Feed-budgeting help for livestock farmers

The Scottish Government is to offer free feed-budgeting advice to livestock farmers in the wake of fodder shortages and rising straw prices.

Following the inaugural meeting of the Government’s Agriculture Weather Advisory Panel, Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing said the scope of the Farm Advisory Service had been increased to help producers who failed to make enough winter feed as a result of a wash-out summer.

“Scottish Government has increased the scope of the Farm Advisory Service to include one-to-one specialist advice to farmers and crofters on the use of feed budgeting to better manage livestock dietary needs, particularly over the winter period and in light of increased straw prices,” said Mr Ewing.

He said the Government was also teaming up with rural charity RSABI to create six pilot farms in the west of Scotland to offer advice to producers on feed budgeting, an initiative likely to be opened up more widely to farmers in due course.

“In addition we are working with the SAC to deliver a series of workshops on winter resilience in areas of Scotland that have faced challenging times with wet weather over the summer and autumn periods,” said Mr Ewing.

“The Agriculture Weather Advisory Panel is due to meet again in January and I’m sure it will give further consideration to these and other pressing issues at that time.”

NFU Scotland chief executive Scott Walker, who sits on the panel, welcomed the news. He said many livestock farms across the west coast, Ayrshire and the south-west were seriously short of forage going into the winter.

“Many farmers have already looked at how much fodder they were able to produce and balanced that against how much they will need in the months ahead,” he said.

“Many are well short, and we would encourage any farmer yet to do the sums on forage to do it now.

“The good news is that the Farm Advisory Service can help.

“An accurate feed budget would allow farmers to make plans to augment their forage stocks or reduce the number of cattle they plan to carry through the winter to stretch out the forage that they have.

“And while we all hope for an early spring, we need to plan for the worstcase scenario of a late turnout of stock in 2018.”

Scott Walker is urging any farmer yet to do the sums on forage to do them now.