Spring calving update, fungicide resistance explained and a pork pie without pastry?!

Martin: 00:00:00

Well, Charlotte, like a bad smell, she has finally dared to show her face.

Charlotte: 00:00:08

Oh, that's fine. You're referring to Hannah. I thought you meant me then.

Martin: 00:00:12

Hannah. Welcome back.

Hannah: 00:00:14

Thanks, guys. Did you miss me?

Charlotte: 00:00:16

Yes. Yes, I did.

Hannah: 00:00:19

Correct answer. It's been a while, isn't it? Sorry.

Charlotte: 00:00:23

I will let you off because you

Hannah: 00:00:24

have returned with all limbs intact. I will say yes.

Martin: 00:00:28

You've been skiing.

Hannah: 00:00:29

I've not been on holiday for five weeks. As much as I would love that, no, a few of the bits and bobs of work have got in the way, but last week I was in the French Alps and it was fun.

I was a bit scared because I had my runner's knee to contend with before we went, but thankfully I had a knee brace in my bag all week and I never used it, so I think my knees have survived.

Charlotte: 00:00:52

Yay. And how much cake and apres ski was consumed on your holiday? Or was it all being very good and big on the slopes?

Hannah: 00:01:01

Oh, very sensible. We were up first lifts every day.

Charlotte: 00:01:04

How boring

Hannah: 00:01:07

off camera. No, I will say something else.

Charlotte: 00:01:27

Hi, I'm Charlotte Forkes-Rees.

Hannah: 00:01:29

I'm Hannah Clarke and I'm back finally to once welcome you to The AG Show.

Charlotte: 00:01:34

I'm so pleased you're back. You have been so missed. And perhaps the less I say about my standing co host, the better.

Hannah: 00:01:44

On this episode, we're going to be hearing from a beef and arable farmer to talk us through his spring carving experience.

Mark: 00:01:50

We've got cameras in all the sheds now and it means that I don't live on site, I live off farm.

It means I can call in and effectively look at the cattle twice in the night without the need to physically get out of bed, which my father tells me is a bit of a luxury.

Charlotte: 00:02:06

We'll also be exploring the world of fungicide resistance and why our cereals growers should take note.

Catherine: 00:02:12

A spore from disease will very easily spread in the wind, so if resistance develops in one field, it will easily blow into other fields.

Hannah: 00:02:22

A reminder, new episodes of the Ag show drop every Wednesday at midday and available wherever you get your podcasts with

Charlotte: 00:02:29

audio and video versions for every show. Just subscribe to make sure you don't miss an episode.

Hannah: 00:02:36

And please get in touch with us. We'd love to hear from you, comment on any of our social posts or email agshowhdb.orguk

Charlotte: 00:02:46

on last week's show, we looked at the potential impact of blue Tongue on lambing and calving.

Catherine: 00:02:52

Yeah.

Hannah: 00:02:52

And it made us think it was high time that we got a first hand account about how spring carving is actually going and I'm pleased to say returning to the show is beef and arable farmer Mark Jelly. Mark, welcome back to the ag show. Looks like you're live in the carving shed. How's things going?

Mark: 00:03:11

I am. It's been a busy year so far. We're about just over halfway through carving now, about four weeks in and so far it's gone really, really well.

It's really just getting to that stage where tiredness is beginning to set in a bit. But it's the best bit of the job.

Hannah: 00:03:25

And Mark, could you just give us a quick recap of your system?

Mark: 00:03:28

Yeah, sure. Okay. So we're a suckler finisher farm.

So we carve cows in the spring, we take all those calves through on grass with their mums through to the autumn when we wean and then we finish those calves through to slaughter weight in the following couple of years. Really? So the bulls will be going out about 14, 16 months old and the heifer calves will be moving into the abtoir system at about 18 months old.

Hannah: 00:03:51

What kind of elements are priorities for you in your system? I know you're really passionate about calf mortality and things like that. Is there anything else that you really try and focus on?

Mark: 00:04:00

Yeah, so our system has evolved over the years.

We started off having a flying herd model which is sort of buying in replacement heifers, they were dairy cross at the time and replacing cows as required with bought in animals. And that worked really well up until we started to find problems with sourcing cattle when we move to a more of a closed herd self replacing system.

