Farming

‘Grow more’ Brexit claims ‘tripe’

Published

7 years ago

October 18, 2017

Particularly vulnerable: Sheep farming

BRITISH farmers would produce more food themselves in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a trade deal, a cabinet minister has suggested.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling was responding to industry claims that food prices could rise sharply in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

He said this would hurt farmers on the continent as the UK was a key market.

UK WILL ‘GROW MORE’

However, if this happened, he said the UK would respond by ’growing more here and buying more from around the world’.

It comes amid fresh warnings from supermarket bosses that the UK leaving the EU in March 2019 without at least the outline of a future trade partnership would be bad for British consumers.

Sainsbury’s chairman David Tyler told the Sunday Times that a no-deal Brexit could result in an average 22% tariff on all EU food bought by British retailers.

The British Retail Consortium has said this could translate into a minimum 9% rise in the cost of tomatoes, 5% for cheddar and 5% for beef, while warning the figures could actually be much higher.

Agricultural products are one of the UK’s most important exports while the UK sources roughly 70% of the food it imports from the EU, leading to claims that items could ’rot’ at the border if there are hard customs checks or supply chains are disrupted after Brexit.

BRITAIN THE BIGGEST CONSUMER

Given the UK’s importance to farmers across Europe, Mr Grayling said it was not in their interests to see an outcome which resulted in higher costs and new obstacles to trade.

“You may remember the brouhaha over the Walloon farmers when they objected to the Canadian trade deal. I had a look to see who their biggest customer was – it was us,” he told the Andrew Marr Show on BBC One.

“We are the biggest customers of the Walloonian farmers – they will be damaged if we don’t have a deal.”

But if the UK ended up without a deal, which would see it default to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, Mr Grayling suggested domestic producers and retailers would respond by rethinking their sourcing.

“What it would mean would be that supermarkets bought more from home, that British farmers grew more and that they bought more from around the world,” he added.

“What we will do is grow more here and buy more from around the world but that will mean bad news for continental farmers and that is why it will not happen – it is in their interests to reach a deal.”

TARIFF-FREE TRADE VITAL

The British Retail Consortium said maintaining tariff-free trade with the EU during a post-Brexit transitional period was vital to preventing the UK facing potential tariffs straightaway of up to 40% on some beef and dairy products under WTO rules.

The trade body, which recently published research on the subject, acknowledges forecasting the consequent impact on food costs is complex and a range of other factors would have to be taken into account.

But it said there was a risk that domestic producers could put up their own prices to increase their competitiveness and if this happened, the cost of items like tomatoes could rise by up to 18%, broccoli by up to 10% and cheddar by a maximum of 32%.

A spokeswoman said that while retailers could review their buying policies in the medium to long term to adjust, it was “very unrealistic to expect farmers to make up the surplus of produce straight away”.

‘NO NEED TO WORRY’

But writing in the Sun on Sunday newspaper, the former minister and prominent leave campaigner John Redwood said that although consumers may see their shopping basket change if there is no trade deal, ’there is no need to worry, our farmers will boost their output’.

“They don’t understand the cards in our hands as the EU’s main customer,” he wrote. “The government will be able to give us all a tax cut out of the tariff revenue it collects, so we need not be worse off.”

However, those more closely connected with farming have responded with incredulity to the blasé reassurances of Mr Redwood and the claims made by Chris Grayling.

GRAYLING TALKING ‘TRIPE’

Apple growers have already complained about a shortage of labour for this year’s apple harvest, with British jobseekers unprepared to face the rigours of doing jobs usually performed by migrant labour who have turned their back on the UK post-Brexit.

Lawrence Olins, the chair of British Summer Fruits, whose members provide 97% of all home-grown berries and soft fruit to the UK market, pointed out that UK growers had been unable to source labour this year while still a member of the EU. The prospects for finding sufficient labour after Brexit were even worse, he said.

Mr Olins said: “I have farmers who are moving to Portugal because they know they are able to hire people from the subcontinent. They know this. To hear Grayling come out with this tripe beggars belief.”

