The best way for the UK government to secure a prosperous trading future for its farmers was a moot point for the four speakers in the Oxford Farming Conference’s ‘World beyond Brexit’ session. Farming minister George Eustice focused on the "lucrative" export...
I’m writing this from Ashburton, which is an agricultural town in the South Island of New Zealand. It’s a fitting time to be in the country that famously lost its farm support payments in the 1980s, given the changes that we face to our own farm subsidies post-Brexit....
Last week I attended an International Federation of Agricultural Journalists’ (IFAJ) event in Dublin and had a very fortunate opportunity to hear how the Ireland sees the UK’s departure from Europe, and its impact on Irish agriculture and trade. We were hosted by The...
We are delighted to be working with probably Britain’s favourite farmer (we are just a little biased) to showcase the great work he has been part of to bring the beautiful Albion, a traditional UK cattle breed, back from the brink of extinction. One of the UK’s most...
We have really enjoyed working with LEAF Open Farm Sunday to pull together some research on the barriers to farmers hosting LEAF Open Farm Sunday. They have used the results to look at how to recruit more host farmers for 2019 for this ever-growing, popular and hugely...
Today has been another of those days when my colleague asked if she could reboot the BT router to see if our broadband connection would improve. It didn’t. At speeds of 0.65MBps we struggled even to send emails. According the global broadband league table, we’re on a...
Over the last two to three decades farmers have experienced ongoing change and their resilience and mental wellbeing has been continually tested. Add to this the current challenges of policy and ever-increasing piles of paperwork, coupled with the stress of managing...
Over 50% of the world population is under 30 years of age with those at school and college never having licked a stamp nor having to wait while their broadband dials-up. In world terms Facebook now has a larger audience than the population of any country, LinkedIn has...
Over the last few weeks I have struggled to decide on a topic for my first JCM blog – that was until Friday, when I travelled 200 miles south to the Scottish Borders and experienced my first Kelso Ram Sale. The Kelso Ram Sale is considered by many in the livestock...
The number of dairy herds in the north east and the north of Scotland is a tale of woe. In the first six months of this year, the Scottish Dairy Cattle Association revealed that we now have just 28 dairy herds in Aberdeenshire (I was surprised there were this many),...