Click here to search commentonline

View From The Wellies - March 07

The new President of the National Farmer’s Union of Scotland is Jim McLaren from Crieff.  The two Vice-Presidents are Stewart Wood from Orkney and Nigel Miller from the Borders. 

The new top team was elected at the AGM at Dunblane Hydro Hotel on the 23 February.  The food for the event was all sourced from the Lothian and Borders region and as usual, it was a tremendous display of top quality Scottish produce and a credit to all the businesses who supplied it. 

 * * * *

Three award categories were presented at the AGM, including Young Achiever, Conservation and the Innovation Award.  The winner of the last category was of particular interest to livestock producers, as on most farms producing large amounts of slurry, storage and spreading on land are the only options. 

Showing what can be done with slurry is Andrew Rennie of Gask Farm, Turriff.  He has found a new way of turning ‘muck into brass’ with his biogas plant on the farm.  He uses pig slurry and waste sludge from a local abattoir to generate gas.  Engines run on the gas produced and in turn, electricity is generated which is sold into the national grid.  Other European countries seem to be further down the road than us in generating energy from alternative sources such as woodchip boilers and biogas plants.

 * * * *

Lambing and calving is about to start on many farms, so some decent weather in the next few weeks wouldn’t go amiss.  New lambs and calves born outside in cold and wet conditions can quickly become chilled and if they are not strong enough to suckle their mothers, it can create a tremendous amount of extra work, bringing them in to feed. 

The feeding of pregnant animals is also critical in the last few weeks before they give birth.  Overfeeding results in high birth weights which mean more assisted calvings and lambings.  Underfeeding can result in low birth weights, resulting in weak lambs or calves.  Correct feeding also means cows and ewes will have enough milk to feed their new offspring.  If the weather doesn’t play ball and we get stormy wet conditions, farmers use all sorts of things out in fields to make artificial shelters if there are no shelter belts or stonewalls.  Don’t be surprised to see large round or square bales or old bits of sheet iron held up with fence posts as temporary shelters.  These temporary structures don’t look very pleasing to the eye, but if you’re a newborn on an exposed hillside, they can be the difference between survival and dying due to hypothermia.

 * * * *

Springtime also means planting time on arable farms.  Spring sown barley for malting is a favourite crop on Scottish farms.  In recent years however, prices have been very poor at around £70-£80 per tonne, hardly covering the cost of growing the crop.  As a result, spring barley plantings have dropped to their lowest level for a number of years.

  Reduced plantings mean malting barley was in short supply over the winter and prices rose as supplies became tighter.  For harvest 2007, malting barley contracts are being offered at around the £120/ tonne mark.  Barley growers have been telling Maltsters for the last few harvests that they will stop growing the crop if prices don’t rise, so it’s nice to see that the good old principle of supply and demand finally kicking in and giving growers a better price.  The downside of better malting barley prices is sure to be an increase in the price of feeding barley used in the livestock sector.

So the wish list for the next few weeks is some dry weather for planting crops and warm sunny days for getting newborn lambs and calves off to the best possible start.