FARM ZONE
An advice, comment and opinion resource for the agricultural community
MAIZE VARIETY SELECTION FOR 2022
It’s the time of year for reviewing past progress - and for planning ahead. Farmers will be looking to learn from this year’s harvest in order to optimise the next. Did performance match expectation? How did the cold, wet start to 2021 affect drilling plans? Was the...
FOOD: FIGURING OUT THE FOOTPRINT
Following Bright Maize’s sponsorship of a successful carbon food conference last week, we look at some of the current challenges associated with attaching a carbon footprint to different food types. Carbon consciousness has gone mainstream. We’re these days as likely...
BRIDGING THE DISCONNECT BETWEEN LOW-CARBON FOOD AND THE CONSUMER
Bright Maize is among those sponsoring The Carbon Food Conference in London this week. Instigated by Carmarthenshire dairy farmer Sion Davies, we look at the speakers and the topics on the agenda As net zero targets loom ever larger, more and more of us are reflecting...
JOHN WRIGHTSON AND DOWNTON AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
As part of our pioneer series, we look at an agricultural educationist who set up Wiltshire and Hampshire Agricultural College – soon renamed Downton Agricultural College Agriculture is as old as civilisation itself; and agricultural wisdom has been developed and...
RUBEN RAUSING – FOUNDER OF TETRA PAK
It was an unfamiliar, even puzzling, sight when it first appeared on grocers’ shelves in the early 1950s. But the distinctively shaped Tetra Pak paper carton would so transform the possibilities for milk storage and distribution that the Institute of Food...
UK CONFRONTS FURTHER FOOD SHORTAGES
In July the headlines were back, accompanied by images of empty supermarket shelves. There was talk of supply chains ‘starting to fail’ and rumours of panic buying. Apologies to consumers from industry bosses kept pace with calls for calm. It was a state of affairs...
AGRICULTURE: THE NET ZERO CHALLENGE – PART 2
Following on from our last blog, we look at the specific challenges of achieving net zero in agriculture by 2050... The impact of agriculture on the environment is both significant - in the UK it accounts for about 10% of total greenhouse gas emissions - and...
NET ZERO BY 2050: THE UK’S CHALLENGE – PART 1
2021 is the year of the UK’s presidency of the United Nations Climate Change Conference. It’s in Glasgow in November, therefore, that, for the twenty-sixth such meeting of its kind, the world’s governments will assemble to review progress against global warming, and...
ALFRED MOND, FIRST BARON MELCHETT
As part of our pioneer series, we cast the spotlight on an industrialist and politician whose influence on farming was later challenged by one of his distinguished descendants. It was a much-noticed irony of the career of the late Peter Mond, 4th Baron Melchett...
AUSTRALIA TRADE DEAL: FARMERS WAIT FOR REASSURANCE
With the Australian trade deal and the new agricultural act heralding a new post-Brexit world, we take a look at what UK farmers can expect in the coming years. Compared with the down-to-the-wire drama of last year’s negotiations with the EU, the UK’s talks with...