Comment – a tale of two events, and cows

It’s been a busy week. Not content with clipping sheep, mowing grass for haylage, we concluded (and nearly divorced) with almost 1000 bales of hay. Still it’s in the shed, before the rain, and almost a week later its not heated up, plus I’ve not been booted out!

I promised to keep my own counsel until this week regarding the close proximity between the Cereals/Direct Driller event and Groundswell events, both in terms of geography, and focus.

It’s no surprise to many that Groundswell had a decent turnout with a fully engaged, bought in audience. Also the almost 8000 delegates, over two days, shelled out decent money (ie £100 plus) for the privilege. Now I know its not a traditional machinery show (think LAMMA, or the Cereals Event). However the format, of lots of decent technical content throughout the day, with a convivial, social evening programme, including a beer tent, food concessions and live bands/dance tent was a winner. Putting the fun in farming certainly seemed to hit the spot. Although if it had put down 30mm of rain over the two days, not 30 degree sunshine perhaps that fun might have been muted?

It was in marked contrast to a couple of weeks ago at the Cereals Event.

Elsewhere in the world the Danes have brought in the first carbon tax for agriculture worldwide. In practice this seems to have put a price on greenhouse gases emitted by cows, sheep and pigs. This is profound and equates, for now to about £35/t of CO2. So where is all this low carbon kit which farmers need to be able to reduce their footprint?

For those who think it’s been all play, spare a thought for the unfortunates stuck in Athens at an Agricultural Engineering conference this week in 35 degree plus heat. We do suffer for our art occasionally.

Have a great week.

Andy

PS heres the link to what’s happening in Denmark https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/danish-carbon-tax-on-agriculture-a-model-for-the-rest-of-europe-or-a-splendid-one-off/