With margins tightening and markets shifting, Tim Gelfs, chair of Dorset NFU, asks whether greater collaboration between arable and livestock businesses could offer a more stable and mutually beneficial way forward
Collaboration! As Henry Ford said, ‘Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress and working together is success!’ Is it time Dorset farmers looked at where they can work together for security, and to the benefit of one other?
I had a conversation with a local arable farmer at the beginning of the Ukraine war. Wheat prices had shot up out of control, while us poor poultry farmers were left in the dust of their newly-ordered combine harvesters! The discussion revolved around having a balanced price so that we could both earn a sensible return.
I eventually offered him £250 a tonne for the next five years, and he laughed at it … How much is he wishing today he’d shaken my hand?
You could say the same now – if he came to me with the same deal, would I laugh at him or grab his hand? It’s human nature to laugh it off, but what if we looked at each other’s businesses?
I need him to be successful in order to provide my feed and export my muck. He needs me to create a market for his product, and to provide an organic fertiliser for his crops.
It’s not just poultry farmers: with the price of straw seemingly only heading one way, all we livestock farmers need our arable partners to be successful. But any arable farmer in his right mind won’t be drilling anything this autumn with the current market and the stranglehold on fuel and fertiliser … not unless they have real confidence in their market.
I know that I have enjoyed unsustainable food prices for the last couple of years, buying cheap grain (often under the cost of production). Now, coupled with the stopping of direct support payments and low confidence in the SFI scheme to help bridge the gap, will we soon be seeing highly fertile ground left fallow? Or, even worse, will we see whole farms taken over for some fancy rewilding ideology project?
The Yuppies had something
At this point I refer to Tim Lang’s work on food resilience. Could we could feed ourselves locally? Here in Dorset, we consume approximately 8,000 tonnes of chicken a year, and that’s not taking into account the appetites of millions of tourists. The last time I looked, we are not awash with broiler units! What an opportunity to turn our wheat into profit, while providing a high-quality organic fertiliser back in return (don’t believe all you read about the Wye Valley and pollution from intensive poultry farms). What a story that would be – turning local wheat into local chicken to feed local people: an absolute win-win-win!
Collaboration isn’t new, and a lot of farmers are already practising it today, growing crops for biodigesters and providing feed for larger dairy units. We have buying groups and even co-ops working together to help reduce costs collectively.
We know agriculture is changing. The ground rules have moved and, unfortunately, political will is mere lip service. Perhaps it’s time we take the Yuppie advice and start thinking outside the box? For me, the future is less laughing at each other and a lot more hand shaking!
