What does the road to farming resilience look like?

CROPTEC returned this week after a couple of years in the wilderness of COVID-affected online shows. This event is one of the highlights of the UK arable growers’ calendar with 5,000 visitors flocking to the East of England Showground, over two days, every year.

The 2021 theme was ‘Cultivating resilience: farming in a changing climate’ which reflects the particular set of challenges faced by farmers at this moment – the economics of the removal of the Basic Payment Scheme over the next few years, the need for UK agriculture to play a significant role in reversing climate change, the challenge of World Trade Deals, and dealing with the agricultural issues around our ability to cope with changes in temperatures and rainfall; all underpinned by a pressing need to regenerate soil health whilst still feeding people.

It was my first year at CROPTEC. I had been expecting a plethora of big cultivating machines and 600+HP tractors. Instead, I got Elizabeth Stockdale from NIAB talking about soil health and Thomas Gent from Gentle Farming explaining Carbon Trading and ‘Regen Ben’ in an armchair talking about his life in regenerative agriculture. Outside, the £5 million pounds worth of heavy agricultural equipment, with hundreds of horsepower champing at the bit, looked wistfully through the windows at the throng gathered around the bio-stimulant stand.

Bayer, naturally, had the biggest area – complete with its own coffee shop and Lindor chocolate bowls to lure the unbelievers in. It was fun to see their representatives working the passing crowds to try to drag people into the stand and you could see in their eyes the recognition that the easy days of selling cans of fertiliser, herbicides and pesticides to guarantee yields and margins were already gone.

The DEFRA funded Farming Investment Fund announced this week should have given great impetus to the equipment suppliers, with up to £25k per farm being available for new equipment that supports increased agricultural accuracy and efficiency, but my search for a Cover-Crop Roller (specifically identified in the Government scheme as attracting a £1,952 grant) was met with blank faces from every equipment supplier in the building.
Elsewhere, it was great to see a whole room dedicated to educating young people on how to find employment in agriculture. The room was full of young people looking for work and the sessions were being taken by people who had been in the same position just a few years before.

Certainly, UK agriculture should take heart from events like CROPTEC. As a relative newcomer, I see a vibrant, highly intelligent, industry wanting to take on the very best of chemical, biological and engineering technology. The next generation are keen to get involved, and government and industry bodies are desperate to support progress. I know that there are many challenges facing UK farmers, but these are truly exciting times for UK agriculture.