Health and safety event
Andrew Mycock and family hosted a successful health and safety event on 6 July. A big thank you to them for their hospitality.
It was great, the weather was nice, but that meant some people couldn’t attend as they were mowing for hay or silage with the forecast set fair.
We are planning another event, in the southern half of the county, on Wednesday 28 October, late morning. Look out for further details.
Top tip: Look on NFU Online for health and safety guidance and especially for rules on age and licence requirements for younger people driving agricultural machinery on the roads.
Dairy contracts
The hot weather is depressing milk production which, in turn, has lifted the spot price of milk, although this will take some time to feed through to general contract prices. The sooner better can be my only hope.
However, the prospect of less milk in the system than last year does mean that most of the producers who were put on 12 months’ notice of having their contracts terminated during last winter are now being offered a new contract.
Abate with a changed pricing structure and base price of where nobody wants to be. There are no lists available of who supplies which milk buyer and, incidentally, there are no reliable volumes or market share figures known nationally for the different buyers either; unlike the heavily publicised data on the grocery market share held by different supermarkets.
If you are affected by contract changes, or worse loss of contract, do make Ellie Edwards, assistant county adviser, or myself aware. It is vital the NFU are aware of such intel, as HQ holds meetings with most milk buyers.
It also important the ASCA (Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator) Richard Thompson is made aware. This can be reported as a complaint or anonymously, or by contacting the NFU. They can refer to cases anonymously when meeting with the ASCA. This will hopefully help contract regulation to be further strengthened during future reviews.
Derbyshire show season
Most of the Derbyshire agricultural shows are in August, with the notable exception of Derbyshire County Show in June.
The NFU has hospitality tents at Ashover and Ashbourne and all members are welcome to call in for tea, coffee, squash and biscuits. At Ashbourne there may be something a bit stronger as well.
- Ashover Show - Wednesday, 12 August – the stand will host David Barton, NFU Livestock Board chair.
- Ashbourne Show – Saturday, 15 August – the stand will host Robert Davies, NFU Midlands Dairy Board chair and vice of the NFU Dairy Board.
Timings will be confirmed nearer the time on the Derbyshire NFU WhatsApp Group. If you have not yet joined the group, do drop me a message.
Getting the message to the public
We are having a public-facing stand at the Bakewell Country Festival on 12 July. At this time of year there is always a demand from secondary schools for talks about agriculture or at careers fairs.
If you want to get the message into schools, the next training session is 12 October at NFU HQ. As a farming ambassador, you are expected to deliver, along with another ambassador, a 30 – 45-minute assembly/ talk including questions.
I often find the slot offered by schools is shorter. As part of the training, ambassadors are given a PowerPoint presentation you tailor to your farming. For further details, look online.