Straw market analysis.

[gone up the hill]

No one getting £90/acre for straw in the swath around here. Not even winter barley.

Has been other years, near me Wheat easily £80 acre for heavy crops.

All sales of WW straw around here averaged between £50/60 acre this year!

 

[Derrick Hughes]

I could live off that

 

[cattleman123]

I could live off that

The problem I am hearing from a couple of farmers I know is that they are still waiting for there payment from farmers...own fault I know ...well next year straw will be plentiful..just you all see..unsustainable for livestock bedding at current prices...how the hell can it be....one could be talking about 75 p a day for bullocks on bedding only ..madness

 

[DRC]

Just shows how the good old mixed farm was ideal.
Keep your own stock and grow enough grain and straw to be self sufficient, with a bit to sell. Get your own muck back and have some grass in the rotation.
What went wrong?

 

[gone up the hill]

The problem I am hearing from a couple of farmers I know is that they are still waiting for there payment from farmers...own fault I know ...well next year straw will be plentiful..just you all see..unsustainable for livestock bedding at current prices...how the hell can it be....one could be talking about 75 p a day for bullocks on bedding only ..madness

Straw will defo be very plentiful next year without a shadow of a doubt.

75p a head a day seems a tad high thou even at current prices?

 

[gone up the hill]

Just shows how the good old mixed farm was ideal.
Keep your own stock and grow enough grain and straw to be self sufficient, with a bit to sell. Get your own muck back and have some grass in the rotation.
What went wrong?

Farm assurance for a lot of smaller farms around here, not worth the hassle/cost of being FA just to sell the grain from 30/50 acres and you have very few markets if your not assured.

Just another example of the way Farm assurance is adding costs/ driving smaller farmers out of the industry @Guy Smith

 

[neilo]

5 pages to get to blaming the NFU and Red Tractor. Is that a new record?

I think mixed farms have become fewer mostly because of the lure of doing feck all all winter, rather than keeping stock for very little return on capital invested.

 

[ollie989898]

Just shows how the good old mixed farm was ideal.
Keep your own stock and grow enough grain and straw to be self sufficient, with a bit to sell. Get your own muck back and have some grass in the rotation.
What went wrong?

Finding staff who want to do it. Not all tractor drivers make for good stockmen, dubious returns, increased regulation on animal enterprises, perceived life/work balance (sucklers get in the way of the shooting season), silage making, slurry storage etc etc etc.

 

[gone up the hill]

5 pages to get to blaming the NFU and Red Tractor. Is that a new record?

I think mixed farms have become fewer mostly because of the lure of doing feck all all winter, rather than keeping stock for very little return on capital invested.

Nope, I know a lot of small mixed farmers would love/ used to grow corn to sell the grain as a cash crop and have the straw for home use but FA assurance has put a stop to all that!

Reality is that the NFU/ FA rules are driving smaller farmers out of the industry.

Just not cost effective to be FA for 30/50 acres of grain.

 

[DRC]

I wouldn't want to bring straw in from elsewhere. The threat of blackgrass is too much of a risk. Most of my straw goes to a local pig farm, where there's no other straw brought in and I get the muck back.

 

[ollie989898]

I wouldn't want to bring straw in from elsewhere. The threat of blackgrass is too much of a risk. Most of my straw goes to a local pig farm, where there's no other straw brought in and I get the muck back.

The lorry loads of straw you see coming down the M4 or A303 you just know must have a deadly payload somewhere, and I have seen peculiar blackgrass outbreaks occur in places where it logically should not, fortunately we have long term grass as a thing here.

 

[DRC]

The lorry loads of straw you see coming down the M4 or A303 you just know must have a deadly payload somewhere, and I have seen peculiar blackgrass outbreaks occur in places where it logically should not, fortunately we have long term grass as a thing here.

Seen some on afield nearby that was exactly where imported muck was tipped. The area has been topped in crop and sprayed two years running now.

 

[gone up the hill]

Seen some on afield nearby that was exactly where imported muck was tipped. The area has been topped in crop and sprayed two years running now.

Reality is that blackgrass will be widespread across the UK before long.

 

[glasshouse]

a farmer should make £90 an acre most years before baling costs and storage in a straw area . more in a livestock zone . that can't be bad surly

Then you fill a shed with straw, and merchant cant shift it.
balerman needs paying, forklifts, trailers etc.
got all those t shirts.
straw is boom or bust, and nobody is making money this yr after you have turned it umpteen times, towed the lorries out, baled a half crop .....................

 

[Derrick Hughes]

no one can say straw will be plentyfull next year as you don t have a clue what the weather will do and the demand from power stations and export won't go away p

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Then you fill a shed with straw, and merchant cant shift it.
balerman needs paying, forklifts, trailers etc.
got all those t shirts.
straw is boom or bust, and nobody is making money this yr after you have turned it umpteen times, towed the lorries out, baled a half crop .....................

I think the only sane future for straw is for merchants or farmers even to have long term contracts with arable farms like power station do

 

[glasshouse]

no one can say straw will be plentyfull next year as you don t have a clue what the weather will do and the demand from power stations and export won't go away p

Who buys straw across the channel?
Do they know about blackgrass

 

[Brisel]

NW France has blackgrass

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Who buys straw across the channel?
Do they know about blackgrass

Dutch Farmers .do livestock farmers worry about blackgrass .you tell me

 

[balerman]

Farm assurance for a lot of smaller farms around here, not worth the hassle/cost of being FA just to sell the grain from 30/50 acres and you have very few markets if your not assured.

Just another example of the way Farm assurance is adding costs/ driving smaller farmers out of the industry @Guy Smith

There are ways of doing it tho,just need to work with other farmers.Its what I do,selling maybe 30t of excess barley a year,works very well specially in a year like this.