This Week in Farming: Saputo, spot spraying and beans

Welcome back to This Week in Farming, a snack platter of Farmers Weekly’s most delicious content from the past seven days.

As always, we start with the markets (opens as PDF), where deadweight steer prices have finally crossed the £6/kg mark, making a 400kg carcass now worth £2,400. Remarkable.

Now, on with the show.

Inheritance tax latest

The Labour government continues to face pressure from all parts of the agricultural sector as another week passed with no hint that it would soften its stance on the inheritance tax reforms set out in the Autumn Budget.

The NFU confirmed this week that it would campaign against the reforms at both its conference in London next month and at a rally scheduled in London on 4 March, with the latter organised by the same farmers that were behind the major Whitehall march in November.

Elsewhere, the AHDB and a coalition of rural accountancy firms both released reports warning of the widespread reach and impact of the changes to the tax reliefs.

In my editorial, I comment on Defra secretary Steve Reed’s speech at the Farmers Club in London, where I portray him as a Labour hammer in search of a world made only of nails.

Cheese squeeze

Thoughts this week are with the 13 Saputo Dairy suppliers, all from the Davidstow cheese milk pool, that were served 12 months’ notice by the Canadian-owned firm.

Yet there has been good news this week too, with analyst Kingshay reporting another pleasing year-on-year fall in antimicrobials use in the sector, helping drag use down by 19% since 2020.

New entrant Rhidian Glyn is emblematic of the topsy-turvy nature of life as a milk producer, seeing his buyer, Mona Dairy, get into financial trouble just months after he had fought his way into the sector. Michael Priestley tells his story.

Spot spraying

Reduction in chemical use isn’t just a theme in the livestock sector of course.

In the machinery section, we have an article on how a grass seed merchant and a contractor worked with precision tech company SoilEssentials to spot spray weeds out of sward in order to protect the clover.

Separately, specialist freelancer Adam Clarke speaks to the first person in the UK to gain approval to use a new type of heavyweight drone for commercial agricultural purposes, such as spraying and fertilising.

The fledgling sector has big plans for growth, including seeking permissions to broaden the range of products permitted to be broadcast in this manner, including slug pellets.

Pulse problem

A flight from beans by growers in search of more profit in their rotation, including environmental options, has seen pulses plunge to just 4% of the total arable area.

Yet with imported soya the substitute, that presents a problem for supply chains looking to burnish their green credentials.

Louise Impey went to the From Soya to Sustainability conference to find out how the fightback could begin.

And in a week where the heavens have repeatedly opened, what could be more timely than this article discussing how best to manage winter rainfall on land – helping to improve profit and benefit the wider community by reducing flooding.

Who’s up and who’s down?

On the up this week are playwrights, who have long struggled to find work in the accountancy sector.

That’s all set to change after levy board Quality Meat Scotland commissioned a show to promote better conversations around farm succession and tax planning, with performances scheduled for Stirling and St Boswells.

Feeling gloomier this week are pig farmers, after the finished deadweight price slipped to close to £2/kg as abattoirs saw sustained high throughputs.

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.