‘OUT OF TOUCH WITH FARMING’

While acknowledging that Brexit could create opportunities for UK farmers in some sectors in the medium to long term, Minette Batters deputy president of the NFU responded to Mr Grayling, saying: “I would say he’s out of touch with farming. Of course we want to produce more, but have the rest of the cabinet got the same view? I support what he is saying, but it’s quite hard to know how this translates. I’d like to know what Philip Hammond thinks, what Michael Gove thinks of this.”

Ms Batters continued: “This is not about ploughing the verges to grow more food, it’s about the absence of any food policy.

“We haven’t had a food policy for 43 years,” she said, pointing out that national food and environmental policy has been led by the EU since the UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973.

And, lest those cheerleading Brexit reach for the green ink and the word ‘traitor’, as they tend to when words they want to hear are subject to scrutiny, the NFU’s Director of EU Exit and International Trade Nick von Westenholz said: “UK farmers know that there will be opportunities arising from leaving the EU, including increasing the amount of home-grown food consumed by the British public. However, given the extent of our trade in food with the EU, failure to secure a comprehensive trade deal would cause considerable disruption to farming in the UK. Although there is some scope for import substitution, farming operates on long timescales. For example, the first crop to be produced post-Brexit will be in the ground in less than a year.

“Furthermore, due to the amount of food we import that isn’t grown here, as well as issues such as managing carcass balance, simply upping production to quickly offset any reduction in food imports isn’t feasible.

“In the long term Brexit will offer new opportunities that farmers will be eager to take, but in the meantime the UK must maintain clear and free trade flows with the EU where the vast majority of our food exports are headed. Over the next few weeks, the NFU are embarking on a series of Brexit Roadshows across the country in which we will discuss the sorts of challenges and opportunities facing UK farmers in the near future.”

SHEEP FARMERS COULD BE WIPED OUT

FUW President Glyn Roberts, whose members number many of those small hill and family farms that would be most affected by no deal and a switch to World Trade Organisation (WTO) tariffs criticised Chris Grayling’s comments, providing a stark warning that sheep farmers were at risk of being wiped out unless commitments were given to match subsidies already received via CAP.

The FUW said that the transport secretary seemed to have ignored research commissioned by the government that showed the ’cataclysmic’ impact a hard Brexit would have on British farming.

Glyn Roberts, the FUW’s president, said: “Mr Grayling seems unaware of the results of the economic modelling commissioned by his colleagues in Defra, which paint a far more complex picture for the UK’s many agricultural sectors, and suggest in some ‘harder’ Brexit scenarios UK food production would collapse.”

Mr Roberts pointed out that the economic modelling of Defra and detailed data published by the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board released on October 10, ’predict pretty cataclysmic collapses in many or most agricultural sectors in the event of harder Brexit ”no-deal” type scenarios’.

The FIPRA report, which The Herald covered in August, revealed that Welsh sheep farmers would most likely be devastated by a hard exit from the single market, with tariffs for Welsh lamb – the overwhelming majority of which is exported to continental Europe – going from zero to 32% overnight, even on WTO most-favoured nation status.

FARMS’ BOTTOM LINES CUT

The AHDB report, to which Mr Roberts referred, suggested that average farm profitability could drop from £38,000 to £15,000 a year in the worst case scenario as a result of policy and performance challenges that come from Brexit, modelling work has revealed.

AHDB’s latest Horizon report, Brexit scenarios: an impact assessment, for the first time quantifies the potential impact of Brexit on UK farming businesses.

It maps out a range of possible post-Brexit situations and models their effect on Farm Business Income (FBI) across agriculture and horticulture’s levy-paying sectors.

The analysis projects the effect of different trading arrangements, farm support measures and labour availability.

They range from a ‘business as usual’ approach with current levels of support; a liberal approach to trade with tariff-free access to the UK and reduced support; to a cliff-edge Brexit, reverting to WTO regulations and with dramatically reduced support payments.

The model allows AHDB to re-run the scenarios in future as more detail of policy decisions in those key areas emerge, to form a more accurate picture for the industry. AHDB will also later publish specific results for Scotland using Farm Business Survey data.

