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September 27, 2017

28/09/2017: Great success stories for our industry

by Chris Jackson, Export Manager UK TAG

Last month I wrote that here in the UK our harvest was well under way, I should not have tempted fate as Mother Nature has taken a hand and our country has seen almost daily rainfall in the southwest - torrential summer storms causing structural damage
 
Chris Jackson

For the rest of us, a delay to harvest is not all bad news, for the farmers with arable crops where harvest has been in part completed fieldwork has been undertaken ready for the next crops.

Of course in this country where grass production is very important for our cattle and sheep industries that mostly rely on livestock grazing for high welfare production, there has been after a dry start to the growing season.

With light early crops there is a boost in growth allowing for conservation for the coming winter.

There is no other industry in the world that faces the daily challenges of framing and none so vital to survival.
 


Of course our scientists and geneticists continue to play a vital role in our lives, developing new plant varieties able to produce high yields in lessening growing times.

Take wheat production here in the UK, four tonne yields per acre is regularly achieved more than doubling the output in the last 40 years with the scourge of take all eliminated by genetics.

For ruminant livestock farming, new highly productive grasses have been developed and are widely used in suitable areas making for more intensive farming methods to be developed.

This is needed to maximise production from diminishing resources and to allow farmers to make profits to continue production.

In the more intensive pig industry genetics have meant that in the last 50 years farming land needed for production has reduced by 70 percent.

These challenges have also been met by the uptake of new technologies and mechanical developments allowing for production with less people involved a theme that I continually refer to.

Today, farm workers are highly skilled machinery operators and livestock producers but sadly our industry is still not regarded highly by the younger generations that we need to encourage to become involved.

Climate change has been much talked about with droughts in production areas, floods in others for example; Australia, wild fires with extreme heat in southern Europe.

The USA farming methods have been an easy target to criticise for a negative impact on this.

But the population needs primary production with safe food systems developed to satisfy the demands of a growing world population.


Read the full article, HERE.
 

The Global Miller
This blog is maintained by The Global Miller staff and is supported by the magazine Milling and Grain
which is published by Perendale Publishers Limited.


For additional daily news from milling around the world: global-milling.com

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