Winter is coming in Norfolk. The clocks have modified, the heating is on, the shop lambs are beginning to arrive from the north and our hedge mowers are out.
Like lots of my friends, my consideration was drawn to the worth negotiations between British Sugar and our representatives, NFU Sugar.
As of this writing (November 8), no contract has been reached.
See additionally: Defra tells NFU and British Sugar to renew sugar beet value talks
In regards to the writer
Robert Scott
Robert Scott farmed 1,800 hectares in west-central Norfolk for seven totally different landowners. He grows mixture crops and sugar beet, in addition to cowl crops, grass wheat and an intensive rural administration program. He additionally slaughters 2,000 lambs a 12 months. Robert@thscottandson.co.uk Instagram: @thscottandson
As a monopoly processor, British Sugar has not too long ago shockingly bypassed the negotiation course of with NFU Sugar.
I’m happy to see that NFU Sugar isn’t succumbing to those techniques and I urge all growers to face agency and unite if we’re to proceed rising sugar beets.
Sugar beets have been an necessary rotation crop in Norfolk because the Twenties and, if grown on appropriate land, can certainly present a helpful relaxation crop in an all-arable rotation.
Regardless of the nostalgia, I’ve come to dislike rising beets due to the growing dangers concerned.
Moreover, it doesn’t sit properly with the route set by our authorities’s environmental and carbon agenda.
Its cultivation is heavy, and the harvesting course of usually damages the soil construction. This can be the character of the work of huge fashionable tools on land in the course of the winter.
Sugar isn’t solely unhealthy for our well being, but in addition for our financial institution accounts, and rising it requires costly specialist tools and costly transportation.
I had been lowering the acreage on my farm 12 months by 12 months till final 12 months when, with world costs rising and East Anglia sugar briefly provide, we maintained the acreage we had.
In the long run, the gross margins had been well worth the danger, problem, and complaints, and I am completely satisfied to continue to grow crops.
In late October, earlier than the sky opened, we managed to reap 82 hectares of sugar beets. Planting of one other 120 hectares of sugar beets must wait till later this winter.
My trial sunflowers have not been harvested but and so they look depressing. We made two unsuccessful makes an attempt to reap them in mid-October earlier than they had been prepared.
The crops at the moment are soaked and the remaining seeds are sufficient for the birds to feed on.
Regardless of local weather change, Norfolk’s autumn harvest season nonetheless would not appear to rival that of southern France.