Under the three scenarios outlined in the report, changes in the UK’s trade relationships will impact farmers’ bottom line when the UK leaves the Single Market, whether or not a Free Trade Agreement is negotiated with the EU.

Policy decisions also leave sectors where direct support has been a key part of farm revenues such as beef, lamb and cereals, particularly vulnerable.

Mr Bicknell added: “Buzzwords like competitiveness, resilience, productivity are not new to agriculture but Brexit brings renewed focus on farm performance. Do nothing and businesses that are currently profitable run the risk of heading into the red. There is plenty that individual businesses can do now to get fit for the future.”

‘NO DEAL’ FAVOURS BIG BUSINESS

One of the key challenges facing government will be protecting farmers from a hard landing, no matter what Brexit strategy is followed and whether or not a trade deal can be done.

Even the best trade deal will not be on the same terms as the current single market access, as EU governments have made clear, that means there will have to be a substantial structural adjustments to both the support given to farmers by the devolved governments and English parliament and steps to preserve small farms – which are a significant economic driver of rural economies.

The AHDB document highlights the risks faced if Britain leaves the EU without easy, tariff-free access to the single market, with Less Favoured Area livestock farm incomes particularly hard hit, falling to negative figures in the worst case scenario. Lowland livestock farms fare little better, with incomes falling to less than £4,000 in two of the three scenarios looked at, and across all UK farm types, incomes more than halve under an ‘extreme’ Brexit scenario.

But while results differ on a sector-by-sector basis, the top 25 per cent of businesses, regardless of sector, remained profitable under every scenario. In short, a hard Brexit favours large farmers – such as the grain barons of east England – and larger ‘industrial’ dairy and livestock farmers.

Glyn Roberts said: “The EU and UK sent a letter last week to WTO members outlining an agreed position on how quotas should be split when the UK leaves the EU, but the USA and other WTO members, including Canada, Argentina, Brazil and New Zealand, had already written to the EU and UK WTO ambassadors stating their objections to the proposals.

“The letter, signed by seven of the WTO’s 164 members, states ‘Such an outcome would not be consistent with the principle of leaving other [WTO] members no worse off, nor fully honour the existing TRQ access commitments. Thus, we cannot accept such an agreement’.

“This underlines the fact that the current EU negotiations are just the start of a complex process that would normally take decades.”

Farming

Langdon Mill Farm lodges plans for big new development

Published

3 mins ago

May 3, 2024

Bruce Sinclair - Local Democracy Reporter

One of Pembrokeshire’s largest dairy farms, which has a 2,000-strong dairy herd, has submitted a scheme for new calf buildings to “reduce reliance on third-party farms”.

Hugh James of Langdon Mill Farms Ltd has applied for permission for a calf building and weaned calf building, and associated yard areas, at Langdon Mill Farm, near Jeffreyston, Kilgetty.

A supporting statement, through agent Reading Agricultural Consultants, said: “Langdon Mill Farm is a dairy unit extending to approximately 1,215ha, comprising 283ha owned land and 730ha rented, located approximately 1km north of the village of Jeffreyston.

“A further 162ha is used by the business to spread slurry under informal agreements. The holding currently has a milking herd of approximately 2,000 cows, which are housed indoors for the majority of the year, with dry cows [cows that are not lactating, prior to calving] and heifers grazed outdoors when weather and soil conditions permit.

“There has been significant investment in buildings and infrastructure at the farm over the last decade in respect of cattle accommodation, slurry storage, milking facilities, Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plant and feed storage. The unit is efficient, achieving yields of more than 10,000 litres/cow/year, with cows being milked three times/day in the 60-point rotary parlour.

“Langdon Mill Farm currently directly employs 21 full-time, and three part-time staff (including the applicants). Of these, four live on site in the two dwellings opposite the farm, with the remaining staff living in the locality.”

urrently, calves are reared at Langdon Mill Farm for two months before being transported off-site to be reared at a number of third-party farms in the area.

At 22 months the in-calf heifers are brought back to the maternity building to calve, and then are introduced into the milking herd.

The proposed 61.2m long calf building is required to accommodate young-stock, following separation from the cows, to two-months, with the 164.8m weaned calf building to be used for calves from two months to seven months. Following the construction of the new calf accommodation, the existing building would be used for machinery and straw storage.

