View From Europe


By Colin Ley


Long hot summer puts pressure on us all If you’re currently lying on a beach and don’t happen to be a farmer then you’ll probably be thinking this has been a great summer. If your livelihood depends on keeping livestock alive and growing,


however, or if you provide feed products for farmers who do, then the last couple of months have been pretty demanding, arguably the most demanding you’ve ever faced. Soaring temperatures across Europe and drought conditions


affecting many countries around the world have turned 2018 into a devastatingly tough year for farmers and feed suppliers alike, with every chance of there being more challenges to come, even if conditions return to more or less normal for the rest of the year. Press headlines focusing on farmers using record amounts of


animal feed to make up for drought-driven shortfalls in fodder may seem at first glance to be good news for feed suppliers, especially with Defra reporting that wheat and barley usage in compound feed rations increased by 12.3% during the year to June 2018. A second look at the figures and, more importantly, the stories


behind them, is enough to hammer home the point that our industry works best when we’re basically all happy. By that, I mean farmers, first and foremost, followed by all the different businesses out there that supply them with feed, fertiliser, medicines and machinery.


Farming stress Sadly, you don’t have to look too far at present to uncover tales of serious farming stress. Gloucestershire beef and lamb producer, David Barton, reported


in early August, for example, that he’d already been feeding his winter rations for three weeks, a fact which is going to make for a very long winter, when it comes. Northamptonshire beef and lamb producer, Mark Jelley, said he


was already unsure whether his supplies will last the winter, unless he makes significant adjustments to his feeding rations. “Our system is quite resilient compared to most,” he said. “The


cows are fed on ad-lib straw and rape meal for protein. We have plenty of straw but I’m concerned that the cost of rape meal is rising. We’d usually buy a lorry load around July for delivery in November, but the cost of that load this year has already gone up around £50 per tonne.” David and Mark are both members of the Agricultural and


Horticultural Development Board’s ‘Farm Excellence’ network, which is used to showcase stories from the farmers and growers who make up the levy body’s monitor and strategic farm network. As such, they’re


PAGE 12 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018 FEED COMPOUNDER


pretty high grade performers, which makes their 2018 struggles even more alarming.


Sharing the pain Somewhat further afield, I recently came across a report from ZDG, Germany’s poultry producers’ organisation, whose leaders are pressing the country’s food retailers and consumers to share their members’ drought-inspired feed cost rises by each paying more for chicken and turkey products. When I called them, ZDG said their chicken and turkey feed costs


are currently running 25% above last year’s levels, due largely to the impact of the summer drought on the country’s wheat crop. As a result, they’ve issued a warning to German retailers and


consumers that poultry producers and processors cannot carry this year’s higher costs on their own.


Lasting impact of summer heatwave No doubt by the time this article appears in print it will be chucking it down and we’ll all be wishing we could have just one more day of sunshine and heat to get the harvest finished and help us prepare for winter. Even if that’s true, the knock-on effects of the summer heatwave will continue to be felt for months to come. That was the height-of-summer message given by Dr Nicola


Cannon, principal lecturer in agronomy at the Royal Agricultural University (RAU), who pointed out that May to August is the most important period for crop growth in the UK and that, to put it simply, the damage is pretty much already done. “Many plants have been hit particularly hard by the hot dry weather,


although some deeper rooted plants have fared a bit better,” she said, adding that arable crops are generally being reported as about 20% down on normal yields. Dr Cannon even voiced concern over heatwave knock-on effects


in relation to next year, commenting: “It’s already time to look ahead to the 2019 harvest as the first fields of oilseed rape would normally be planted from 15 August. “However, where soils are so dry, it can require greater quantities


of fuel and power to cultivate the soil and there is such limited moisture in the soil that any seed planted is unlikely to germinate quickly. That means it is more prone to pest problems, often has reduced vigour and uneven establishment - if it can establish at all.” Frankly, we probably have sufficient to worry about right now


with total global wheat production for 2018/19 forecast to be heading for a five-year low. If that projection proves accurate, global wheat consumption will run above production in 2018/19, resulting in a draw- down of ending stocks for the first time since 2012/13. In hard facts and figures, world wheat production in 2018/19 is


now forecast to be 721 million tonnes (Mt), which amounts to a year- on-year reduction of 37 Mt. A sizable chuck of that reduction, about 7.4 Mt, relates to the EU wheat crop, mainly due to falling tonnages in France, Germany, Poland and the UK where the continued hot and dry weather has definitely impacted yields.


Comment section is sponsored by Compound Feed Engineering Ltd www.cfegroup.com


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