So now we're really trying to focus on the genetics within the herd and we're also trying to ensure that when we. Sorry, there's a cow now wobbling the gate that I'm leaning on, so apologies about it.

We're, we're moving from a system which was quite sort of high input to. Sorry, she's really not helping. I'm going to move to a different gate.

Charlotte: 00:04:41

You're going to have to show us now the cow in question. She obviously wants to be on the show.

Mark: 00:04:45

Quite why she's feeling the need to go and try and push my gate over. I'm not sure we've come from a system where originally we were buying in replacement cattle. They were dairy cross calves.

They came onto the farm and they replaced any cows that were moving out of the herd either through age or through being not in calf or something like that. We're now doing A closed herd policy. So we're breeding our own replacements and the genetics of that have become really important.

It's vital that we try to avoid, not necessarily keeping the best cows, but avoiding keeping the worst cows, because those are the ones that don't make me the money. And the worst cows in this case would be animals which are difficult to carve and don't give me a live calf every year.

And also the ones which are not going to provide something which meets the market specification. Because my market specification is quite tight in terms of the end product that I'm looking to produce.

So my focus really is on the genetics within the herd, but also on the sort of the practical side of it. Because at the end of the day, the most difference I can make to my profitability within the suckle herd is live calves.

If I start off with live calves at the beginning of the system, the production cycle, you know, I've got the best chance of making money at the end of it.

Charlotte: 00:05:51

And I guess looking more at that practical aspect, what is it that you do then to sort of whether it's prepare yourself or prepare your cows? In the run up to calving season

Mark: 00:06:02

in our herd, we've tried hard to avoid keeping cattle that are going to cause problems, which a lot of people are doing already in terms of picking animals which are easy calving and so on. But we've also looked at some of the other options.

So we've got cameras in all the sheds now, and those cameras give us basically 24, 7 vision of what's going on within the shed. I don't live on site, I live off farm.

It means I can call in and effectively look at the cattle twice in the night without the need to physically get out of bed, which my father tells me it's a bit of a luxury, but to me it feels, you know, still fairly timely to wake up in the middle of the night and check my camera when I'm bleary eyed. That's probably the biggest thing that's made a difference to survival rates on the farm.

We've seen a lot of cows of having problems or might have problems where we've been able to help. And that makes a huge difference.

It really aids management when you get cows that have had either twins or where you've got two or three cows calving in the same pen, because you can ensure that you recognize the calves and you can address the problems quicker. So that would be the biggest sort of change that we've made, will be the introduction of the cameras.

Allowing us to use that system on the farm to help with calving.

Charlotte: 00:07:10

Practices have changed quite a lot then since your father, obviously, he's probably very jealous that, yeah, you are technically getting the easier option than having to go out at night to go and look at it.

Is there any other equipment that you tend to always gravitate towards or you've started implementing to make your life perhaps that little bit easier?

Mark: 00:07:26

We talked a little bit about the genetics earlier, and the genomic testing that we're using now has become a really valuable tool. It allows us to see at a very young age, potentially days old, what the potential of that cow will be when she enters the herd.

So I can avoid a lot of the calving problems which might otherwise occur. We also work really closely with our vets to understand any disease problems and pressures that we might have.

So this year we have, for example, vaccinated against blue tongue. We haven't had a problem yet, but I'm not aware that neighbors have either. But as always with these things, vaccination is an insurance policy.

I hope we don't run into problems, and I hope my neighbors don't either.

But we are trying to ensure that we've kind of covered as many of the bases as we possibly can do in terms of the health challenges that the cows may face. And that's also included this year a reprofiling of minerals for the cattle in the diets.

We discovered we were short on selenium at grass last year and that the diets over winter were also slightly short in selenium. So we've changed the mineral profile that we're feeding to the cattle this winter. And to date, I think it's made quite a big difference.

We're seeing quite a change in the ease of carving.

And whereas we didn't assist a huge number before this year to date, and I know I'm absolutely causing myself a huge number of problems with the rest of the carving, but to date, we haven't had a problem with any carvings at all this season.

Charlotte: 00:08:42

Touching wood for you there.

