Written by Tom Allen-Stevens
While harvest 2020 will be a year to remember for the wrong reasons, it could accelerate the adoption of new technology. Charlotte Cunningham reports. The poor weather experienced this year doesn’t look to be improving anytime soon, with the Met Office expecting these extremes of very wet and dry conditions to become an increasingly frequent pattern as the climate continues to change. However, this ‘new normal’ presents a pressing challenge for the industry to tackle longer term, according to Small Robot Company’s co-founder, Ben Scott-Robinson. “It’s no surprise that the impact has been hard,” he says. “Farmers were telling us back in April that they’d been severely hit. The majority said conditions were simply too wet for the machinery and they couldn’t get the crop in as planned. The takeaway from harvest 2020 is that climate impact must have urgent consideration.” SRC’s Winter Weather farmer survey found that 38% were affected by the wet weather, and couldn’t plant at least a third of what they had planned. 11% of farmers surveyed were unable to plant winter wheat at all, rising to 24% for those on clay soils. Two thirds (63%) had conditions too wet for the machinery and perhaps rather…
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