The Northern Farming Conference is an inspiring annual event and this year - under the banner of ‘Tomorrow’s Farming Today’ - highlighted how farmers are adapting to the challenges presented by the loss of Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) payments and the need to make their farming practices more environmental and sustainable.
The event aims to help farmers progress their businesses and every year more than 200 farmers, industry experts and politicians come together at Hexham Auction Mart to network and hear from a line-up of speakers.
All the speakers this year, especially those with their own farming businesses, accepted the challenges we have in replacing the income that is being lost as BPS is phased out and the pressures our industry is facing.
Delegates were presented with a wide range of ideas and evidence as the conference shone the spotlight on quality examples of farmers from both large commercial outfits and smaller environmental outfits putting their ideas into practice. These innovators have tailored new ideas and looked at how others have adopted solid environmental concepts and taken them a stage further to make them even better. Not only that, but they presented them with great attention to detail.
Net zero ambition
Professor John Gilliland, a livestock farmer from Northern Ireland, is a shining example of how sustainable agriculture can be achieved. Also Special Adviser to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), John has achieved a beyond net zero verification as his farm captures more carbon than it emits.
Andrew Ward MBE, a Lincolnshire farmer who was Farmers Weekly’s Champion and Arable Farmer of the Year, spoke about the importance of trials to find the right direction to develop farming businesses and how working with like-minded farmers can help.
Joe Stanley discussed the need for farmers to become more resilient to severe weather, commenting on the frequency of weather events in the last five years, which are becoming more extreme as a result of climate change.
While it was reassuring to hear from farmers who have adapted their farming practices, the need for a bigger shift and further change was highlighted by Andrew Meredith, Editor of Farmers Weekly, who stressed that research has found that “seven in eight farmers have no clear idea of how they will survive without BPS.”
Farmers are business people, and they respond to seeing their peers doing things. When well-respected farmers like those mentioned above demonstrate what can be achieved, it provides reassurance to farmers who are uncertain or apprehensive, about making such changes, and will hopefully inspire others to look at what they too can achieve.
For anyone thinking of implementing new practices or changing their farming practices, it’s important to know where you're at now, whatever journey or changes you're going to make. There needs to be a benchmark – where you’re starting from and what you are aiming to achieve.
Our speakers all said you'll never do everything right the first time or the second time or even the third time. It is an evolving journey, and as every farm is different, so too will be the journey. Farmers should look at what they’ve got and make or adapt any ideas to fit their situation.
Janet Hughes, the Programme Director for the Future Farming and Countryside Programme (FFCP), who is responsible for the new Environmental Land Management (ELM) and Sustainable Farming Initiative (SFI) schemes, explained that while many more farmers have engaged with the SFI scheme – with more applications in the first five weeks than the whole of last year – the budget is there to be used and if it’s not, the treasury will soon find another use for it. Farmers should claim as much as they can, even if it’s just at the basic level, every farm can claim something. The schemes are open for applications and regularly adapting.
Change needed in farming
Whether we like it or not, basic payments are being phased out and farming is changing. We all need to do things more environmentally and sustainably to a degree; therefore all farmers are going to have to adapt to change at some level. You can take advice on the financials and the tax positions from accounts and take environmental advice from a farm business consultant or land agent.
As a farmer and an accountant, I would encourage more farmers to invest the days’ time it takes to attend the conference and listen to the inspiring and innovative speakers. It is a day designed for farmers and even if you just come away with one idea, it will be worth it.
Andrew has been chairing the Northern Farming Conference for three years and has been involved in the event for more than a decade. For 2024 Sam Charlton, AHDB’s Head of Engagement, will take over as chair.
