How has farming been for you in 2020 ?

[Bobthebuilder]

Too wet, too dry, too windy, not windy enough, too cheap, too expensive, too busy, too quiet, too fast, too slow, so pretty much like every other year and next year will be pretty similar

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Best year so far - I said it would be - it's all in the mind.

 

[puppet]

Best lambing weather for years, lamb and cattle prices best ever by autumn. Bought our straw early and plenty silage. Never been further than 10 miles and worked too hard most weekends but better than shut in a flat somewhere

 

[neilo]

-Big lamb losses in the Spring on the back of last winter’s weather and an ongoing Iodine deficiency problem (hopefully sorted now), so better lamb prices have almost made up for the reduction in numbers to sell. Would have been a lot worse if we’d had a bad Spring! Target is +300 lambs sold next year.
-Last winter put paid to the few winter crops that actually got drilled on a wet/heavy farm, so redrilled with Spring Barley, just as the drought hit. Result is approx half the grain to sell this year, so £10k down there.
-Fodder beet yields down due to virus yellows & drought making for variable germination, so tight on winter fodder crops.
-£5k down on Glastir environmental payments as one scheme finished and no replacement in place yet.
-‘nice’ new LL agent has instigated a rent review for Spring 2021. He wants to double rent on the back of improvements I’ve made to what was essentially a derelict farm.

+nearest and dearest are all still alive and well.
+rams have been in high demand, to the extent that numbers for sale next year will be down.
+the odd bit of good news has arrived to lift the spirits and provide hope.
+things can only get better.

 

[Treg]

Pants pulled down by ....


Wife ... acceptable- just

 

[Lowland1]

Absolute disaster from start of Covid, export market crashed in March then came back but heavy rains reduced production then competition from Egypt and Morocco etc have messed things up. Local markets here in Kenya have been destroyed as schools have been closed from March and lots of jobs have disappeared. Wife has a serious illness. My father has dementia and then got Covid. The kids left in Jan 2020 and have only just returned. However these things are sent to try us if you can get through 2020 then surely we should get through anything.You have to farm smarter it seems.

 

[Nae bother]

Best harvest in my 20 years of farming here,plenty barley and straw,fat cattle prices improved,my wife caught covid in spring time and recovered without needing hospital treatment which was a blessing,and now finished sheep price is rising so all in all been lucky,everything could be a lot worse.

 

[T Hectares]

Firstly, we have all survived 20 despite a few scares !!
20 has made me appreciate living in a sparsely populated area !!
I’m an arable farmer and had our core crops of Wheat and Barley performing very well, the break crops less so, but the most pleasing aspect of 20 was planting OSR and watching it emerge, then grow without csfb attack

Its not been easy but I feel fortunate to live in the country and produce food as my primary product in such a difficult year

Braced for a turbulent 21 though, but hey it could be worse, a lot worse..,

 

[Farmer Roy]

2020 has been a good year

A hell of a lot better than the previous two years

It saved me . . .

https://www.facebook.com/100004124769422/posts/1798123687001773

 

[Farmer Roy]

PS - second worst yields / harvest result in my 30 + year farming career - but after the last few years ANY harvest is a bonus.
It has allowed us to continue & to take advantage of this current wet summer. It has pretty much guaranteed next year . . .

 

[lazy farmer]

Personally a difficult start to yr. but a much better end to it.
calving went well considering we had a make shift team at times
Weather was interesting with yet another prolonged dry spell. But winter feed stocks look ok now.
cows got in calf ok but we had poor conception rate in the heifers. Which coincided with getting Tb. That was a bad day.since then we have had a clear test and hopefully we have enough animals to calf in. We managed to pay down a lot of debt.
My family are all still here to tell the tale which is the greatest blessing of all.

 

[kfpben]

A good year.

Lambing went well. Lamb prices fabulous.
Only lost 1 calf on the calf rearing side- good store cattle prices.
Arable yields average, prices strong.
Grape harvest average, quality good. A complete shift in much of the wine sales from selling direct to selling direct to consumer. This has gone from 3% of the business to approaching 50%.
Relief milking work steady and still lucrative.

 

[Lincsman]

Its been a very enlightening year, nothing sown before April.. then a few oats and linseed planted which did OK (oat straw worth a fortune it seems!) so had little work to do, the wheat carried over has added £50/tonne, but the massive slash in input spending means the bank account has been and still is very healthy. For next year, half the normal area of wheat was sown (all off the heap) looks a picture after the fallow.

The let houses have all added £15K to their value and all tenants are paid up to date and happy.

The phrase that its only when you get off the "hamster wheel" you find out how fast you are running and getting no where comes to mind.

