Kite Consulting John Allen, Becki Leach

This week, Chris is back from holiday with his milk market report and Will and Ben are joined by Karen Bond, Veterinary Advisor with NMR and Nicky Bowden, Senior Consultant with Kite to discuss Johne’s Disease. Nicky outlines why we are still talking about Johne’s and the impact it can have on farm, not just relating to costs, health and welfare, but also on a farms carbon footprint. Karen dispels some of the misconceptions of Johne’s and reflects that while proactive farms are making good progress, there are still challenges around testing and need for this to be regular and consistent. Karen and Nicky discuss how farms can utilise testing data & other tools for decision making on farm, but that we should not underestimate going back to basics of disease control.

Reaching a podcast milestone with episode 200, Ben and Will are joined by Eddie Rixon, a sheep and beef farmer from Oxfordshire and a Land Use Adviser with the Forestry Commission; as well as Emma Turnock, Consultant with Kite to talk about carbon markets. Eddie explains a bit about his own business and how they are utilising natural capital markets for alternative income streams and insetting carbon within their own farm to improve the carbon balance. Emma discusses the potential opportunities for carbon markets, what farmers could be considering, especially for otherwise unprofitable land and what we can learn from the markets elsewhere Europe. They discuss UK wide market regulation and schemes that farmers can benefit from and what opportunities are out there for farmers to ‘inset’ their own carbon, using nature based solutions to help mitigate climate change and manage land to climate goals.

After Chris’ report this week, Will and Ben are joined by Paul Macer, Consultant with Kite and David Christensen, Oxfordshire farmer, to talk about forage management in the context of the incredibly wet weather experienced across the country this past season. Paul and David discuss some of the challenges on farm as a result and outline strategies for when it begins to improve to get on top of things, emphasising the need for patience. They discuss lessons that can be learned from the last year and what farmers can do to plan and mitigate for these kinds of issues in the long-term, touching on how this relates to TCFD and the potential cost to the industry of rectifying these issues, if investment in food security for the future isn’t prioritised by policy makers.

Following Chris Walkland’s milk market report, Will and Ben are joined by Arla Foods UK Agriculture Director, Paul Savage, and Kite Director, Edward Lott. Paul and Edward talk about Arla’s recent announcement - €210 million investment into the Taw Valley plant in Devon for mozzarella production. They then go on to discuss why they chose to invest into the South West, UK and how they expect that this will positively impact the future of UK dairy farming.

This week, after Chris’ milk market report, Will is joined by Erik Elgersma, founder and director of Strategic Analysis Services BV and John Allen, Kite Director to discuss their key take homes from the recent Eucolait workshop. John and Erik summarise the subdued short-term and more positive long-term dairy outlook around the world. They discuss the need to think about food as a strategic asset and focus on food security. Plus, how we must prepare for living and farming through climate change and move away from the globalisation of dairy, towards more regionalised supply and price management. They also discuss the need for traders to rely more on market signals rather than market sentiment.

After Chris’ report this week, Will and Ben are joined by Richard Ward, Derbyshire dairy farmer, Siôn Parry, genetics data and analysis specialist with Cogent & Rose Jackson, Kite’s Head of Genetics to report and reflect on the findings from a 3-year joint project between Kite and Cogent Breeding. Rose & Siôn discuss the objectives and findings of the project which focussed on maximising gains for milk solids and carbon reduction alongside the selection of the EcoFeed trait to improve feed efficiency. Richard shares his reasons for getting involved in the project, the results he’s seen and his focus for the future. Rose talks about these accelerated performance improvements vs industry average and Sion predicts this rate of progress could deliver 10% of the 30% industry target for carbon reduction by 2030.