Landwards Winter 2021
From the CEO’s desk
The past three months have certainly flown past. One minute we’re basking in the sun with harvest in full swing and the next maize is chopped, fields drilled and the dark nights are upon us. I’m actually more worried about how fast my year in this role has gone! The good thing is we’re getting out and about a bit more now with various events taking place. Out and about One such event I attended was The British Guild of Agricultural Journalists harvest lunch and awards ceremony in London. The IAgrE made an award for the best technical article by a member of the Guild. Travelling on a train full of people without masks felt quite an odd situation, however 8
I survived! The award was won by Charlotte Cunningham for her excellent article in Crop Production Magazine about a farm using its excess heat from their new AD plant to floor dry lucerne, a new crop venture they’d established. Future fuels This quarter has seen our annual conference, Future Fuels for Agriculture take place; the timing was perfect with COP26 being held the same week. If any of our members have been involved in COP26 we’d love to hear from you. Although our conference was held virtually, it was a live event with an excellent attendance. The diversity of our industry was shown by the conference
starting with Caroline Drummond MBE from LEAF presenting on sustainable farming and ending with Jon Swain from NFU Energy taking us through the energy demand challenges for glasshouses. In between we had two world leading tractor manufacturers talk about future engine and tractor design, with IAgrE member Alastair Walshaw taking us through CNH’s fascinating methane tractor and Jarno Ratia explaining AGCO’s plans live from Linnavuori in Finland. For those that are wondering where the methane could come from, Dr Chris Mann then took us through Bennamann’s fugitive methane capturing process from the non‐milk output from dairy cows. What industry could have that much diversity in a conference? For those of
