“Farming income rose last year by 14 per cent, mainly because of the continuing high level of production, high returns on some crops, and the fact that the cost of all inputs rose less than the value of sales.”
What were you doing in 1982? According to Hansard, British farmers were warmly welcoming renegotiation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Peter Walker, who was to become the longest serving member of the Thatcher administration, was Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (remember MAFF?). He reported that:
“Since this Government took office in May 1979, the industry has benefited from successive devaluations of the green pound and from the favourable Community price settlements which we have negotiated.”
How the world has changed!
LAMMA is celebrating its 40th birthday at the Birmingham NEC, where some of the latest machinery will be on show, from combines to tractors, for arable and grassland – exciting new machinery will be on display for farmers to literally kick the tyres and assess viability and return on investment on their farm.
Arguably, one of the most interesting trends in machinery has been the integration of other technologies – GPS navigation, AI-enabled analysis of data collected, the introduction of aerial imaging and sensing.
This is evidenced by a number of Agri-TechE members attending LAMMA, the first of the big trade show of 2022 – expect weather stations, agchem solutions, drone technologies, on-farm data platforms and more.
Below is a taster (if you are a Agri-TechE member at LAMMA do share your news)
Bayer Crop Science (Hall 11 Stand 11.220) is to show FieldView, a digital farming platform that allows users to collect, visualise, share and analyse their farm data, all from a single platform. The tools provide support for choosing next year’s varieties, understanding the performance of a particular product, or managing harvest.
Crop4Sight (Hall 8 Stand 8.726) offers a tool that accurately predicts the development of a potato crop from first emergence, enabling growers to better plan crop inputs, labour, burndown, irrigation, and storage.
Farmers are also able to benchmark their crops against other UK growers of the same variety and manage customer expectations around size fractions, quality, and contract fulfilment.
A new feature is a live water management system that enables growers to react immediately to changes in weather conditions.
Hutchinsons (Hall 10 Stand 10.712) will be showing tools for carbon management. TerraMap Carbo is the first carbon mapping service to provide an accurate baseline measurement of both organic and active carbon in the soil.
Within the Omnia Carbon management tool it is now possible to create different rotation scenarios from types of cropping and variety to stewardship and management practices and see first-hand the projected CO2 impact and financial performance for each scenario.
Agri-TechE members also exhibiting at LAMMA include:
- AHDB – Hall 10 Stand 10.118
- BASF – Hall 11 Stand 11.330
- Brown & Co – Hall 6 Stand 6.500
- De Sangosse – Hall 9 Stand 9.446
- Drone Ag – Hall 11 Stand 11.344
- Fram Farmers – Hall 18 Stand 18.102
- Harper Adams University – Hall 6 Stand 6.646
- Metos UK – Hall 11 Stand 11.140
- NFU Mutual – Hall 18 Stand 18.738
- ProData Weather Systems – Hall 11 Stand 11.222
- Sencrop – Hall 10 Stand 10.612
- University of Lincoln – Hall 11 Stand 11.142
More information about LAMMA can be found at lammashow.com
Note: quotes from HC Deb 24 March 1982 vol 20 cc964-1045