Mark: 00:08:45

There's not in my shed, so, yeah, thank you for that.

Charlotte: 00:08:49

So you've mentioned on, obviously, the practices that you're putting in place, and a lot of those, it is all.

It sounds like anything that can make your life easier in the long term, even if it's not that immediate effect is something that you're implementing.

But if we think back to a little bit more on actually calving, what are some of the things that you're doing, perhaps in the first 24 hours that they might be on the ground for.

Mark: 00:09:08

Okay, so as soon as a calf is born, we have a policy now of assuming that unless we've seen it being born, that it's already getting towards the point where we need to ensure that the calf has had colostrum.

So if we spot a calf on the camera in the middle of the night, the assumption is that it's been born for a while and that we need to investigate to ensure that it's actually had its first drink of life. Effectively, that's where the immunity comes from, and it's really, really important that we get that into the calf.

So the assumption is now that if we haven't seen a calf suck, first of all, we have to ensure the cow is penned with the calf and then ensure that it's had a first drink.

If the cow can't provide that or the calf isn't capable of taking it, then we use an artificial colostrum, which is a good substitute, not perfect, but a good substitute to ensure that we provide that early immunity, which really kicks things off.

We did do a study a few years ago with hdb, which showed failure of passive transfer, as it's called, where the immunity doesn't move from the cow to the calf due to colostrum intake.

And the only calf in that study that actually showed failure, passive transfer, then went on to have problems in the autumn with pneumonia when we housed.

Wasn't a big study, but it really brought home to me the importance of ensuring that that immune system of the calf is up and running quickly and to ensure that the calf is best positioned to take itself right the way through the production cycle.

Charlotte: 00:10:23

So it kind of sounds like best practices, they're not just there to be an annoying checklist to get put through. It is actually there. There is a point, and it does make your life easier and hopefully more profitable in the future.

Mark: 00:10:37

I think with these things, there's an element of judging which bits are pointless and which bits are useful. And it's probably dependent on the system because for a lot of people, there will be parts of it.

If you're carving outdoors without any cameras, it's a lot harder to judge whether or not that calf might have had its colostrum in its first six hours or even when the carp was born. Perhaps it's about optimizing and trying to make best use of the facilities you've got and things.

So, from my point of view, when I first came back to the herd, I wasn't in charge of the farm Finances and my opportunity to really make a difference in our financial performance wasn't there from making the management decisions around that side of the job. The opportunity was from the physical performance side. And improving the physical performance has been the biggest uplift in our profitability.

So making the changes that work for you, whether it be correcting the mineral profiles, whether it be ensuring that you've got your carving protocols in place, stuff like that, they have real value, but they've got to work alongside the system you're running.

There's no point in me telling somebody that's carving outdoors that they need to know the exact time an animal was born, when they, you know, the animals are up the hill or something. That won't work for them, but it does work here. So it's about adopting those practices to best suit your own system.

Charlotte: 00:11:45

And you said you're about halfway through carving so far this season. Anything you've learned so far?

Mark: 00:11:51

I've learned. I'm getting older. I've learned that we still can learn things with the process that we run here in terms of carving, we're not fully optimized yet.

There's still room for improvement. I've learned that despite being absolutely shattered at the moment, I'm really, really enjoying it still. And I can't imagine not calving cows.

It's the favorite, my favorite part of the whole job.

The reward of bringing these calves into the farm and then being able to see them out in the fields a week later running around enjoying themselves is absolutely fantastic. So I'm still really enjoying that.

Hannah: 00:12:24

Mark, thank you so much. I think we're going to take a quick break now and leave you to go back and look at your cows for a bit.

We're next going to delve into the world of fungicide resistance, but we'll be back with Mark very shortly. Hi, it's the Ag Show. Welcome back. I think it's time for a bit of news. Charlotte, what have you got?

Charlotte: 00:14:38

Well, you know, I love a food story, so tedious link. Bear with me.

I was in the car the other day with my mum, and while it might not have been my usual listening choice, Radio 2 was on and Jeremy vine in particular, and he launched into a surprisingly passionate debate about pork pies. And there were people ringing in, strong opinions flying around, and a J Gen Z producer trying a pork pie live on radio for the first time ever.

