This years Organic Producers Conference was based at Aston University in the middle of Birmingham a rather unusual venue for a group of organic farmers to meet, and perhaps why there appeared to be more consultants and advisors present at this years organic producers conference.

Jim Pace may have sent warm words to the Organic Conference but in the opening session Juern Sanders clearly stated that England continues to be the poor man of Europe, when it comes to organic maintenance and conversion payments.   Other states not only have up to 300 Euros/ha maintenance payments but also a raft of other payments that are not available to English producers.

Christopher Slopes from the European IFOAM Group made the valid point that whilst Greening of Pillar under the proposed CAP reform package was welcomed, it was still a missed opportunity for further greening of the CAP in particular regarding stocking rates on permanent pasture. The current proposal to require three crops could also require one of these to be a legume.

Christopher introduced a new word to the conference disintermediary i.e. taking the middle man out of the food chains.  Some would argue that English organic farmers would be better off if this principle was applied to government support and that it were to come directly from Brussels.  Not an idea that is high on this Government’s agenda!

Perhaps the most challenging session at the conference came from the final lecture given by Professor Miguel Altieri from the University of California, Berkeley on Agro-ecology in practice around the world.  He argued that many western and European organic farmers were simply engaged in input substitution and a more radical reform of agricultural and land tenure was needed if agriculture was to meet the challenges posed by present and future food needs, against a background of the present and predicted climate, energy and economic scenarios.  Miguel highlighted a number of Agro-ecology systems around the world and argued that Agro-ecological based systems on the revitalization of small farms which emphasises diversity, synergy, recycling, offers the best options to meet these challenges.  This is certainly an organic plus model of agriculture that will challenge the majority of organic farm business.

Adapting to the Market was the theme for this years European Dairy Farmers Congress, held at Stoneleigh.  Three days of discussions, farm visits, lectures and catching up with old friends.  This was my fourth EDF.  Whilst being held at Stoneleigh, the UK is poorly represented with only a handful of farmers attending, compared to the Netherlands or Germany.

One of the key activities of EDF is their annual financial benchmarking exercise which showed that on average European dairy farmers are continuing to produce milk at below the true cost of production (after family labour and a return on their investment).  Of the 279 farms costed, only approximately 25% were making an entrepreneurs profit (this allows for opportunity and interest costs).  Excluding depreciation, opportunity and interest costs, the return to the family farm income was approximately 6.0 euro cents/kg.  27% of the costed farms returned a loss exceeding 10 euro cents/Kg comparing to only 6% of farms that had a profit exceeding 5 euro cents per litre.  This survey is of real academic interest because of its scope.  The average herd size is 224 cows with yields of 8,155 litres.  The range in herd size is from 15 cows to 1900.  Interestingly, 25% of the businesses had land costs that exceeded 450 €/ha. Approximately £400/ha and similarly 25% of farms had labour costs that exceeded 19 €/hour, approximately £17.00.  The average UK figures are £237/ha for land costs and £12.70/hour for labour. This reflects the high level of family labour in many of these European businesses. 

I chaired a very interesting session on the market place, where John Allen made the point that the UK’s direct liquid supply contracts required a special understanding by all parties involved, but did offer a mechanism by which consumer demands could be addressed by producers.  Whilst originally, level supply welfare issues and traceability had been top of the agenda, the consumer was becoming more demanding and asking for carbon foot printing and a range of other issues.

Professor Dr Folkhard Isemeyer pointed out that the growth in global food production over the last 30 years had been greatest in aquaculture, up a staggering 360%, poultry up 140%, soya beans up 133% and vegetables up 110%. Whilst ‘poor’ old milk output up a meagre 30%.   On the world’s stage, increase in livestock production had been greatest in Asia where milk output had been up 280% in 30 years, meat production up 380% compared to Europe where milk production had fallen by 16% and meat production was up 6%.  Dr Isermeyer pointed out that milk quota had not been a significant factor in the majority of the member states for the 4 years, and in fact, quota was not fully utilized by 19 out of the 27 member states in 2011/12. 

The projections for population trends for EU member states over the next 50 years was revealing with Germany’s population expected to decrease by 14%, whilst the UK is expected to be up 25% and France 16%.  This highlighted a number of particular problems for the German economy; a population that was also migrating from the rural areas to the urban areas.

Dr Isermeyer pointed out that 1% of world energy from bioenergy will require 40 million hectares of arable land.  There is estimated to be 500 million hectares of additional available arable land therefore any expectation that bioenergy production will not affect global food prices is fanciful and that agriculture will face rising energy costs and fluctuating product prices.  The impact of high production costs was that milk production was pushed towards grassland locations and life becomes easier only for landowners and not the operating farmer, rising prices tend to get reflected back in rents and land values.

Dr Isermeyer had studied some information from the US and looked at the costs and returns from dairy enterprises in the US by herd size and there was clear indication that herd size did improve profitability mainly due to reduced machinery costs and feed costs.  The trend in the US over the last 6 years had been that in the traditional milk producing states of New York and Wisconsin there had been a 40% increase in the number of cows in herds to over 500 cows. However, he pointed out that there was a campaign across the world by many sectors of the public against big farms, this was not just concentrated on welfare issues.

January and February are conference season and having been to both the Organic Producers Conference and the Soil Association conference I have now had my fill and it is time to reflect on all the papers and “going ons”.  The Producers Conference combined with the Institute of Organic Trainers and Advisors meeting (www.organicadvice.org.uk).  The highlights for me were the discussion on how the organic sector should position itself in the new world of tightened budgets and financial cut backs, the impending review of the Common Agricultural Policy and the possibility of the greening of the CAP from 2013.  One interesting suggestion was that under Pillar 1 of the CAP there was the possibility of non certified organic land, which would be managed to organic standards and receive payments for so doing, but would not be able to sell product as organic.  At the Soil Association conference there was much talk about how the organic sector could be rewarded for the external benefits in terms of environmental gain, food quality and green house gas emissions.  There now seems to be little doubt that on all three issues organic agriculture has clear benefits in most cases.