 

[ford4000]

Lamb and beef prices have been good, and marked more lambs than ever before..... But there have been health problems with the stock this year!
Never had scab before, but due to it being all around we've had to treat ewes and lambs for it 3 times this year!
Also had an outbreak of codd at lambing time that took a lot of time and antibiotics over 3 or 4 weeks to get rid of., and It went dry at the wrong time, so grass has been scarce over much of the summer leading to feeding more lambs in the back end..... But overall mustn't grumble!

 

[Brisel]

A year of two halves for me. Two jobs actually...

Glad to have got the winter crops sown in October 2019. They did well apart from the osr - CSFB and winter stem weevil knackered them. Long dry spell didn’t help in spring. I did get to spend 3 weeks in NZ in January which I’ve wanted to do for ages. Well timed as it turned out! Lockdown 1 was bearable when you’re a farmer. I got a new job offer in May, so off to pastures new in late July having done the worst osr harvest I’ve ever had in Dorset.

North Yorkshire didn’t disappoint. Better yields but lots of late maturing spring crops. Poor weather from August onwards meant we haven’t done 1/3 of winter cereal drilling and have done minimal land work since 10th October. We didn’t finish combining until 28th October. The ghost of autumn 2019 will last until at least 2022! We sold nearly 6000 Christmas trees which is a new experience for me and will help fill the hole in the bank account left by autumn 2019. I’ve met a few new people up here including some TFFers but the social life is dire with Covid restrictions and some sunshine would be nice.

Onwards and upwards for 2021! Plenty of work to do to the new farm, including sorting lots of land drains out. Hoping to avoid a repeat of the late harvest and autumn drilling bottleneck so some planning and extra resources required to catch up and work out how we will deal with the reduction in BPS this year.

 

[JD-Kid]

bit of a crap year to be fair
come out of a dry summer so ewes lighter and alot of store lambs still on farm so set up for lower lambing and less feed covers
wool fell though the floor with lack of demand
lambs ok but price dropping due to lockdowns and less demand for higher end markets
all in all a tough year
and dont want to pi55 on the party but see more probs coming for 2021 as far as markets and supply of parts new gear etc etc
stuff out of the USA not realy knocked around but out of Europe a noticeable slow down and talking to some dealers. alot of stuff on back order
healths ok tho and can go to the pub so some highlights

 

[Bury the Trash]

bit of a crap year to be fair
come out of a dry summer so ewes lighter and alot of store lambs still on farm so set up for lower lambing and less feed covers
wool fell though the floor with lack of demand
lambs ok but price dropping due to lockdowns and less demand for higher end markets
all in all a tough year
and dont want to pi55 on the party but see more probs coming for 2021 as far as markets and supply of parts new gear etc etc
stuff out of the USA not realy knocked around but out of Europe a noticeable slow down and talking to some dealers. alot of stuff on back order
healths ok tho and can go to the pub so some highlights

no pubs open here for drink only for served at the door takaways if they normally do food so youve got the edge on us atm ..lol

 

[Bossfarmer]

I'm sorry but ive diversified and my opinion is that a bad year in my diversifications is still better than a good years farming.

what did you diversify into?

 

[mixed breed]

A good farming year for us anyway. Good lambing and the grass to grow them, despite the drop and go they sold really well. cow's have milked well all year and I've stuck to my supply profile (which makes a change) our change to lim bull has been good with only a couple needing a pull. Calf's too have sold tremendous. Milk sales had a two month blip below 25ppl due to corvid, but we felt lucky not to be tipping it away! Converted our shed to cubicles in June, and it proved to be the best year to do it, as the cereal harvest that followed was a disaster straw wise.
Winter barley yeilds were crap, but the spring crops made up for it so plenty of feed still to go at.
Personal life was unaffected by the virus as we don't go anywhere anyway, but having the daughter home to learn was nice, even if the homeschooling was hit and miss.
One thing I will say is despite the lockdown and all the viral news day after day, the year just flew by and here we find ourselves, ready to do it all again.
Best of luck for 2021 everyone.

 

[Rob Holmes]

Only got 25% autumn 2019/20
100% of winter OSR failed
15 yr old nephew was off school due to COVID restrictions, so sat him on a tractor and helped get caught up with spring work
Spring drilling went very well.
Late start to combining but once we started we never stopped, 2nd earliest finish for many years
WW yields were surprisingly respectable, spring crops did well
Cheap diesel and little drying
90% autumn 2020/21 drilling done.
Decent milk price
Decent forage stocks of good quality silage
93 y/o grandma tested positive for COVID and recovered

Been a lot of frustrations and inconvenience, but not the worst year ever