Weekly Summary: Dairy Section Date Range: 7th – 13th September 2026 — Executive Summary Across 182 contributions in 14 conversations during the week, forum participants concentrated on milk-price implications for farm strategy, forage supply for the coming winter, equipment choices to manage conserved feed, and local livestock-market signals. The largest single thread (38 contributions) addressed …
Weekly Summary: Arable Section Date Range: 7th – 13th September 2026 — Executive Summary Over the week ending 13 September 2026, contributors to the Arable section posted 216 entries across 21 conversations. The busiest threads focused on crop establishment under pest pressure, practical interest in regenerative or organic approaches, visible harvest losses and local price …
Weekly Summary: Livestock Section Date Range: 7th – 13th September 2026 — Executive Summary Across the Farming Forum’s Livestock section during 7–13 September 2026 contributors submitted 866 posts across 36 conversations. Two threads attracted most attention: a general confessions thread (214 contributions) and a dedicated price-tracker (199 contributions). Across those and related conversations members described …
Farmers ending SFI 2023 agreements spent two months debating when a legume fallow can be destroyed and drilled with wheat, with the RPA itself having to seek internal confirmation before answering. The response, shared in the conversation on 11 September, confirms the fallow can be rotated off once the action’s aims are met, with evidence retained. The exchange also weighs the cut from £593 to £532 per hectare under SFI 2026, distrust of guidance, and whether the option deserves public money at all.
A conversation on The Farming Forum asking what happens to the land after this harvest drew 146 contributions predicting uncropped acres, a wave of farm sales and busy machinery auctions, while others described cash-rich buyers still outbidding all comers. With farmland supply at its highest first-half level in almost 20 years, arable values easing and feed wheat futures rallying since July, the conversation leaves the trade asking who will farm the land that changes hands this autumn, and what they will spend money on.
A livestock producer found a pile of vac-packed Australian grain fed beef in the butcher’s shop he supplies, priced well under £10 per kilogram and excellent eating. The Farming Forum conversation that followed drew 112 contributions and 3,669 views, moving from import volumes under the new trade deals to whether the EUROP grid has bred eating quality out of the British herd, why displaced global beef is arriving now, and the supermarket contracts and age rules that shape what farmers produce.
A combine that went up within two hours of starting work sparked five weeks of hard-won experience on The Farming Forum: 110 contributions on what starts combine fires, from failed bearings and DPF regens to static on plastic panels, and what prevents them. Insurers discount premiums 15% for accredited suppression systems, yet neither manufacturers nor dealers offer them on new machines. After a second tinder-dry harvest, that distribution gap is the question the trade is left holding.
A resident’s video of a slurry tanker rounding a village corner has The Farming Forum asking whether the poor road reputation of young tractor drivers is deserved. Across 101 contributions, farmers and contractors debated speed, phone use, a Mickey mouse tractor test, telematics that already log every speed reading, and whether recruitment pressure is putting the least experienced staff on the most public-facing job. The unresolved question: does the industry act on its own data before a formal test arrives?
Breeding sheep sales opened 2026 in full cry, with mule shearlings £50 a head up on last year and champion pens at £330. But a two-month conversation on The Farming Forum shows a trade bracing itself: bluetongue spreading, drought-starved grass, ewes going home unsold at recent sales and warnings that the money may run out before the sheep do. What farmers are saying about prices, replacements and margins, counted and quoted, with the full analysis and slide deck for the trade.
The farm vote has stopped being Reform’s by default. Eight months after Reform took a clear majority of The Farming Forum’s election poll, a repeat run has the Conservatives back in front, Restore taking a sixth of the ballot from a standing start, and one voter in ten refusing to pick any party at all.