Now, I found the chat really interesting and it all came off the back of Tesco recently releasing some research that they've conducted that almost a third of 18 to 24 year olds in Britain have never actually tried a pork pie. Does this surprise you even at Christmas?

Hannah: 00:15:29

How is. How can you avoid them?

Charlotte: 00:15:31

The radio discussions range from it being thought of as a pork pie of a beige spread item and the producer even said a staple at wakes and christenings, which, sorry, I will be serious through this. But also some of the callers coming in were saying that actually it's the thought of the pastry, it's that less healthy thing, isn't it, as a snack?

And actually if I was going to have pastry, I might prefer it as a tart, which I could also get on board with. And also the discussion around jelly. What's the point of the jelly in a pork pie?

But anyway, going back on topic, Tesco's has decided that they're going to try and do something about this and all about innovation.

We love that they are thinking, or they have launched actually a limited edition sandwich which is in now over a thousand stores, which combines pork pie meats with cheddar piccalilli, all in malted brown bread and it is sitting firmly within their meal deal range. Is that a sandwich of choice that you would consider, do you think, going out to Tesco's?

Hannah: 00:16:40

Um, no. Sounds awful. Just give me a short pie.

Charlotte: 00:16:47

What about you, producer Martin? You look like that could be a

Martin: 00:16:50

tempting possibility, to be fair, if it was free. I'll eat anything, as proven at a lunch the other day. I prefer things to be kept in their natural state.

Charlotte: 00:17:00

Well, I think then it sounds like Tesco's have missed a trick with you. You could have got away with just getting the mini ones between two pieces of bread and just. That's your sandwich.

But they're obviously aiming this at that bit of nostalgia, aren't they? And also trying to perhaps open up to younger shoppers who might not be reaching for that traditional version.

And also within Tesco's research, you'll be pleased to know that actually 84% of the wider population have tried a pork pie.

So it isn't that people aren't e pork pies, it's just perhaps these younger ones might not be reaching for them, so they're looking to close that generational gap. But I just thought it was quite a clever way to try and introduce this perhaps British classic to the masses.

Or it was just an interesting topic for Jeremy vine to have on that broke up our journey a little bit. But, you know, I'm always going to treat you to a great foodie story.

Martin: 00:17:55

You haven't disappointed on with the show.

Charlotte: 00:17:58

Time to talk fungicide resistance. And I'm pleased to say we're joined by AHDB senior crop protection scientist Catherine Harries to shine a light on this topic.

Hannah: 00:18:09

Yeah, I'm sort of familiar with the typical kind of spray windows that we have in the year, but fungicide resistance is a whole new kettle of fish for me. So, Catherine, I think to start us off in simple terms, could you just explain what we mean by fungicide resistance?

Catherine: 00:18:26

Fungicide resistance, and I'm talking about this on cereals and oilseed crops, mainly focusing on cereals. It's a bit like antibiotic resistance.

So you have your population of disease in the field and there'll be natural genetic variation in that population. When you spray a fungicide, hopefully most of the pathogen will die, because that's what the fungicide is designed to do.

But just because of this natural variation, some will have what we call a mutation, which will mean they stay alive.

And then because those are the ones that have stayed alive, they breed, and then you get more of them and then that is increasing your resistant population. So you get poorer control from your fungicides. And, yeah, that's what we're trying to avoid.

Charlotte: 00:19:12

Are certain serial diseases proving harder to control than they were a few years ago, or is it very much a regional issue that you might see?

Catherine: 00:19:21

Yeah, because diseases, they're not like weeds.

If you have a weed, it's obviously growing in the ground and the seeds will spread, but they're heavier, so they spread as far, whereas a spore from disease will very easily spread in the wind. So if resistance develops in one field, it will easily blow into other fields. So resistance gradually develops. It's always.

Well, it tends to be very gradual and it affects different diseases differently. So, for example, yellow rust in wheat is much less likely to develop resistant to fungicides, whereas a disease like septoria is much more likely.

And it's just to do with the way that they breed, basically.

Hannah: 00:20:05

So fungicide resistance is like an ever changing, ever growing issue. It must present a lot of challenges to the sector. How does the sector sort of keep up with the change?

