WTFIH @ Thriplow Farms, July 2018

I’ve been away for most of the time since I wrote the last column here, first a family holiday, and then a trip to Russia and Ukraine to look at farms. It’s been an interesting ten days - I’m writing this in Kiev airport waiting to fly back to Gatwick - starting off right in the south near Georgia, before taking a 3,000km loop up through Rostov, Kursk, Kiev and then finally to Odessa. We’ve skirted the war zone, but there are plenty of tanks moving about in Ukraine on training exercises. This region, around the Black Sea, is really important as it produces a large amount of wheat, some 45 millions tonnes of which is exported into the world market. That means that the size of their harvest has a huge impact on grain prices - much more than whatever happens in the UK. For the last few months there has been a drought, and prices have been moving ever upwards as a result. Obviously this is great news for me, and we have sold wheat for over £150 per tonne for the first time in four years. However, having spent time here and talked to the farmers, I’m not sure if maybe the fears have been slightly overplayed; it just doesn’t seem all that dry, and harvest is about to start. This wasn’t the main reason for the trip though, I really came to see how they manage to grow wheat so cheaply. The answer is not exactly what I expected; the actual standard of farming is generally not very special, and attention to detail is fairly limited. What they do manage very well is using old, small machinery much more efficiently that we can. Huge fields - some bigger than our entire farm - also help, as does the comparatively cheap price of that land and a climate that doesn’t promote fungal diseases. Some of this we can learn from, but some is just intrinsically different. One thing is clear though - they aren’t going away, and neither are their 45 million tonnes of wheat.Back at home we like the crop prices, but I’m getting increasingly worried about harvest. Whereas up until May the weather had been great, since then there has been a notable lack of rain. I think the oilseed rape should be OK, but everything else will be suffering significantly. It isn’t too late, but that time is fast approaching. It will be frustrating, to say the least, if we fall at the final hurdle having come so far. Fingers crossed.