with the aftermath. Anyone affected is invited to call 24/7 via its helpline on 0808 1234 555 or live webchat at rsabi.org.uk. 

Severe flooding is difficult or impossible to fully plan for, but in this era of shorter, sharper rain events, here is a handy guide on how to prepare grazing herds for big rain events.

Land values plateau

After a period of rising land prices, values now seem to have levelled off amid higher interest rates and uncertainty ahead of the general election, land agents have said.

In the 12 months to the end of September, all GB land types have risen by an average of 7.7% to £8,196/acre, says Savills, but a softening has been seen in the average value of pasture land.

Increasingly, the environmental quality of farmland is playing a role in its value. Here’s how group of farmers put together an audit of what was present on their land ahead of a Landscape Recovery scheme application.

Farmers Weekly campaign win

FW’s “Meat: Our Expectations” campaign scored a major victory this week after the Food Standards Agency (FSA) revealed it would fund a food fraud hotline.

This was a key ask after our investigation earlier this year, which revealed widespread and long-running food fraud and food safety breaches.

The FSA is also looking at ways to strengthen information sharing arrangements between the third-party auditors used by food businesses to help prevent criminal activity – another key FW campaign ask.

In other FW news this week, I have responded in my editorial to the brief social media furore surrounding our top winners at the Farmers Weekly Awards after we published a picture of them with a flock of hens that had some feathers missing.

Who’s up and who’s down?

Finally, it’s been a great week for anyone who owned a stake in global positioning firm Trimble after Massey Ferguson owner Agco swooped in and bought a majority stake in the business for $2bn (£1.64bn).

Trimble Ag offers equipment manufacturer and after-market products, including vehicle and implement guidance, section control, variable rate sowing, spraying and spreading, and cloud-based enterprise management systems.

It’s been a less good week for Dutch livestock farmers, after officials in the Netherlands said that as many as 1,200 farms may have suffered an outbreak of contagious disease Bluetongue.

This has put vets in the UK on high alert for the reportable infection, with farmers urged to keep an eye out for any signs.

Listen to the FW Podcast

Don’t forget the latest edition of the Farmers Weekly podcast with Johann Tasker and Hugh Broom too.

Listen here or bring us with you in the cab by downloading it from your usual podcast platform.