Catherine: 00:20:15

So we've been monitoring fungicide resistance at HDB for many years now.

And this provides really valuable information to the industry that's independent to allow us to see how changes to different fungicides and different pathogens.

The companies who make the chemicals are also doing this monitoring because they want to monitor how their products are performing and whether they're likely to break down to resistance and what they can do to protect it, because obviously the company is interested in making sure the product works for as long as possible, just as much as the grower is. As the efficacy of the products that they make declines, they're always looking for new ones. And it's a bit like an arms race.

As soon as the efficacy of one product decreases, hopefully we'll then have a new one which will provide good control again. And we just have to hope that this continues.

But obviously with restrictions on registration of plant protection products and less defined, because a lot of it has already been discovered, we're going to have a diminishing portfolio of plant protection products. So we need to do as much as we possibly can to protect the ones that we do have.

Charlotte: 00:21:25

I was going to say, is there then some really simple or practical things which farmers are going to be able to do, which could perhaps take the pressure off of some of these fungicides and their use?

Catherine: 00:21:35

The best thing is to minimise your disease in the first place as much as possible.

So using cultural control methods to make sure that when you go into the season at this time of year, the risk and the pressure of disease is as little as possible. So the things that you do to reduce disease tend to be different for different diseases.

But septoria in wheat is the biggest disease that we're concerned about for fungicide resistance, and it's also the biggest disease of wheat in the uk. Things you can do to reduce disease are growing a resistant variety.

So if you look at the HDB recommended list, there's a line there that tells you what the disease rating is for that variety, and you want to choose a variety with a high septoria resistance rating. Something else you can do is to drill later in the autumn.

I know this is getting difficult with the wetter autumns we're having, you know, changing weather patterns, but if you can delay your drilling from September to October, you're effectively increasing the disease rating that your variety has.

And then when you get to this time of year and you're starting to think about what program you're going to put on at your T0, T1, T2 and T3 timings, if you do decide to spray at all those timings, you really need to be responding to the season and looking at the disease pressure you have in front of you. And when you're planning your program, you need to try and use the minimum dose possible that achieves effective control of the disease.

The other really important thing to do is to mix your modes of action so fungicides are classed into different modes of action and these are the way that they work on the pathogen. And if you use different modes of action, they kill the pathogen in different ways.

So it's less likely that that spore or that pathogen will have resistance to both modes of action. So if you use both modes of action, you're almost certainly going to kill.

Well, hopefully you're going to kill as many spores as possible in your field and reduce the risk of resistance. And then finally the other thing you can do is include a multi site fungicide in your fungicide mix.

Hannah: 00:23:45

Catherine, is there something small that farmers could be doing to make an impact?

Catherine: 00:23:51

Yes, it's a bit of a tricky one because you as a farmer, if you practice all these resistance management techniques, you're not necessarily going to see a direct benefit from for that in terms of fungicide resistance, it's something that we all need to do. So if no one puts in place fungicide resistance measures, then the problem's going to get worse for everyone.

But if everyone puts in place fungicide resistance management measures, then the problem is going to be better for everyone. So it's really a collective thing.

We all need to make sure we're aware of this and we're doing something to manage our fungicide resistance and then that will steward the products for many years to come, hopefully.

Hannah: 00:24:32

And is there, if you were to pick one, is there one practice that you wish more farmers were doing with their fungicide resistance?

Catherine: 00:24:39

If I had to pick one, it would probably be to use cultural methods of control to reduce your disease in the first place. And following on from that, adapt your fungicide spray program to disease pressure rather than planning your program in January.

And that's what it's going to be. And I think that's probably going to be easier and more effective than some of the other strategies.

Charlotte: 00:25:05

And any myths about fungicides that you might want to clear up?

Catherine: 00:25:08

So the one myth that is actually quite widespread, we've had a few resistance roadshows this year, and I've heard it said a few times, is some people think that you have to keep, they call them robust rates of fungicide to manage your fungicide resistance. So keep rates high and they think that that's more likely to kill all your disease and therefore the ones that are resistant won't survive.

