Author Posts: Sarah Kidby

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) has issued safety recommendations to Network Rail, HSE and farmers/farm workers after an incident at a user worked crossing in Cambridgeshire.

After an increase in the number of confirmed avian influenza cases, the UK’s chief veterinary officers have declared an AIPZ across the whole of Great Britain to mitigate the risk of disease spread.

Huddlestone Produce was able to reduce harvest time by around 30 hours after upgrading their grain drying and storage plant.

AS Communications has been awarded the distribution of AgXeed autonomous vehicles from winter 2022-2023.

Researchers have recommended improving connections between farming and non-farming communities, after a new study revealed feelings of loneliness among farmers are exacerbated by the public’s lack of appreciation and understanding of the work they do.

Defra has confirmed 22 cases of H5N1 in England since 1st October, with the majority of cases in Norfolk, followed by Essex and Suffolk.

This month, Tonia Simms from Hampden Vets, part of the VetPartners Group, offers advice on bovine respiratory disease, or pneumonia, in housed cattle.

Despite growing grassweed problems across the country, many growers are keen to minimise their wheat establishment risks by drilling earlier than advisable for the best cultural control, reveals the latest in a series of national studies. This will put particular pressure on pre-em herbicides, making the most robust and resilient programmes more essential than ever.

British farming’s unexpected advocate Jeremy Clarkson is back with a new book this autumn, picking up from where he left off in A Year on the Farm, which described his first year as a farmer. It was a year that included ‘biblical weather, a forest of red tape, a lockdown, a herd of escapey sheep [and] 10 million vindictive bees […]’.

Record temperatures and a severe lack of rainfall across the summer months led to cereals being harvested up to three weeks’ earlier than usual for some areas of the UK, with field fires in Eastern regions adding extra pressure to bring the grain in.

Combining satellite technology with precision machinery has enabled cereal grower Pat Thornton to reap the rewards of better crop uniformity and yield, by optimising inputs usage and tracking disease, on his farm in Doncaster.

Forward rapeseed prices remain strong and there is every chance early August drilled crops will grow away from CSFB as well as phoma and light leaf spot (LLS) threats. But don’t be complacent is the message from agronomists.