Editorial
Changing SFI goalposts not conducive to industry planning
Last month’s changes to the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) rules, while helping address food security concerns, are not helpful to those planning land use and the necessary inputs to manage it. Earlier this month Defra minister...
Comment: Digital grain passports – room for compromise?
The move towards digitalisation may seem inevitable in all walks of life, but it has caused a division in the grain trade over a proposed digital grain passport system. A late intervention by a group of smaller, independent grain trading businesses called for the...
More farmers need to engage with the SFI
An informal survey to ascertain farmer intentions towards the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) found nearly half the sample too busy to apply. Equal proportions had either applied or were opposed or unsure what the SFI entails....
Comment: Solid start for Barclay, but time running out
New Defra Secretary of State Stephen Barclay – in post since November – gave an assured performance at this month’s Oxford Farming Conference, the industry’s traditional curtain raiser for the political year. He was on top of his...
Comment: Food Security – providing the confidence to invest
Food Security has been a theme of the last month, as society works out how to best achieve a balance between food production and protection of the environment. Two recent reports have drawn attention to this conundrum. Parliament’s...
Social media and trust in business: Comment
Two episodes this month have shown how easy it is to lose business trust in an age of instant communications. Proposals to add a voluntary environmental module to the Red Tractor farm assurance scheme caused a rapid farmer response,...