This Week in Farming: Royal Welsh, new Amarok and Shorthorns

Hello and welcome back to This Week in Farming – your weekly update on the best Farmers Weekly content from the past seven days.

Here are five of the biggest topics we’ve covered this week and a look ahead to what’s coming up in the next edition of the FW podcast.

Trees versus food at Royal Welsh

Welsh rural affairs secretary Lesley Griffiths came to the show this week expecting criticism of the Sustainable Farming Scheme – Wales’ replacement for the Basic Payment Scheme from 2025.

What she didn’t expect was a broadside from NFU Cymru on the eve of the show when Aled Jones and Abi Reader – the president and deputy president – went on the offensive by saying they would not be putting their own farms into the scheme in its current guise.

A desire for flexibility is what many attendees want. In my editorial this week, I look at the three options open to the Welsh government – caught between its legal target to increase tree planting rates and farmers unhappy to comply.

And in his Farmer Focus article this week, Welsh livestock farmer Joe Mault notes that for all their support of native breeds, the government is unlikely to succeed in promoting upland suckler beef either.

Harvest update

Arable farmers across the country are battling to bring in the harvest between persistent spells of bad weather which is beginning to take a real toll on crops.

Dorset farmer Tom Matthews has seen early wheat yields back by 2t/ha on the year when cutting began before rapeseed harvest was finished.

Meanwhile, a ring-round of the merchants revealed that winter barley quality is suffering from the showers.

Take a look at what the official AHDB data reveal on the best performing varieties at different sites around the country.

New Amarok reviewed

Another week, another pickup competing for your attention.

After we revealed more information about the new Ineos Quartermaster last week, attention turned this week to a full review of the latest version of VW’s Amarok.

If you’re a Volkswagen fan, you may be disappointed to learn that this one has been built in partnership with Ford.

Elsewhere in machinery, we round up the best of the small and handy livestock-focused equipment on display at the Royal Welsh Show this week.

Farmer helping Ukraine

The war in Ukraine has caused unbearable suffering for so many of its people.

Yet amid this dark picture, the spots of light are the people who have swung into action to help them now when they need it most.

Among these is former farmer Jonny, from Cornwall, who together with others has set up an organisation called British Expeditionary Aid & Rescue.

Read what he has been up to in the 16 months in Ukraine.

In other Ukrainian news this week, the Russian attacks on grain stores has intensified, sending global grain prices higher.

Shorthorn success

What does it take to get a native breed to achieve daily liveweight gains of over 1.1kg/day?

That’s what County Durham farmers Gerard and Joanne te Lintelo have managed from a forage-based system with the Beef Shorthorn.

Find out how they’ve put together a low-cost system that they believe will be fit for the future.

And for farmers in England looking to upgrade cattle sheds, a new Defra funding pot opened this week that may provide much-needed help with this chunky cost.