No food on the shelves?

Will there be food on the farm in 2023. Harry's farm new episode on YouTube helps us find out.

Harry first looks back at his farm's performance in 2022.  What he looks at is the profit after taking into account all the relevant factors such as machinery, any borrowings, any mortgage , and less any contractors they've done, less the cost of spray fertilizer, and seed. Harry says his gross profit looks like this:

• 5yr average     £22,000
• 2020                -£3500  A wet autumn. Worst harvest on record.
• 2021                £31,000 
• 2022                £37,000 Good harvest especially oil seed rape was £10k over budget - an amazing result for the 50 acres they grew. This was due to to high market prices and the bonus for the high oil content. It was £660 inc bonus.  Wheat was also good quality.
  

2023 not looking as promising

Harry is aiming for a profit of £25k (drop of £12k potential profit for the harvest coming up).  Fertilizer was £435 a ton last year 2022.  This year for the crop in the ground it is £590 meaning the farm has to pay about £9300 more. 

Harry's oil seed rape has gone from boom to bust. 10 hectares gone for a start. It's £440 a hectare when you add up seed fertilizer, herbicide & fungicide,  drilling contractor etc so it's £4400 down the drain, and also not helped by rooks & pidgeons , slugs and weather in other areas bringing losses up to £8000. He can't see himself growing rape again.

Harry sowed Dawsum variety winter wheat for feeding eg pigs & chickens (rather than milling).  Harry notes that supermarkets won't pay higher prices for meat or eggs and so producers stopped producing. So he is hoping that demand for eggs & bacon will be there when he comes to sell .

 No fruit & Veg on the supermarket shelves

Fruit & veg is grown under glass in the UK.  As early as April 2022 there were warnings that labour shortages and energy costs meant that growers decided not to plant green house crops. 

The Grocer 8 April 2022

In Autumn 2022 farmers asked for Gov help because high energy prices meant they could not grow that produce and keep costs the same . 

     

Farmers Weekly 2 Dec 2022

Harry says that Government chose not to support producers. So, salads tomatoes cucumber etc weren't planted .  Supermarkets also would not support UK growers and sourced supplies from places like Spain and Morocco

Farmers Weekly 23 Feb 2023

 The Defra website does list the top 30 actions costing 2.4billion per year to help farmers and growers: 

"We are re-investing £2.4 billion per year in the sector through new farming schemes

1. Provided farmers with extensive detail on the ELMs scheme, ensuring there is something for every farmer including uplands and tenants.
2. Accelerated the rollout of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) – with 6 new standards coming this summer (3 more than originally planned) to add to the 3 already in place.
3. Used farmer feedback to improve the SFI application – with some farmers saying it took them just 20 minutes to apply, and applications being processed quickly.
4. Introduced a new management payment for the SFI with farmers able to receive up to £1,000 per year on top of payments for specific action.
5. Increased payment rates under Countryside Stewardship (CS) from an average increase of 10% for revenue payment rates – covering ongoing activity such as habitat management – and an average increase of 48% for capital payment rates – covering one-off projects such as hedgerow creation.
6. Announced we are expanding our existing CS scheme, adding around 30 additional actions to the 250 actions already available to farmers by the end of 2024.
7. Selected 22 Landscape Recovery projects and announced we will open the second round for applications this spring.
8. Designed the SFI with tenants in mind, working closely with the Tenant Farmers Association – SFI pays the person doing the actions, not the landlord, and has a 3-year agreement length
9. Introduced a new rule, allowing those in Higher Level Stewardship agreements (which includes 40% of upland farmers) not only to extend those agreements for 5 years, but also to have a CS agreement alongside their HLS agreement
10. Introduced Farming in Protected Landscapes and extended it by 1 year, until March 2025.

 

We are supporting the long-term resilience and profitability of the agricultural sector:

11. Committed to at least maintain current levels of food production under the Food Strategy, which set out what we will do to create a more prosperous agri-food sector.

12. Published our first Food Security Report, fulfilling the duty under the Agriculture Act 2020 to present a report on food security to Parliament once every three years.

13. Paying Direct Payments in England in two instalments each year for the remainder of the agricultural transition period, to help farmers with their cashflow.

14. Committed to spend around £600 million on grants and other support for farmers to invest in productivity, animal health and welfare, innovation over three years and…

15. Paid out over £30 million so far in grants for technology and equipment, having increased the original budget from £17 million and committed £90 million to our Innovation Programme.

16. Provided 10,000 farmers with help and advice through the Future Farming Resilience Fund, which provides farmers with free advice to help farmers work out what to do for their business.

17. Doubled the funding available for the Catchment Sensitive Farming programme over the next three years (new annual budget will be £15 million, up from £8 million in 2020-21) - covering 100% of England’s farmland, with every farmer able to access advice and support by March 2023.

18. Providing seed funding to the newly created industry body for agriculture, The Institute of Agriculture and Horticulture, which will support the sector develop its skills and professional frameworks and provide labour market information.

19. Looking at how we can support new entrants into the sector and those looking to grow their farming businesses by developing their entrepreneurial capabilities through a small pilot scheme being run in conjunction with Harper Adams and Landworkers’ Alliance.

 

And responding quickly to global challenges outside the EU:

20. Providing support for heating bills through the Energy Bills Relief Scheme.

21. Removed the 25% tariff on maize imports from the USA. Maize is a key ingredient for animal feed.

22. Improved the Avian Flu compensation scheme for farmers to help farmers through the worst global outbreak in many years and eased marketing rules to give certainty over business planning.

23. Announced 45,000 visas for seasonal workers for the horticulture sector to ensure they have the labour they need, up 15,000 from start of 2022.

24. Championed precision breeding technology through the Genetic Technology Bill, which will soon become law, to help farmers become more productive and help feed the nation.

25. Cut red tape since we left the EU by making improvements to how and when we issue warning letters where financial reductions would previously have been applied.

26. Committed to introducing a new statutory code of conduct for contracts in the dairy sector with legislation being introduced this year.

27. Conducted a consultation exploring fairness in the UK pig sector between July and October 2022 – a Government Summary of Responses, which will outline the main findings and next steps will be published soon.

28. Hosted a roundtable with egg sector representatives in December 2022 where we encouraged the supply chain to work together to address the recent problems and committed to some scoping work to understand the issues facing the sector.

29. Introduced measures to help with the impact of global impacts on fertiliser supply chains: fertiliser industry roundtable, delayed changes to the use of urea fertiliser, encouraging use of organic fertiliser and new technologies, provided short term support to protect vital CO2 production, introduced funding for slurry storage and measures to improve soil health.

30. Brought in eight new agri-food and drink attachés in priority markets, as part of a wider plan to boost exports, further unlock barriers to trade and open new opportunities around the world."

 What will happen to fruit n veg?

Harry says that  energy prices have started to come down, glass growers have started to replant salad crops and so within 3 or 4 months UK sources of supply should be available.

Next steps for Harry's Farm

Harry is thinking of joining the Environmental land management scheme being offered by the Government

Funding for farmers

Being paid to NOT grow food

It looks like Harry can grow a "2 year legume fallow" .  In other words he plants clovers and other legumes which fix nitrogen in to the soil. For this he would be payed £593 per hectare guarenteed income for a non food plant to help the health of the soil. So if did that across his whole farm he might get a profit of £45k .

Legume fallow

 

GS4 legume mix similar to that being condidered on Harrys Farm.

GS4 legume & Herb rich sward

  Another story from Manchester Evening news tends to support what Harry says about food shortages.  Also , consumers are likely to find that a local shop has fruit and veg whilst the big supermarkets remain empty.