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From The Wellies - October 07
The summer of 2007 will be remembered for all the wrong reasons, if you’re farmers. Officially the wettest summer on record, it will be talked about in the same manner as the winters of 1947 and 1963 or the horrible wet harvest weather of 1985.
This year, summer didn’t really seem to get going until mid August and this welcome improvement in the weather has allowed farmers with cereals to harvest to make rapid progress and harvest has been gathered in, relatively quickly on many farms. The lack of sunshine during June and July has had an effect on all cereal crops, resulting in them being slow to ripen and grains not filling out properly.
Today’s large capacity combine harvesters can make short work of cutting crops if they get long operating days and dry conditions to work in. The latest model from German manufacturer Claas has the option of a 35ft wide cutterbar and tracks instead of wheels are also supplied with this machine to spread its massive weight across the field to help cut down on soil compaction. Automatic height adjustment and laser guided steering of the cutterbar also help the driver get the most from this machine.
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Harvest 2007 prices for cereals have seen a dramatic rise, wheat is trading at around £160/tonne. Premium quality malting barley has also been fetching around the £160/tonne mark with feed barley trading at £125/tonne. This almost doubling of cereal prices in a year is good for arable producers, but is having a disastrous effect on livestock producers.
Feed costs for poultry and pig farmers, which in some cases can be 50% of an enterprises’ costs, have seen a huge increase driven by high cereal prices. Sheep and cattle farmers can produce a large proportion of their own home grown food in the form of hay, silage or home-grown cereals but some bought in rations are also required. Prices for all the produce from every part of the livestock industry has to do some serious catching-up to keep pace with the rising cereal prices.
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The recent wet weather has taken its toll on many outdoor events. The Atholl and Breadalbane Agricultural Show and Highland Gathering being one of them. Although the show went ahead, albeit without sheep or cattle classes because of foot and mouth restrictions, over 1½inches of rain fell on the Victoria Park, mainly during the day on Saturday.
Not only did this have the effect of keeping many people at home because of the inclement weather, but it also mean that vehicles leaving the showground at the end of the day caused some rutting and compaction. With the support of W B Grieve Groundworks, the show committee are presently carrying out reinstatement works and hopefully the park will soon be back to normal.
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The start of the new school term means that Land Based Studies have started again with equine, agriculture and gamekeeping all on offer. At present there are 3 students coming out to West Park farm on Thursday afternoons for their 2½ hour session. Tractor driving and general livestock duties are being taught with students gaining a Scottish Vocational Qualification at level 2 at the end of the course.
Land Based Studies is now being offered as an option in at least 20 schools across Scotland. Agricultural colleges such as Oatridge and Elmwood are also linking with schools to offer students induction days to give them the chance to see if land based learning courses are of interest to them before committing to full time study. Vocational training seems to be in fashion at the moment, getting employers interested and pupils enrolled seems to be no problem, however the main difficulty seems to be securing long term funding of courses.
Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Fiona Hyslop MSP, on a recent visit to Aberfeldy Show talked to students about the land based studies course. As usual, the students gave a very good account of themselves and hopefully more money can be found to fund all vocational training as everyone seems to agree, it has an important role to play in education.
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