With 17 per cent of growers failing to turn any profit in 2011/12 and a further 44 per cent of horticulture businesses making less than £30,000, the NFU’s horticulture and potatoes board has set out an ambitious agenda for growth in 2013. It hopes this will create a fairer balance of risk and reward in the supply chain and create a science and regulatory framework that backs production horticulture.
NFU horticulture and potatoes board chairman Sarah Dawson said: “As we emerge from one of the worst seasons in living memory, with balance sheets to match, our vision and optimism for...
Farmhouse Breakfast Week is an annual celebration championing the importance of breakfast, which aims to get the nation to Shake Up Their Wake Up! 47% of people regularly skip breakfast during the week, so the aim is to encourage people to enjoy a healthy breakfast more regularly.
Managed by HGCA, the campaign started in 2000 and takes place every January. It is more successful each year with over 1,000 events and promotions taking place in 2012.
Farmhouse Breakfast Week is run on behalf of arable farmers who grow crops such as wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape. The...
Every effort must be made to ensure a vaccine is available later this year to help combat the spread of the deadly Schmallenberg virus (SBV), the NFU said today.
The call comes as many farms with early lambing flocks across the country have experienced higher than normal losses with still births and deformities ranging from fused limbs to twisted necks.
The disease has spread across England and Wales to the Scottish border region and has now been confirmed on more than 1,000 UK farms. Although it is still being recognised by Defra and the European Commission as ‘low impact...
With the dawning of another brand new year, many of us are making resolutions or setting some personal goals for 2013.
And while some of us may even stick to our resolutions, many more of us will set ourselves challenges that we cannot keep.
So why not this year make a resolution that’s both easy to keep and makes a life-changing difference to those less fortunate than ourselves?
In Africa millions of families will go to bed hungry each and every night. Farm Africa is a different kind of charity that is working to end this, not through more food aid and hand-outs...
Farmers in the South West are being given the chance to tell local MEPs what they think of European policy for agriculture (CAP) at an event this week with the European Parliament.
‘Sowing the seeds of a new Common Agricultural Policy’ will take place on Friday 23 November 2012 from 12.30pm to 3.30pm at the National Farmers Union (NFU) South West office in Exeter .
The event has been organised by the European Parliament in association with NFU South West and the Houses of Parliament Outreach Service. Feedback from the South...
Leaves whirl off the trees, darkness comes early, the briefly lighter mornings darken too. The sun rises closer to the south, and at noon gets lower every day. A walk through the woods is a walk through lots of leaves, before they start breaking down to leaf litter. The last of the apples come off the trees, a rich cider smell rises, reproaching us for the apples we didn’t pick. I saw a robin, bold and curious, with that intensely sweet song, sitting on the wall in a watery gleam of sun, king in his own territory now the noisy summer visitors have gone. The fallow deer finish their rut,...
Today’s announcement delaying the two badger cull pilots expected this autumn was exceptionally difficult but on balance is responsible and right said the NFU.
With just weeks left of the autumn, the companies working to deliver this element of the government’s TB eradication policy have agreed with the NFU and government to postpone until next year.
NFU President Peter Kendall said he understood that today’s news would come as devastating blow to farmers who are desperate for a solution to the cycle...
The chairman of the NFU's dairy board has expressed disappointment following the latest round of milk price cuts.
Dairy Crest and First Milk have today announced further price drops from January 2015.
NFU dairy board chairman Rob Harrison said: “Although the fundamentals of the global supply and demand situation haven't changed this latest price slash is another kick in the teeth and comes at the expense of the average dairy farmer who is now making a significant loss for every litre of milk they produce. There are many farmers that have invested heavily over past years and...
I pretend it’s not happening until autumn is right on top of us. The unstoppable, overwhelming green tide of growth turns round and meekly disappears into the ground.
We get a fiery display as the leaves drain of green, going out in a blaze of glory. Let’s hope for more of the glowing light of September to give October that incandescent quality.
The wet, cold summer gave extraordinary growth to cool country plants, and things that need warmth suffered. Fewer insects - the cows never got besieged with flies - meant that all those insect-eating birds did not...
A Devon Food Conference heard a call today for a move to sustainable agriculture if we are to feed the world over the next decades.
Colin Tudge, world renowned author of 'Feeding the World is Easy' and the mover behind the Campaign for Real Farming ( http://www.campaignforrealfarming.org/ ) was speaking at a meeting organised by the Anglican Diocese of Exeter. He claimed that agriculture was the most important activity people undertake and holds the key to tackling many of our current problems, from obesity to diabetes to famines. Critical to this is for agriculture to be...
