by Martin Lines
Is arable farming facing a perfect storm? With low commodity prices, high energy, fertiliser and fuel costs on top of ever-increasing machinery costs, surely every farmer is questioning the current system.
This month, I find myself thinking about many of the same issues I talked about in my previous article: the rapid rise in fuel and fertiliser costs because of the war in the Middle East – still something of a shock.
I think many arable farmers will have missed the worst of the price increases for this season’s crop. However, the current high diesel price is looking stable, which means this coming harvest’s fuel cost is going to be eye-watering. It’s anyone’s guess what the fertiliser price will be for next season. Add this on top of our changing climate and another exceptionally dry spring, and it’s not hard to see how the challenges stack up.
On my farm, we’ll be looking at ways of cutting costs via our inputs in the season ahead. There are growing calls that government should step in and subsidise the fertiliser and fuel costs – particularly when other neighbouring countries may do so. With many other industries across the country also calling on government to add support and cap or cover some of the rising costs, agriculture isn’t alone in feeling the pinch.
UK farming has a high level of dependency on nitrogen fertiliser which leaves us exposed to conflicts and geopolitical events around the world. We have to make better use of the nutrients that are produced and available in the UK in the current farming system.
Years ago, the UK moved away from mixed farming systems to concentrate on either crop production or livestock, and this has left us with an abundance of nutrients over in the West, and a desperate demand for those nutrients to feed crops in the East. In order to make use of the West’s surplus nutrients, I’ll require support to process them into a product that can be transported at a reasonable cost to be spread on my farm in the East.
As farmers, we may have to think about how we could store and spread these products. We also have to be smarter in understanding how we build fertility back into our soils, to start measuring what our crops actually need in the conditions they’re growing in for that year – which could be very different from last year.
On my own farm, we’ve been involved in a number of trials and testing to see how we can be more efficient with our nutrient use and lower our dependency on bagged fertiliser. Where we’ve done tissue and sap testing to understand what our crops really need – not what we think they need – we’ve often found that it’s trace elements we’re missing, not nitrogen.
We’re also involved in a UKRI trial that tests the soil for biological indicators of crop health and nutrient availability. The results of this project are really interesting, showing that healthy functioning soil can help with crop health, and how roots use the nutrients in our soil.
Farmers have to be building on this work, looking at results from reputable trials in order to help us make cost-effective changes to our approaches. I’ve never yet had a supply-chain salesman come down our farm track and encourage me to NOT buy a product. Farmers supporting themselves with government research funding to cut input costs and support nature is increasingly important.
We know that we’re also going to have to start taking more responsibility for the high levels of agricultural nitrogen being found in many water catchments, and for the airborne ammonia from livestock and urea fertiliser use. I’m not saying we can fix the problem of expensive fertiliser and dependence on imported products overnight, but funding support and research to make UK agriculture more resilient and less dependent on other countries is really important.
The cheapest source of energy we have as farmers is the sunshine, and harnessing this into crops and growth of other plants that benefit our soil and bottom line has got to be the direction of our long-term future. I’m very happy to tighten the purse strings and invite nature back onto my land to help me for free.
This article was taken from the latest issue of CPM. Read the article in full here.
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