Currently, weaned calves are transported by tractor and cattle trailer to be reared at a farm in Cresselly, approximately 2.4km from Langdon Mill Farm.

The application says the proposals would “clearly make the enterprise more financially robust by reducing reliance on third party farms,” adding: “Despite the scale of the new buildings, their relationship to the existing dry cow/maternity building and proposed anaerobic digestion plant would ensure that landscape impact associated with the proposed development would not be significant.”

The application will be considered by planners at a later date.

Farming

Transition milk trial targets calf health at Pembrokeshire dairy farm

Published

3 days ago

April 30, 2024

Tom Sinclair

A PEMBROKESHIRE spring-calving dairy farm is introducing a new feeding system for newborn calves in what is to be thought the first trial of its kind in a large-scale herd.

Will and Alex Prichard are feeding enriched pasteurised transition milk to calves in their first 10 days of life rather than abruptly transitioning them to whole milk or milk powder.

Research has shown that feeding transition milk to young calves vastly improves their digestive system’s ability to digest milk, with those benefits sustained to keep them healthy and thriving as they grow.

The Prichard’s, who produces milk from 500 spring calvers, were keen to trial this feeding system in their own herd at Escalwen, Letterston, in the hope of improving calf health and wellbeing.

They are doing this with support from the Farming Connect Try Out Fund, an initiative that funds individuals and groups of farmers and growers to experiment with ideas and bring them to life.

Although the health benefits from enriched pasteurised transition milk have previously been demonstrated in all-year round calving herds in the USA and Canada, it is believed to be the first time it has been trialled in a large-scale block calving herd.

Getting the correct nutrition is crucial in the early stages of a calf’s life.

Even after a few hours the animal loses its ability to absorb antibodies – there is a dramatic reduction within 10 hours of birth and, by 20 hours, that capacity has all but gone.

To establish the effectiveness of the transition milk product, calves born at Escalwen this spring are being blood tested for antibody levels.

The transition milk is also being tested for its immunoglobulin (IgG) status before and after it has been pasteurised.

If it needs enriching this is being done to raise the BRIX value to a minimum of 12.5%. It is then fed to calves during their first 10 days of life.

An optical refractometer is being used to measure milk BRIX as it gives an instant result but by the end of the study all batches of transition milk will have been tested for IgG using Radial Immunodiffusion Assay at the University of Edinburgh.

Vet Dr Ryan Davies, director of Veterinary Technical Consulting Ltd, who is providing expert input into the project, says this will enable the accuracy of milk BRIX to be determined to quantify IgG status.

“We will then assess this against the health status of the calves,’’ he says.

Mortality from neonatal calf diseases such as diarrhoea, pneumonia and navel and joint ill is being monitored and antibiotic use too, as well as daily liveweight gains – at birth, at 30-35 days and at weaning.

The Try Out project hopes to understand more about how dairy farmers with large block calving herds can consistently produce animals that are healthy, productive and have a good quality of life through optimising calf health with preventative healthcare.

More productive animals mean less carbon emissions, higher standards of animal welfare and a reduction in antibiotic usage.

Not only do Will and Alex hope to reap the benefits in their own system but that other farmers will too when the findings are shared with the industry at the end of the project.

“Having the ability to acquire extra resources at the busiest time of our year has allowed us to monitor the results of our actions in a more scientific fashion,’’ says Will.

“Funding large scale testing is telling us so much about what is happening in our own herd environment and most importantly what behaviours and protocols are driving tangible improvements in herd health and antibiotic reduction.”

They had already made big gains in improving calf health before this project got underway.

The five-year average for morbidity in their pre-weaned calves from 2018-2022 was 45%, in line with the national average of 47% – in 2023 it was reduced to 17%.

Use of the Highest Priority Critically Important Antibiotics was reduced from 1.98mg/ population corrected unit (PCU) in 2022 to zero the following year.

Farming

Animal health and welfare workshops help family farm shape future business

Published

4 days ago

April 29, 2024

Tom Sinclair

AN eagerness to learn new skills and knowledge is helping mother and son Dianna and Iestyn Spary to continually improve their livestock farming enterprise and build a financially sustainable business fit for the future.

