The fact that a farmer needs the same grass lie-back area as the area of forage crop grown makes little scientific or practical sense to me.

That means if you want to graze 10 acres of rape, kale or stubble turnips you need 10 acres of a grass lie-back according to regulations.

Yes some lie-back might be needed to take stock off crops during a prolonged wet period, however, this area will add significant cost to tillage farmers so much so that essentially many will not entertain the grazing option.

Integration

The integration so badly needed between farming sectors – we all need to help share nutrients between farms with added benefits for both the livestock and tillage land – doesn’t even get a chance to get up and going.

In most cases when grazing forage crops, the driest part of the field is right up beside the forage crop, not back in the lie-back area that has been poached by animals traversing it as they aimlessly walk around.

Clearly some practical sense needs to be brought to the table on this to keep it as an option for farmers. The store lamb trade and tillage farmers will be most affected.

Fertiliser database

All farmers must register for the fertiliser database before 1 September. It’s soon, so to avoid any delays maybe say it to one of your merchants the next time you are in the store and get the job done, or go onto agfood.ie

How we use organic and purchased nutrients is going to come further under the spotlight in the coming years and to some extent, it is no harm that there will be a one-stop shop where a database shows all purchased nutrients.

It’s a costly expense to the farm business, and we need to use purchased artificial nutrients with the utmost care and focus on where best they can be used.

The database levels the field to some extent between farmers so those that are maybe not using nutrients aligned to good soil fertility, proper spreading dates etc will soon be exposed to upping their game in all aspects, rather than just using more purchased bag nutrients to try and compensate for bad management overall.

Dutch solar fields

I see the Dutch Climate Minister has called for construction to stop on installing solar panels in fields. In a note to the house of representatives, just before the cabinet fell, he indicated he wanted to use the space as efficiently as possible while preserving the quality of the physical living environment. Solar panels are already in place on upwards of 2,000 hectares in the Netherlands.