2 minute read
Dairy/Arable synergies
Better dairying
“The levy needs to go up a lot (to pay for better marketing promotion) – we pay a fraction of what they do in the USA”.
Neil Baker, Somerset
Bill Higgins, Shropshire
DAIRY and arable farmers need to cooperate more to address potentially crippling environmental pressures, the annual RABDF Business and Policy Conference heard.
A presumption of no planning permission on the Somerset Levels, due to phosphate emissions, was a stark warning. “Securing licences to operate is the biggest threat to our business,” said Neil Baker, one of four previous RABDF/NMR Gold Cup winners in an on-line panel session chaired by Oliver McEntyre, Agriculture Director of Barclays Bank.
Environmental permits were a big concern, given their roll out across pig and poultry farms, added 2010 winner Mike King who is expanding from 600 to 700 cows with his brother Chris in South Gloucestershire. Costing £10,000 a time, and renewable, they had taken three and a half years to implement on less than 1000 pig farms. “How on earth are they going to do the whole dairy sector,” he asked.
Variable carbon audits were also a worry. “We’ve had audits done for Arla and for Tesco, and the results were different. So which was right,” asked Neil, a fourth-generation dairy farmer milking 2000 cows at Yeovil.
Covering slurry stores to cut emissions and retain nutrient value was important, noted 2018 winner Philip Metcalfe, who milks 1300 pedigree Holsteins with his two brothers in North Yorkshire, as part of a diversified business, including an anaerobic digester.
Holy grail
But the real Holy grail is de-watered slurry, suggested 2013 winner Bill Higgins, whose family milks 550 cows at Wilderley Hall in Shropshire. “It would solve so many problems and would benefit the arable sector too, the ability to condition tired soils with something we could put a monetary value on. It would revolutionise everything.”
Indeed, more cooperation is needed between arable and dairy across the board, he suggested. “Putting maize on wheels is not ideal, but we’ve aligned with four arable farms to grow ours. It helps them tackle blackgrass, and avoids levels of erosion and compaction on our fields which are better suited to growing grass.”
Integrating data across farms was another concern. “Too many systems are still stand-alone,” Mike noted. A new financial system showing live data across the farm was the best money he spent in 2020. A feeder wagon-based system for integrating feed data across the farm was Neil’s best investment. He agreed that data linkage had been ‘extraordinarily poor”.
LABELLING
Labelling to better inform the public of food production standards is to be stepped up, with a consultation into labelling due, said Farming Minister Victoria Prentis. “We import almost 45% of our food at the moment and some of what we import is not at the same level of where we are. However, they do meet our safety standards. What is clear though, is people do care about what they eat.” She also promised more parliamentary scrutiny of trade. “We are committed to making sure standards are not lowered in any future trade agreements including through regulations.”
Mike King
Neil Baker Philip Metcalfe
Bill Higgins
RABDF Talks
View recordings of all the RABDF Conference sessions at:
