Amount of sunshine not helpful
AS with everything, too much of anything is not good for you and the amount of sunshine we have been receiving recently, along with no rain, is certainly not helping the majority of farmers in Carmarthenshire. A lot of the fields at home, where I have been working from since the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown, are burning up and the grass is not growing.
This is obviously not good for milk production and lamb or beef growth.
One positive is that our members are producing good quality silage for the winter, even though the yields are down.
During the last week we have seen the price of lamb drop from approx £5.40 per kilo deadweight down to £4.70. I would imagine the reason for this is that a lot of lamb is now ready for slaughter and we don’t have all the outlets operating due to Covid-19.
We will need to keep a close eye out on this over the next couple of weeks to ensure that the price does not continue to fall.
The price of beef has slightly improved but still not at the levels needed. Again, we need to keep the pressure on processors and supermarkets to continue supporting the domestic production of beef for the price to continue improving. The issue regarding milk prices is still present, even though it has improved over the past couple of weeks. Please get in contact with us if you are unsure of any new contracts being offered by processors in light of any re-structuring they have made recently.
The Single Farm Payment scheme’s deadline is June 15. Last week I received some statistics from Welsh Government concerning the amount of applications they had received. There are still a few thousand applications outstanding which is concerning.
Please get in touch if you require any assistance in completing yours. The sooner you get the form in, the better the chance of you receiving the payment promptly.
I hope all of you are keeping well in these unusual times. NFU Cymru is still working hard and we are available to help with any queries. Hopefully after Covid-19 is over the population of the UK will continue to appreciate the work that various key workers are doing, including all the hard work from Wales’s farmers.