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News review
Protein content falling in milling wheat crops
Provisional results from harvest 2022, using data to August 30, suggest that milling wheat samples are displaying lower percentage protein content, but that specific weights and Hagberg Falling
Numbers (HFNs) look high, says AHDB.
The average protein content of
UK Flour Millers Group 1 varieties sits at 12.5%. This is below the milling specification of greater than or equal to 13%. The figure is down 0.7 percentage points from 2021 (at 13.2%) and lower than the three-year average (2019-2021) of 13%. Lower protein levels are likely to be a result of limited nitrogen uptake due to hot and dry weather at the time of final application.
Average HFNs of Group 1 wheats were at 346 seconds. This is 60s (21%) above 2021, and 37s (12.1%) above the three-year average.
The average specific weight of Group 1 varieties is 81.8kg/hl, up 6.4kg/hl (8.4%) from last year’s average. Compared to the three-year average, average specific weight for Group 1 wheat is up 4.2kg/hl (5.5%).
Specification
Overall, provisional results show 31% of Group 1 samples are meeting a typical Group 1 specification (specific weight ≥ 76kg/hl, protein ≥ 13.0%, HFN ≥ 250s).
This is up 11 percentage points from the 20% that met specification in the final 2021 results and nearly in line with 2020, where 32% of Group 1 samples met the specification requirements.
Just under a third of Group 1 wheat samples met a typical milling specification in tests conducted to the end of August.
Call for more detail on energy bill relief plans
JBusinesses need certainty beyond the next six months if they are to ‘plan for growth’..
The Energy Bill Relief Scheme, revealed by the Department for Business, Energy and Industry, means wholesale prices are expected to be fixed for all non-domestic energy customers at £211 per MWh for electricity and £75 per MWh for gas for six months.
The scheme will apply to fixed contracts agreed on or after April 1, and variable and flexible tariffs and contracts, with the Government negotiating with suppliers to ensure everyone can switch to a fixed tariff for the duration of the scheme if they wish.
For businesses not connected to either the gas or electricity grid, the Government said equivalent support would be provided for non-domestic customers who use heating oil or alternative fuels instead of gas.
Critical time
Prime Minister Liz Truss said she understood the huge pressure businesses were facing and this scheme would keep businesses’ energy bills down.
The end of the Government
Farm groups have warned rising energy costs are set to lead to a reduction in plantings next spring.
support package will come at a critical time for the salad industry.
Lee Stiles, secretary at Lea Valley, said growers needed to make cropping decisions now
Rise in UK tractor registrations
JAfter a couple of months of year-on-year declines, UK registrations of agricultural tractors (over 50hp) moved slightly above last year’s level in August.
At 834 machines, the monthly figure was just five higher than in August 2021, and only slightly further ahead of the August average from the previous five years.
The total for the year to date was still 5% lower than in January to August 2021, though, as supply chain disruptions continued to delay delivery of tractors to customers. and required more detail and extended support to do so.
“The announcement is not enough to encourage growers to order plants now for planting in December/January, due to the uncertainty of the six month period that will end when growers have started picking the crop,” he said. “Growers in discussions with retailers on cost of production price increases are unable to factor in the ending of the support scheme on the April 1.”
Crop production is set to move out of fields within 30 years, according to former Anglia Farmers chairman Clarke Willis.
JA leading agrifood expert has claimed crops will not be grown in fields in 30 years’ time.
According to Clarke Willis – who spent 15 years as chief executive of Anglia Farmers, the UK’s largest agricultural input supply co-operative – ‘controlled environment agriculture’ (CEA) will dominate over the coming decades.
CEA takes place in an enclosed growing structure, such as a greenhouse or plant factory, and aims to maintain optimal growing conditions throughout the development of a crop.
Speaking during a food security REDTalk organised by the Rural Policy Group think tank, Mr Willis said: “My view is fairly controversial. In 30 years’ time, we are not going to be growing crops in fields, certainly not to the level we are now in soil. CEA is going to be the main way forward. It is happening globally.
Strategy
“Singapore which, bear in mind, has got no land at all, has got [a target] to produce 30% of its food by 2030. It is a clear strategy.”
Jose de Mayne Hopkins, expert in sustainability for MHA Macintyre Hudson, agreed, claiming climate change would force businesses to produce food differently.
“Wheat is extremely sensitive to heat, so if the climate agenda does not get pushed forward and climate issues are not taken seriously with transition plans, we may not have high yield producing fields in 2030 or 2050.”
Mr Willis went on to say the whole food system in the UK is ‘dysfunctional’ because it is not producing what people want to eat.
He pointed to the example of durum wheat, which is used to make pasta but is not grown in great quantities in the UK.
“Another example is potatoes,” he said.
“We produce 22% of the UK’s potatoes here in Norfolk. How do we consume our potatoes? In frozen chips, which we import from Belgium and Holland.
“The whole system is completely dysfunctional and that is why we need a rebalance in our whole feed sector.”
CLARKE WILLIS
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ABIKay
Another Liberty and Livelihood March unlikely as the urban-rural divide has never been wider
What would it take for you to put on your marching boots, leave the fields and descend upon London to protest?
That is a question I pondered last month, as Farmers Guardian looked back on the 2002 Liberty and Livelihood March for its 20th anniversary.
Speaking to people who attended the protest, it became clear just how fondly the event is remembered. More than 400,000 demonstrators travelled to the capital on 2,200 coaches and 31 special charter trains to remind Tony Blair’s Government that rural communities had a voice.
Marchers recalled feeling a real sense of power, unity and purpose on that day.
The demo was organised in opposition to the legislation banning hunting, but it became much more than that, as the countryside came together to show it would no longer be neglected.
And it seems to have had a big impact, with Blair later admitting the move was one of his biggest domestic regrets.
Mobilisation was only possible, though, because there was a common ‘enemy’ – as Countryside Alliance chief executive Tim Bonner, who helped organised the event, put it.
Today, it can feel as though farming is besieged on all sides, but it is hard to lay the blame at anyone’s door.
Causes of some of the problems faced can be hard to identify and even more difficult to influence. Taking to the streets outside the Kremlin to complain about energy prices, for example, would be as pointless as it is dangerous.
And on other issues, such as trade, farmers have a range of different views. A divided house cannot stand.
Protest
There was also a fear among the people I spoke to about the march that any future protest would be counterproductive.
It is easy to see why they would draw that conclusion when the urban-rural divide has never been wider.
The gaping chasm was illustrated perfectly by a recent University of Exeter and Farming Community Network study, which found farmers are regularly subjected to abusive behaviour from members of the public during the course of their working day.
Survey participants said the demographic in their villages had changed significantly over the past 20 years and one told of his experience of getting ‘sly comments’ from walkers on footpaths or being sworn at in the tractor when on the roads.
When farmers are saying they feel ‘alien’ on their own doorstep, it is understandable that they feel the urge to retreat to the farmhouse.
There is one thing, though, that Mr Bonner thinks could bring rural people out of their homes once more, and that is the controversial land use issue.
With more and more agricultural land being snapped up for rewilding, tree planting, solar panels, infrastructure and housing, questions are being asked about whether countryside communities are facing an existential crisis.
Could it be that this is the issue farmers and other rural folk will coalesce around over the next 20 years? Only time will tell.
ABI KAY
About the author
rAbi Kay is head of news for Arable Farming’s sister publication Farmers Guardian.
