Thoughts from a Northern Mart December 2011

Thoughts from a Northern Mart December 2011

November proved to be one of the mildest Novembers for many years with grass still growing well, while pheasant shooting on the first Saturday of December I was stood next to an electric fencer being used to strip graze cattle. A first for me! This showed how well the grass has kept growing and that it has shortened winter for many farmers. The wind, snow and rain soon returned with flooding in the Northern Yorkshire Dales. A four foot wall of water flowed down Swaledale, the river broke its banks depositing debris and silt from the historic mine workings in the fields along with damaging walls and fences and sweeping everything in its path including sheep into the swollen river. This storm came with the first snowfall of winter melting and was pushed by high winds which left many roads blocked by overturned wagons. With further storms forecast at the time of writing it would appear that December is going to be an interesting month.

DEFRA and the RPA promised that some 80% of claims for the single farm payment would be settled in early December this by the number of smiling farmers seems to be a reality. Some of the farmers who by working alongside my colleagues in FCN, who finally get their payments in March/ April of this year received their money on time this year much to their and their bank manager’s relief. Indeed the number of farmers who had a call from the bank manager this year to say that their SFP had arrived in their bank seems much higher. Perhaps the bank managers are trying to improve their image by being the bearer of good news instead of the bad press some of their colleagues seem to attract. Wheat prices have slipped back from the previous highs and getting back to a level at which some farmers will not make any money with the price of inputs having risen by 100% in the past 12 months for the crop being currently sold. Milk prices are a little better, the power of supply and demand has never being better shown than in the Beef and Lamb market with the price of lamb averaging 200 plus pence for all types and beef fast approaching a similar average per live kilo for all types and the best achieving averages of 230p a kilo. Some of this demand is driven by exports but most is for home consumption. Pigs are also a little better and producers are benefiting from the drop in cereal prices. This is also being reflected in the commercial egg production sector as prices rise. This is not without its problems as one farmer /packer told me last week that some of his customers had got used to turning over a lot of cheap eggs and now that the value of eggs has increased they cannot absorb the increase in cash flow and he has had 7 cheques from small corner shops
bounce in one week. The highest number he has ever had.

As Christmas approaches the supermarkets are stocking up with food as the demand for food over the holidays increases. With the supermarkets shutting for 2-3 days over the holidays huge queues will be anticipated when they reopen after Christmas and the demand for fresh food will be high. This of course will be met by the farmer who will be working all over the holiday period on either routine livestock duties or picking the fresh vegetables. Also at work will be the bakers and meat processing plants which will have to meet the demand for fresh meat.
These will of course have to be transported by the haulage industry.

On behalf of the CRC rural team I would like to wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year!