Blog - Livestock

Mid-October and Cheshire is looking reasonably on top of the job. Maize is all but finished, although some crops have been disappointing in terms of yield.

Well, harvest 2022 is officially over and it was our biggest harvest to date, with 300 hectares (740 acres) of combinables under our belts.

It has been a long, dry summer here in the Scottish Borders and we still have a couple of fields of grass to mow for second cut silage.

Dairy Talk: Gemma Smale-Rowland - Kind weather always helps the Cornish economy and this year has definitely been a good year for that

Recently, Dad and I took a now very rare trip to Gisburn Auction Mart. As the business has grown over the years, we have headed down dealing with more direct contracts, so no longer get out to marts as much.

The recent rain has been very welcome here, as I am sure it has for most of the country.

Becky Fenton and husband Paul milk 180 pedigree Holsteins under the Springlebee prefix at Centenary Farm, a Cheshire county council farm. In 2021, they bought a farm in Staffordshire and they plan to farm there once the new dairy set-up has been built.

The expression ‘the perfect storm’ seems to be a phrase used more and more recently. Unfortunately for farmers, it sums up what many of us are going through in 2022. Whichever way you look at the outlook, economic or weather-related, the picture does not appear to be hugely rosy.

Dairy farmer Andy Venables farms in partnership with his family, milking 330 cows in Cheshire, selling milk on a Co-op contract. He is also managing director of Hillsgreen, a marketing agency dedicated to agriculture with many high-profile clients, including NFU and Cereals.