Rural News

While many of us viewed the March national lockdown as a temporary glitch, months on we are now in the grip of a ‘new normal’, with many still working from home, and events and overseas travel still fraught with complication.

With Covid-19 forcing many of us back into our homes, making the prospect of Christmas shopping more challenging than ever, online gift shop owner, Sally Day, has launched new gift boxes designed for farmers and countryside enthusiasts.

When lockdown hit earlier this year, farm contractor Laura Burnett decided to future-proof her business and combine her two passions – farming and creating metal animal sculptures. We spoke to her to find more about her creations.

Artist and animal lover Maddie Dunn began taking commissions for pet portraits while she was doing her A-levels three years ago. After officially starting a business this year alongside university, she has already completed around 70 paintings. We spoke to her to find out more about her inspiration.

Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe has announced that she will leave Red Tractor next month at the end of her tenure as chair, following recent controversy over the Ag Bill debate.

A brand new farm essentials store, www.allagri.co.uk has been unveiled to give farmers a break from the stresses of staying on top of farm requirements. 

Fourteen-year-old Ollie Brightwell started making farming videos after being given a drone and teaching himself to use video editing software just a few months ago – but already he has had tens of thousands of views on YouTube.

Covid-19 has placed dairy ‘front and centre’ in the daily lives of UK consumers – with most products seeing an uplift in retail sales during lockdown, according to the AHDB.

Defra has announced new rules and logos to protect British food and drink, guaranteeing the authenticity of regional and traditional foods for shoppers and protecting British producers from imitation.

Farmers Matt and Pip Smith are tough. Farming 850 feet above sea level on the edge of Bodmin Moor near Launceston in Cornwall, the 2017 Sheep Farmer of the Year is used to high rainfall and challenging conditions buffeting the 480-acre site with grazing rights, where the couple farm 1,000 Romney ewes and some 700 venison at any one time – including 238 breeding hinds.

Could e-commerce be the next step for your business? With a bit of planning you could be up-and-running faster than you thought, according to accountancy firm Carmichael Kingham & Co.

With farm shops seeing a significant boost in popularity since the Covid-19 lockdown, many more farmers may be looking for ways to sell their produce direct to the consumer, yet new build projects can be expensive and time consuming.