But actually the best thing you can do to manage fungi resistance is to keep rates as low as possible whilst still managing the disease, as I mentioned earlier. And I think that's a really clear distinction we need to make.

And I think the Confusion arises is because for some other aspects of crop management, like weeds and pests, sometimes you do want to keep rates high, whereas it's different for diseases. You need to keep rates as low as you can.

Hannah: 00:25:59

Katherine, thank you so much for joining us and taking us through the very complex world of fungicide resistance. I feel like we've only just scratched the surface, so maybe we'll be touching on this in a future episode.

Next up, though, we're going to be back with another friend of the Ag show, beef and arable farmer Mark Jelly, to talk us more through his business model. You're back with the Ag Show. Let's go back to Mark in his carving shed and talk to him more about his farm system.

Mark, I'm interested in your thoughts on, I guess, the. The national suckler herd and people's appetite to calve cows.

Because it's something I pick up in my day job conversations around people not necessarily wanting to carve cows anymore. We see the national herd in, in a kind of a state of contraction and sucral cow numbers are falling.

People are wanting to get into the beef sector, but it seems to me it's more in the space of rearing and maybe finishing, which obviously isn't at the. The kind of. The nub of the. Of the supply end, if you like. I just wondered what your thoughts were on.

Catherine: 00:28:33

On that.

Mark: 00:28:34

I don't think it's necessarily a lack of skill. I think it's. It comes down to several factors, really.

First of all, it's a lot easier to buy a calf from anywhere and rear it than it is to keep the cow, to carve the cow, to then have a calf and take that.

And it's also a hell of a lot cheaper as well because it's really quite expensive to buy a cow and then wait for the amount of time that you need to before she actually has a car.

So it's understandable that people would want to find an easier way of doing things, especially when the parts that really demand the labor, such as carving, are really quite hard work. And they do occupy large amounts of our investment in terms of the infrastructure that we need.

And at the same time, they also provide a really important function of the farm because for us, we've got a lot of ridge and furrow on the farm which doesn't suit intensive grazing. It's not quite sort of regen y or anything like that. But it really is a traditional pasture that doesn't like to be pushed.

It likes to do its own thing and actually suckler cows and calves or sheep, which I don't like, are actually really well suited to that system compared with something which is perhaps like a store system where you want a much more productive grass to ensure that you get the strong growth rates of the older animals. So from our point of view, yes, they play a really important function on the farm. He's come now to drink the trough.

I don't know whether you can see her. And he's enjoying making very large slapping sounds in the water trough. Anyway, so in terms of skill shortages, I don't think there is.

I think there's perhaps an enthusiasm shortage that's based on historic pricing and the way that despite the amount of time and effort that you can invest in rearing cattle, especially suckler cows, with the long production cycle at the end of it, to have a price that's not attractive to you is really quite disheartening.

It becomes a bit of a challenge at that point, but not only for people to enter the industry in the first place or the sector within the first place, but also to see what the long term outcome might be.

But my belief is that there's a limited number of dairy calves within the uk, so that side of the industry is not going to be able to grow significantly. We're seeing a falling number of suckler cows within the uk, so that suckle herd is shrinking over the years.

It has to provide opportunity and I'm quite excited about the long term in that sense.

I think that in a falling, shrinking marketplace, actually I'm producing a product now which, whilst it won't be for sale for a couple of years on the shelves, will actually be in demand and probably commanding quite a significant premium when it gets there as well.

Hannah: 00:30:57

What we've seen with the beef price recently and calf prices as well that feed through to suckler producers, there's potentially a question about incentive there from the market, do you think, to incentivise expansion in the suckle herd, or at least to stem the reduction in suckler cow numbers. What do you think the industry could be doing to kind of incentivize people to enter suckler production?

Mark: 00:31:21

It's a really tricky question, isn't it?

Because at the end of the day, I don't think there's anything any in particular organization or individual can do that will incentivise people to get into this job if they don't want to.

My view is that the opportunity for expansion in the future is there for us and our herd, and I would imagine that there'll be Plenty of young people who are looking at their own herds thinking the same thing.

