Comment – Milk and tractors

In the distance, if it’s really quiet, you can hear the burning of diesel as the early first cuts swing into action below the snow line towards Morecambe bay. It’s a time of year I have always found positive, the grass is growing, crops are planted (well, maybe, but watch this space), fertiliser and muck is out and on, and lambing has finished, phew!

Now its May, I must share the April wheelbarrow stats, a mere 200mm of rain this year, in comparison to  86mm in ’23, just 66mm in ’22 and an almost negligible 13mm in ’21. If you subscribe to the ‘only so much weather in a year’ theory.. The drought is coming, you heard it here first.

Elsewhere whilst its difficult for dairy farmers to be cheerful all the time, an announced uplift in milk price from Arla* (See https://news.arlafoods.co.uk/news/milk-price-for-may-2024-will-increase-for-conventional-and-organic-milk) must be helping.

And whilst the latest AEA tractor registration figures for April are perhaps not the most encouraging at 10% down on ’23, last year was a exceptional, and its only 3% below the 5 year average. See https://aea.uk.com/news/uk-agricultural-tractor-registrations-april-2024/ for more pub stats.

Also Redrock have announced that they have bought KTwo from the receivers and intend to continue employing the team and running the factory (and its beyond my wit to the share the link from Redrocks Facebook page, but if you google it, you will find it). In every cloud.

Have a great, long weekend.

Andy

* Thanks Arla for the lovely pic of a glass of milk.