Healthy bees, bumbling PM, farmland values up

It’s good to stay positive, but at last week’s Conservative Party conference Boris Johnson hit a bum note to the ears of many in the farming community when he failed to display much in the way of sympathy for pig farmers forced to cull healthy animals due to a lack of abattoir capacity. It’s worth reading the leader in this week’s edition of Farmers Weekly for a more excoriating reaction. Initiatives such as the Heathy Bees Plan, discussed below, are to be applauded, but as the latest farm income from Wales reveal many farmers really are on a knife edge. I’d love to know if you agree.

Do get in touch if we can help in any way
Andrew Shirley, Head of Rural Research

In this week’s update:

• Commodity markets – Pork crisis as values slump and costs rise
• Farmland values – Prices on the rise
• Rural expansion – We welcome new Head of Rural Consultancy
• Welsh farming – Economic issues laid bare
• Bees – Healthy bees plan launched
• The Rural Report – Sign up to watch our ground-breaking video
• Overseas news – Africa swine fever vaccine hope

Commodity markets – Pork crisis as values slump and costs rise

Pig prices are down again and farmers are being forced to cull piglets due to a lack of capacity at meat-packing plants. Meanwhile, input costs like fuel and feed continue to rise. The crisis saw protests from disgruntled producers outside the Conservative Party conference last week, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson attracting criticism for seemingly making light of the problems facing the industry in a number of interviews.

Farmland values – Prices on the rise

Provisional results for the Knight Frank Farmland Index suggest the average value of agricultural land across England and Wales increased by almost 4% in the third quarter of the year. A lack of supply and strong demand, including from environmentally focused buyers, are behind the rise. Please let me know if you’d like to receive the full results.

Rural expansion – We welcome new Head of Rural Consultancy

My Rural Consultancy colleagues have ambitious plans for the future and the arrival of James Farrell marks the beginning of a period of significant expansion. James joins us from Strutt & Parker where he was Head of Rural for 10 years. He is accompanied by Tom Richardson who will take on a strategic consultancy role.

Tom and James join at an exciting time, with the UK’s food, farming and rural sector undergoing its greatest period of change since the Second World War. This will create opportunities within the emerging natural capital markets of ESG, Biodiversity and climate change management, along with our development, finance and capital markets service lines.

Welsh farming – Economic issues laid bare

The slide that always elicits the biggest intake of breath when I do rural presentations is one that shows the contribution of subsidy payments to the Total Income from Farming (TIFF) across the UK’s regions. Most rely heavily on subsidies, but in Wales TIFF is actually lower than the amount the country’s farmers receive in terms of the Basic Payment and other support.

That reliance has been confirmed by the latest figures from the Welsh Farm Business Survey, which is based on a study of over 500 farms .

For the 2019/2020 cropping year subsidies accounted for 30% of turnover for upland livestock farms, but a whopping 240% of their profits even without attributing a value to the farmer’s own labour.

Bees – Healthy bees plan launched

Defra has just published its Implementation Plan for the Healthy Bees Plan 2030, which sets out more than 50 actions which beekeepers, bee farmers, bee associations and government will undertake to protect and enhance populations of honey bees.

Pollinators, including honey bees, contribute over £500 million pounds to the economy in terms of extra crop production.

The Rural Report – Sign up to watch our ground-breaking video

This year’s edition of The Rural Report, our unique publication for rural landowners and their advisors, launched last month with a video highlighting some of its key content around the topic of ESG. If you missed it, you can sign up to watch on demand at your leisure. It was a lot of fun making it and includes a thought provoking interview on diversity, with Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones AKA The Black Farmer. I think you’ll find it both entertaining and informative.

Sign up to watch The Rural Report launch video

Overseas news – Africa swine fever vaccine hope

Researchers in the US are hopeful that they have created a vaccine to combat the scourge of African swine fever that has devastated pig herds in Eastern Europe and Asia – about 40% of China’s herd has been lost since 2018. Meanwhile, farmers in Africa will also hopefully benefit from the new malaria vaccine that offers significant protection against the disease, which kills around 500,000 people on the continent each year, well over half of them children.

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash