Industry

Among the numerous hazards on a farm are harmful substances. Coming in many forms, Health & Safety Advisor Amy Jasper explains the regulations around these materials and what they mean for handling them on farm.  

Professor John Gilliland strongly believes in the need to ‘measure to manage’ and says if you have “good knowledge you make good decisions”. In this episode of Farming Focus™, he shared his views on using data to inform decision-making, using examples from his extensive and varied background.

A series of Farming Focus™ described as ‘rich and varied’ with insights and innovation from across the farming world, podcast host Peter Green picks five episodes to revisit with farmer and independent strategic advisor Emily Norton in this series finale. They discuss what’s been learnt and what it all means for the future of farming.

Enterprise stacking is a form of farm diversification with integration and sustainability at its heart. Farmers Tim May and Dave Oates told the Farming Focus™ podcast how they’re stacking enterprises on their farms to build business resilience.

Having grown up on a dairy farm and worked in several other farming businesses, it wasn’t until Andrew Sincock moved into the commercial world, he began to appreciate the manure he’d been surrounded by in his former life. He shares what he’s learnt on Farming Focus™. “My interest in organic manures started really when I joined Agriton. Of all the products they supplied, one really caught my eye and stood out as being very different, very interesting, very simple,” explained Andrew.

In a Farming Focus™ bonus episode, Mel Bradley and Ben Mortimer return to the podcast to discuss the main considerations and practical aspects of starting and running a successful farm cluster group, based on their experiences with the Kenn Valley group in Devon.

Overhead power lines (OHPLs) pose a particular risk to farmers when working with high or wide machinery, such as combine harvesters, tipper trucks/trailers, telehandlers and spray booms, and not forgetting radio aerials, flashing beacons and vehicles rolling silage clamps. Other jobs around the farm can also increase the risk, including the use of rain or slurry guns, building temporary stacks of bales, fertiliser, potato boxes or pallets and moving ladders. Serious injuries and fatalities occur from coming into direct contact with live lines but also from being too close to one, causing an electrical discharge known as a ‘flashover’ or ‘arc flash’. Even a jet of water or slurry touching a live line is a danger.

Often thought of as simply ‘shutting the gate’ on a piece of land, farming consultant Jim Bliss explains why rewilding requires an active approach in the UK, while regenerative agronomist Hugo Ellis describes it as driving for balance and diversity in habitats and farm enterprises. And livestock, they say, are essential. On his Nuffield travels, Jim Bliss saw some spectacular examples of what he calls ‘passive’ rewilding, where stock had been removed from the land and nature returned – Patagonia National Park being one. But the UK doesn’t have the space to take this approach. “So, it's much better to have active rewilding, which does involve farming, just in a more nuanced way, where it's all about diversity,” says Jim.