Comment – Blackrock, Novag and all that jazz

I’m often guilty of believing the last thing I hear, or read. Then, after a while I will turn things over in my head and re-evaluate the latest set of ‘facts’ and perhaps change my mind.

This week was no different, with lots of online ‘gossip’ regarding ‘that’ meeting between international investment behemoth Blackrock and the UK Government, followed up by a spurious, and shouty online post screaming that ‘Blackrock has established a UK land and farming investment fund of £100 million!’ Urging UK farmers that the end is nigh.

Once the vapours had subsided, I decided to work out just how much land at c £10k/acre that would buy, of course its around 10,000 acres, or 4000 Ha. Cross referring to the latest land census stats from DEFRA which reckons that the UK has about 17 million Ha of farmed area. See https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/agricultural-land-use-in-the-united-kingdom/agricultural-land-use-in-united-kingdom-at-1-june-2023#:~:text=Key%20points%20*%20The%20utilised%20agricultural%20area,just%20over%20a%20third%20(36%25)%20of%20UAA.

So the proposed, and potentially unsubstantiated Blackrock ‘land grab’ relates to c 0.02% of the farmed area of the country. Let’s all have a cup of tea and a biscuit shall we?

Elsewhere Novag, the French no-till drill manufacturer which hasn’t been in any legal bother with NZ operation Cross-Slot appears to be in trouble, as our colleagues at Profi report, elsewhere the European Union are themselves reporting on the closure of the Deutz Fahr combine factory in Croatia.

Back at home the rainfall appears to have kicked back in with Storm Bert and his 75mm of rain last weekend, less (I’m reliably informed by the Gloucestershire farmers at the AHDB Cheltenham monitor farm meeting I attended on Tuesday)  by some amount than their totals!

Have a good week.

Andy