Latest farming opinions OPINIONOpinion: It's great to see Young Farmers' focus and passionTwo things dawned on me as I sat for two hours in a traffic jam on the M4 returning from another after-dinner speaking gig. The first was that one should… OPINIONOpinion: The list of food we must eat gets ever longerAccording to the latest “expert” advice in the press, I need to add 30g of beans a day to my diet for the sake of my health. Not just any… OPINIONEditor's View: Budget piles the pressure on food inflationThe decision this week to place last-minute restrictions on the right of farmers to protest in London on the day of the Budget was regrettable, particularly as the imposition came… OPINIONOpinion: Time to ditch the outdated Europ grading systemThe worst thing about Brexit, apart from having reduced border controls, increased barriers for exports, and trade deals that ride roughshod over UK agriculture, has to be the continued use… OPINIONOpinion: How to keep control of your data in a digital worldFor many UK farmers, the idea of sharing their farm data with larger companies and the wider agri-food supply chain feels like a huge risk. The perception is that this… OPINIONOpinion: The field drainage crisis needs to be addressedTo misquote Ratty from Wind In the Willows: There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about with field drainage. Certainly, that’s how… OPINIONEditor's View: One card left to play in farming's IHT fightThis week marks a year since farmers brought Westminster to a standstill with the first of the big demonstrations against the proposed changes to inheritance tax (IHT). Farmers, JCBs and… OPINIONOpinion: Climate change makes resilience-building a necessitySummer 2025 in the UK was the hottest since records began. I am hoping my wife hasn’t read that, as I am trying to convince her the warm weather is… OPINIONOpinion: Progress is made on the land, not in a laboratoryIn the north-west of Skye is a sea loch whose sprawling arms reach into the island’s interior. Not far from our croft, on a southerly shore of one of these… OPINIONEditor's View: Can Eagle bring Defra's dithering to an end?“I arrived at Defra and found out we had eight strategies. I’m a chess player and normally you have one strategy.” So said Defra minister Dame Angela Eagle at the… OPINIONOpinion: Struggles feel different when you're 'essential'If I was going to go farming, I would do it in New Zealand. Don’t get me wrong, I love the UK, but it’s difficult – and I’m not just… OPINIONOpinion: Fact, not fashion, must guide the future of farmingIn farming today, it sometimes feels as though whatever the problem, whether it’s soil health, yields, carbon or profitability, the answer always lies in regenerative agriculture. You could lose the… OPINIONOpinion: Farming on edge of the city has more ups than downsI love living where I do. Our little corner of Buckinghamshire is exceptionally pretty, which is why, I understand, my great-grandfather chose this spot to lay down roots in the… OPINIONEditor's View: Greater focus on food production is sorely neededThis week has seen the publication of some pretty scary numbers. According to the inaugural McCain Farmdex report, 51% of farmers have considered leaving the industry at some point in… OPINIONOpinion: We need to re-people the rural sector“Get on our land!” isn’t something that farmers are known for bellowing, but I’ve been shouting it a lot recently. This is because our farm in Surrey became an official… OPINIONOpinion: Combinable cropping area set to drastically shrinkA growing number of arable producers appear to be throwing in the towel. As the editor of this journal noted in his leader column recently, an unusually large number of… OPINIONEditor's View: Do retailers still care about farm assurance?There is a certain type of child who picks up their football and takes it home rather than suffer the indignity of losing the game. The trouble for these fragile… OPINIONOpinion: Many farmers trapped on ‘big ag hamster wheel’What a state UK agriculture is in at the moment, with commercial farmers pitted against agri-corporates, and some commodities running at all-time highs and grain prices at all-time lows. There… OPINIONOpinion: How farming’s past is shaping a resilient futureResilience has always been at the heart of UK farming. Every generation has faced uncertainty and adversity, from technological innovation to unpredictable weather, and every generation has found ways to… More articles
