Just got back from visiting Cereals and very useful it was too, if you’ve never been I would highly recommend it. A couple of things struck me as I wandered around the show.
Based on the amount of stands selling shiny new stuff and services British agriculture looks pretty affluent; how can you not make money when you have all that reliable advice and independent research at your finger tips? Recommended lists, how I wish for that. We have to choose varieties based on information from the seed producer and having a look at plots in the ground and saying subjective things like “it looks pretty good dunnit”.
The second thing that struck me was the amount of business selling quality assurance and food security services and equipment. UK farmers are told that they have to have all these measure in place to show due diligence on things like mycotoxins otherwise no one will buy their grain. Yet we all know that UK buyers will take a ship load of grain from countries such as Ukraine which has no such assurance, traceability or security in place and are unlikely to in the near or long future. I would reconsider my NFU subs if I was you.
