The price of sugar beet is expected to rise by £4 a tonne 2012 according to the NFU Sugar Board chairman. This is good news for the 3,500 British agricultural contractors are currently contracted to grow sugar beet.

Currently agricultural contractors growing beet receive £23.60 per tonne from British Sugar, with the new price rises this will increase to £27.53.

The chairman announced that there were three main causes behind this proposed increase. Firstly, higher costs for agricultural contractors producing sugar beet, the higher wheat prices which are encouraging farmers to turn away from sugar beet and towards wheat and finally, changes in the general currency.

 It is hoped that this improvement in the contract will encourage /maintain agricultural contractors growing sugar beet.

Additionally, British Sugar has also completed their contract for beet grown for ethanol production. To date, ethanol beet contracts have only been available on temporary tonnages. Initial opportunity to take up this formalised contract will be given to existing growers, who will be offered £26.50/t.

It has also been announced that contracts will be increased by 2.5% to ensure that enough beet is produced following this seasons problems.  Agricultural contractors can expect the 2012 beet campaign to commence earlier than previous years, as it has been announced that  to help deal with the anticipated increased tonnage the official beet campaign will start earlier.

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Precision farming was a hot topic debated by agricultural contractors and farming experts at the Cereals event last week, in particular the potential benefits that new technology may bring to the agricultural industry.

It was argued that whilst new technology allows agricultural contractors the equipment to achieve high outputs whilst maintaining sustainability, for such performance to be universal it must become more readily available. 

Precision farming enables agricultural contractors to have greater control over the growing of their crops. For example, yield mapping allows farmers to dictate which parts of the field produce the maximum yields, such that the outside of the field can deliver less than the middle of the field. This approach enables agricultural contractors to put maximum effort and resources into the most productive field areas to gain maximum economic gain.

However, in these relatively early stages of such precision farming there are a few factors which are holding back progress. A spokesman for Agco, a company involved in the development of agricultural equipment, claimed that agricultural contractors are reluctant to put in the time needed to manage their fields so precisely. Farmers are demanding push-button technology but as it stands the technology is not effort free, although the key elements are there to make this possible in the future.

As well as improving economics and accuracy in farming, such technology is hoped to benefit the agricultural industry’s endeavour to reduce carbon foot-printing.

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Across many areas of Britain agricultural contractors are breathing a sigh of relief with the recent rainfall. Although this is nowhere near enough to quench the parched grounds, the met office is predicting further rainfall across many counties for the coming week. However, there is still the real fear that this will all be too little too late for agricultural contractors to achieve good yields this harvest.

On a positive note the rain has caused visible growth in many regions, with the rainfall allowing the crops to uptake nitrogen applications.

As a direct result of the dry weather agricultural contractors are expecting to start an early pea vining harvest. An expert speaking for PGRO estimates that vining will commence two earlier than on average years. To date the earliest recorded date that agricultural contractors have commenced pea harvesting is June 16^th, this year contractors are predicting to start around June 6^th.

Agricultural contractors in Norfolk and Suffolk are happy to be commencing pea vining again this year after last season off as a result of the termination of the Birds Eye contract. Unfortunately, these regions are amongst some of the worst to be affected by the dry weather conditions, as such, the harvest for agricultural contractors in these regions maybe somewhat disappointing. However, experts are yet to predict how detrimental the lack of rainfall will be ok the pea vining harvest, with many taking a ‘wait-and-see’ approach.

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Agricultural contractors have been concerned to hear about the temporary closure of the UK Ensus biofuel plant. Ensus is an important company to many agricultural contractors, being Europes largest wheat ethanol plant. The company have claimed that the shut down is due to the depressed market conditions. Additionally, the UK are in fierce competition with US agricultural contractors who are supplying biofuel commodities. As such the profit margins obtained from the UK plant cannot justify its continual functioning. However, the chief executive of Ensus assured the agricultural industry that they are confident that the business will be up and running again in a few months time.

The temporary closure of this plan has impacted upon UK wheat prices. The closure has resulted in an additional 200,000 tonnes of wheat being put into the market, having previously been destined from processing at the Ensus plant. Agricultural contractors saw their July futures decrease by 4% on previous quotes, this is the largest decrease observed for 2 months. However, agricultural contractors will be pleased to hear that the prices for wheat being sold at later stages, in November, have increased by more than 2%. This increase reflects a rebound in global wheat prices.

The Ensus closure adds to the problems currently experienced by the UK wheat ethanol industry. The completion of the new Vivergo bioethanol plant at Hull is still being delayed by problems with sourcing new contractors after a dispute with the original company.

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The BBRO Recommended List 2012 has six new varieties added to it. Agricultural contractors will be interested to hear that these new additions have substantially reduced chances of bolting. Perhaps more significantly, four of the varieties have a significantly lower early sowing bolting score than any other varieties previously placed on the list.

For agricultural contractors to achieve high yields resistance to bolting is crucial. Furthermore, it is important this resistance is still present when agricultural contractors drill their crops early. In order to achieve maximal yields the growing period needs to be of a long enough duration. Furthermore, with talk of factories opening earlier drilling will need to be accomplished earlier in the season than is standard.

Early sowing of previously recommended varieties have shown an increase of yields by approximately 10%. However, coupled with early sowing is an increased risk of bolting. As such agricultural contractors have been pushing for new varieties with lower bolting risks.  

However, it was stressed that despite the decreased bolting risks, agricultural contractors should not be complacent to think that bolting would not occur under any situation. Under stressful conditions all varieties are still subject to bolting.

Another key trait that agricultural contractors will be interested in when choosing sugar beet varieties is disease resistance . KWS has produced the first variety to have a double source resistance to rhizomania, Isabella KWS.

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