As we see older farmers retiring and having dispersal sales, it might offer the opportunity for people to move into new kind of business models where instead of disposing of cattle, people can bring somebody in to manage or to share ownership or something like that. But these are quite significant changes beyond where the industry is at the moment.

So it's hard to see anything that would particularly incentivize people beyond the inevitable price. Price is the driver.

At the end of the day, if the market price is paying a decent price, people will look at the job and think, you know what, I fancy doing that. If it's not doing, people won't.

And we could really do with some long term indicators from not from government because the government policy changes so frequently that it's hard to know where we might be looking in two years time, which is what my production cycles are looking at.

We really want the long term indicators to be coming from the retailers and from the processing sector to tell us that yes, we want your product, yes, it has value and actually it's a base price as a starting point. That would be really valuable to me

Hannah: 00:32:34

and Mark, just kind of stepping away a little bit from the succlus specifics. You're also on the sector council, you do a lot of other things on farm. How do you find the time to fit everything in?

Mark: 00:32:46

I really enjoy giving something back to the the sectors part of that is I also enjoy bothering people.

So the opportunity to get involved with off farm work really appeals and whether that be through some of the DEFRA consultation work in the past, whether it's through the sector council or anything else, I really enjoy having the opportunity to talk to people and try to move things forwards which seem to be stalled in the industry.

Finding time for it is challenging at times but at the same time it's one of the joys of doing the job I do in that I can make my own schedule to some extent. So it occasionally involves longer days but most of the time I can just shunt things around to accommodate it.

We tried really hard to make sure the systems that we've got here, whether they be on the arable side or the beef side, are efficient and you know, do build some time in to the day that allows for this kind of stuff. So that's where my time comes from at the moment.

Hannah: 00:33:37

And do you find your time spent off farm helps things back on farm, helps your decision making or helps what you do?

Mark: 00:33:45

My time off farm has helped with that in the sense that it means that I'm trying really hard to make sure my day on the farm is efficient. Rather than letting the jobs expand to the point where they filled a day, I'm trying to get them done so I can get away and do other things.

And it was something that was told to me years and years ago by somebody that I worked with at the time, that you mustn't let the job expand to fill all the available time because if you do, you will be very inefficient. So our feeding systems are built around the concept of getting the job done and getting away.

The arable work is kitted and scaled to try and allow the same. It means that sometimes we get shorter days, but it also means we can make the most of weather, windows and opportunities as well.

And actually the investment in either technology or other equipment to allow that more efficient working has paid dividends in terms of the timeliness of what we're doing.

Charlotte: 00:34:35

You've just mentioned that obviously you've got your beef enterprise, you've got your arable enterprise. Are there other ways?

I mean, we've spoken a lot to a number of people on the show about how they might have diversified their systems or the things that they're doing to bring in additional income streams. Is that something that you've considered on your farm?

Mark: 00:34:53

We have, and with the important word there being additional, they are additional income streams. They're not substituting or subsidizing the existing enterprises. So we have got a ground source, heat pump and solar panels on the farm.

Like a lot of farmers, we've also got some holiday lets and a few other rental diversifications that we've put in place.

All of those have been done with the intention of bringing in extra income and allowing us to continue doing what we're doing on the farm, but without compromising the integrity of the farm business, because it's still really important. I'm farmer at the heart. I'm not a holiday cottage owner or anything like that. We have holiday cottages, but I'm still farming.

And I don't want to get to a point where any of those income streams are compromised by a failing enterprise on the farm that is being done for the enjoyment of it. But at the same time, I want to be making as much money as I can from the job I'm doing. Property, which is the farming.

Charlotte: 00:35:46

Thank you so much for joining us again, Mark. It's always brilliant to have you on the show with us, and so I hope we see you back on again.

Soon, but I think after a jam packed show with fungus suicide resistance as well, that's all we've got time for this week. But it's been so good having you back Hannah. I've definitely missed you.

Hannah: 00:36:05

It's good to be back. I'm a bit rusty.

Charlotte: 00:36:09

If anyone would like to be in touch, please do reach out. We do love hearing from you.

Email address is agshowdb.orguk or feel free to reach out on any of our social channels and make sure you are subscribed to the podcast. New episodes drop every Wednesday at midday and we'll see you next week. Bye for now.