Technical expertise and good business sense are not qualities the Sparys lack since embarking on an impressive number of Farming Connect workshops, covering a range of animal health and welfare topics.

“It’s been an amazing opportunity, we have learned so much that we can apply within the day to day running of our farm and herd, and we can draw on that knowledge as we look at developing new enterprises and diversifications,’’ says Dianna.

She is the fifth generation of her family to farm at Goytre Farm at New Church West, Chepstow, Iestyn the sixth.

Together they farm 110 hectares, running a Hereford-cross beef suckler herd and also rearing beef cattle purchased as baby calves, including more recently British Blues, taking these through to slaughter.

Although they have been immersed in agriculture all their lives, they recognise that it is an industry that is constantly changing as new research and ideas are rolled out and applied.

This is where the Farming Connect workshops have been so incredibly valuable, says Dianna.

“You are never too old to learn, things are changing all the time. If we hadn’t got involved in attending the workshops, we would never have known about some of those new ways of doing things.’’

From learning how to maximise suckler cow productivity and protecting youngstock health to understanding diseases such as Johne’s and bovine TB, the animal health and welfare training workshops have been “enormously valuable’’, she adds.

The pair have tapped into Farming Connect accredited training courses covering areas such as calf management, health and housing, body condition scoring and safe use of veterinary medicines.

“You name it we have done it,’’ says Dianna.

They were announced the winners of the 2023 Farming Connect Animal Health and Welfare Award at the Lantra Cymru Awards in January.

The knowledge gained through Farming Connect workshops and training has helped inform changes in the business.

“We now monitor cattle weights more closely and have introduced different ways of feeding,’’ Dianna explains.

“We have also been revamping all the cattle sheds and have a couple of new ones that will be going up.

“We’ve also invested in calf jackets and if there are any drops in weights, we are more responsive with feed intakes, little things like that.’’

Iestyn has also benefited from a number of sheep-related topics offered through the animal health workshops.

Through the Farming Connect Advisory Service, they have received specialist veterinary advice on their Herd Health Plan with a focus on incoming stock and biosecurity. They have also had guidance on soil health through the soil clinic.

The Sparys largely use traditional farming methods at Goytre Farm where they have several hay meadows.

All feed is produced on-farm. “By doing everything in-house we know exactly what we are feeding and that’s important to us,’’ says Dianna.

That distinctiveness, which sets them apart from some of the more mainstream farming systems, has given them the confidence to consider establishing a diversification into meat box sales, what Dianna describes as a ‘farm to fork’ approach.

Working with a local butcher who has an abattoir licence, they hope to do everything on-site, from slaughter through to hanging the carcass for 28 days, and then selling cuts direct to the consumer.

“We have also spoken to a chef who is going to produce some recipe cards for us to include in the boxes along with a bit of history of where the meat has come from,’’ says Dianna.

Another future project could be converting stone barns in the farmyard to holiday accommodation.

To help focus their minds on their plans, the Sparys will get guidance at a Farming Connect diversification surgery; they have also signed up for a ‘planning a diversification’ training course and will attend a ‘Dos and Don’ts of Diversification’ event in the coming weeks.

For Iestyn, another form of diversification, into agricultural contracting, has provided a secondary income stream.

His customer base is largely farms with smaller acreages with crops that require harvesting or spraying.

Farming Connect has helped with this process too as Iestyn has gained his Level 2 Award in the Safe Use of Pesticides (PA1) and Safe Application of Pesticides Using Vehicle mounted Boom Sprayer Equipment (PA2).

He also offers field maintenance and fencing and works on a neighbouring farm during the lambing season.

This is where Farming Connect has again helped; through the animal health workshops, he has covered modules advising on the prevention of lambing losses and lameness, improving lamb performance post-weaning and parasite controls.

Dianna says the opportunities available through Farming Connect have really helped to drive the family farming business forward.

“We have a good relationship with our local Farming Connect development officer Lisa Powell, she has been brilliant in giving us advice on which courses and workshops are right for us and signing us up for those,’’ she says.

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