As someone who works with both conventional and organic farmers, it was good to hear the new Soil Association Director, Helen Browning, saying that it time to stop throwing rocks at each other from hill tops.  Peter Kendal’s early remarks about wanting to work with the organic sector seemed encouraging but he did not accept the ethics of the organic movement and used out dated information to rubbish the environmental benefits of organic agriculture.  I had to wonder how this was supporting his 2,500 organic members.

At least Peter turned up rather than sending a three minute video presentation, like the Secretary of State, who was meant to give the key note address.  If the organic sector wanted to know how this government sees the sector, I think that this says it all as actions always speak louder than words.

The technical sessions that I found most interesting were all focussed around soils and cropping.  Christine Watson presented an interesting paper on the effects of different fertility building crops on phosphate uptake in the succeeding crop and the use of rock phosphate incorporated with green waste compost.  An interesting seminar on minimal tillage for organic crops lay to rest some of the concerns that organic farmers have about giving up the plough; in particular the one about weed control, where there was evidence from Richard Gantlet that on his arable farm he had been able to achieve weed control under a no-plough situation over the last six years.

The final session of the day saw a really informative presentation on the Organic Marketing Campaign, which has just been launched with the strap line of “Why I Love Organics.”  This industry and EU funded three year initiative was not supported by the Government, which seems totally irrational.

Having returned home and avoided the worst of December snows and Australian floods, I have had the opportunity to reflect on the three weeks spent in Australia and to set some new years resolutions.

My first port of calls was to return to some of my Nuffield Farming Scholarship hosts from 1997 http://www.nuffieldscholar.org/ and in particular to spend time with their recently elected chairman, Terry Hehir.  Terry was keen to sell the merits of the Australian Nuffield experience (http://www.nuffield.com.au/) and particularly how this was enabling scholars from around the world and bring change to Australian agricultural industry.  He believed that this boded very well for the scholar. In addition to the Nuffield Contemporary Scholars’ Conference that all new Nuffield Scholars attend in their year of selection this year being hosted in Wellington and South Island New Zealand in March

Australian scholars are required to undertake the Global Focus programme   This is a unique opportunity for scholars to travel together for three weeks around the world visiting a developing country (either India, Brazil or China), a world research centre (either cereals, livestock or rice) and to visit either the European Union or the United States.  This only made me wish that I was completing my scholarship now and not 14 years ago.

It was interested to note that Nuffield Australia regards their supporters of Nuffield as investors.  In people’s personal development and careers to the benefit of the Australian industry and this is very strongly promoted to the organisations that we would call sponsors

Down on the farm there were a number of take home messages for me which all seemed to be focused on increasing the productivity of the grass and cows:

1. Soil management issues are much higher up the agenda than in the UK  Identifying the key problem areas whether it’s organic matters, cat ion balances , biological activity, soil compaction or drought resistance.  In some cases this is being based comprehensive soil analysis than we routinely do. This is combined with wider adoptions of the Albrecht System and the use of supplements or co-products, including humates, biological additives (either in the form of Mycorrhizea Fungi or trace elements nutrients).
2. It is impossible to visit Australian diary herds without being impressed by their irrigation systems.  Be it an 800 metre long pivot system that spans the dairy barn and covers an area of 200 hectares, or laser levelled fields of a mile long, or simple K Line  systems covering in excess of 30 hectare per system all remind the Northern Hemisphere farmer of the importance of water on grazing systems
3. In the drought prone areas of Victoria and South Australia the use of Lucerne is extensive with many farms basing at least 40% of their forage on Lucerne, which is either being mown or grazed depending on the season and the farm situation.  With its nil requirement for nitrogen and an ability, when well managed, to be in crop for six or eight years, the attractions would seem fairly obvious.

I am off to the Institute of Organic Trainers and Advisors   www.organicadvice.org.uk and the Organic Producers conference next week at Cirencester and it seems that soils are at least on the agenda for the organic sector.

I was on farm the other day preparing some diets for an organic client who wanted to check the mineral status of his organic diary herd.  Under organic standards trace elements and some minerals are permitted when there is evidence of a shortage.

So, I was duly inputting the mineral results into the diet programme and all seemed normal except that sodium in the grass silage was nearly off the bottom of the scale.  When I mentioned this to the client he said “Oh yes, the cows love their rock salt”. 

Today I was on farm and there in the end of the feed trough was the remnants of the salt block.  I expected this as, for as long as I have worked for these clients (17 years), there has been salt available.  Rock salt is almost ubiquitous on organic farms, but on conventional farms it seem to be conspicious by its absence.  This got me wondering how may other things one sector could learn from the other, or is it simply that the conventional sector feeds more minerals, so that a shorage of sodium or other minerals are missed.

Talking to my first client we decided to see if we can alter the forage mineral analysis by the application fo agricultural salt to the grass in the spring and then monitor the situation.

I know that a number of nutritionists claim that minerals within a plant are much more available to the animal than those provided by supplementation.

I am off to Australia this week to catch up with some of my Nuffield Farming Scholorship contacts and I know that this topic of salt and minerals is a hot subject down under.  I will keep you posted.

In the meantime, I am leaving my colleague Ed to make sure that, by the end of December, all our clients have completed their 2010 Soil Protection Review and thus avoided the easiest of Cross Compliance deductions.  The 2010 Soil Protection Review is a more detailed risk assessment than before.