News

November 2019 – Act now as clocks tick down on new support system

The report into a pilot of results-based payments for agri-environment schemes, hot off the press, makes for fascinating reading.

Published last month by Natural England and the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, it outlines the findings into a two-year trial featuring 34 farmers across 230ha.

October 2019 – If a job’s worth doing……..

When faced with a deadline, there are a number of common responses.

1. Get the job done as quickly as possible without much thought to what you are setting out to achieve.

2. Procrastinate, which often leads to missing the deadline or simply turns into a slower way of arriving at response 1.

October 2019 – Great product, but who is going to drink it?

What? Where? When? How? Why? These are just some of the questions grape growers and wine makers should be asking themselves to help formulate a ‘route-to-market’ plan at the start of their journey into viticulture.  

With figures suggesting vine plantings are set to double between 2019 and 2024 (having already done so between 2011 and 2018) taking production to 40m bottles per year, the GB wine sector is a hugely exciting one, says Grace O’Rourke Veitch, who has over 25 years’ experience of route-to-market strategies.

July 2019 – Leases: a workable solution. What’s holding it back?

In the last seven years the area under vines has doubled to over 3,500 hectares and there is no sign this trend is slowing down. It’s hardly surprising there is a loud buzz; with 500 commercial vineyards and 170 wineries there is a surge of optimism rarely found in traditional farming sectors.

April 2019 – Erect a new building now. Time to invest?

Now is a great time to invest in buildings – it can increase efficiency, bring new opportunities and future-proof your business against whatever Brexit might bring. So is now the moment for vineyards to seize the initiative and start building?

Favourable permitted development regulations, the availability of cheap fi nance and the contribution that buildings can play to a rural business’s bottom line are prompting many to explore the options.

January 2019 – It’s in your hands. A fresh look at the year ahead

Right now, the only certainty is uncertainty. Whatever your views, 2019 will be a watershed and with only days until the big change few, if any, can reliably predict the winners and losers.

As frustrating as it is there is little point worrying about the economic landscape beyond 29 March.

September 2019 – Take control. Make decisions

Let’s get straight to the point. If we exit without a deal it is highly likely that farming is going to feel the effect more than most. The table opposite speaks for itself. More than 90% of UK produced crops go to the EU.

August 2019 – The tightening of the screw

There was once a time when farming was guided by the weather, the soil and no small amount of hard work. Unfortunately those days are now just a distant memory.

There is a phenomenon that increasingly has a great deal of bearing on our industry.

July 2019 – The only word that matters right now is “begin”

“We’re not going to mention the B word.”

Whether it’s referring to Brexit or Boris, that has been a common refrain at the start of most of the events we’ve been involved with or attending over the last few weeks.

From the CLA’s ‘Getting to Grips with Grapes’ seminars to a talk on policing at the South of England Show, no one wants to discuss the B word. 

June 2019 – New era for “heritage” breeds

‘It’s time to go native.’

A recent cover of Country Life fascinated me. I’ll be honest, it’s usually the magazine’s property pages I flick to fi rst (for what, I hasten to add, is very much ‘lottery’ house shopping), but this grabbed my attention.