A hill farm losing £15,000 a year when its Countryside Stewardship agreement ends in December asked The Farming Forum how to carry on without support. The answers amount to a line-by-line re-costing of upland livestock farming: feed tested against the conversion ratio, fixed costs under the microscope, outdoor lambing, and marketing loyalty up for grabs. With Defra forecasting hill farm incomes down 8 per cent this year, the conversation shows the trade what its post-subsidy customers will look like.

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MPs on the EFRA Committee are asking farmers and land agents what happened when the Sustainable Farming Incentive’s second window opened and closed inside six hours on 22 September. Agri Web Media has analysed 926 contributions from 174 members of The Farming Forum, plus two polls: who was shut out and why, whether the budget notices were seen, what changes on farm, and why 59 of 102 voters would rather return to a BPS-type payment than refine the scheme.

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CNH’s move to put Case IH and New Holland under the same dealerships reached north and east Scotland in June, with Agricar and Ravenhill taking on the red brand and three smaller Case dealers given a year’s notice. A 132-contribution conversation on The Farming Forum, viewed more than 14,000 times, weighed sympathy for the dealers who built the brand against the corporate logic of consolidation, asked whether two brands become one, and saw openings for Deutz, McCormick and Chinese entrants among displaced dealers.

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A farmer’s question about which 120 by 90 high density square baler to buy ran for seven weeks on The Farming Forum and became an audit of the big baler trade. Contributors reported power requirements that have doubled in a generation, with 12 tonne balers and talk of 300hp minimums, while the driest season in memory stripped bale weights to as little as 250kg against weighbridge averages near 500kg. Knotter care, dealer backup and even the combine that cut the field now shape the straw’s value.

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A Channel 5 reconstruction of a fatal trailer detachment sent farmers straight out to check their hitch hooks and rings, and started a month-long audit of farm haulage’s weakest links on The Farming Forum. Contributors compared a £900 dealer hook with £125 and £150 aftermarket alternatives, picked apart why agricultural trailer brakes fail dangerous rather than safe, asked why rated safety chains are law in New Zealand but absent in the UK, and questioned how trailers hauling 18 tonnes face no test at all.

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A routine inspection that left 271 unidentifiable cattle barred from the food chain, and a Fife estate choosing to cull its whole herd, set off a 192-contribution conversation on The Farming Forum. Farmers asked how the failure survived every check in the system, defended tagging almost unanimously, attacked penalties as disproportionate, and tested the claim that DNA could replace paperwork. The verified case, the strongest voices and what it signals for the identification and traceability trade.

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Cabbage stem flea beetle arrived late and in force this September, and a Farming Forum conversation charts the damage to the 30% oilseed rape comeback: crops written off from eight hectares to 300, a £15,000 bill on one 38 hectare field, a revolt against low seed rates, and renewed anger at the chemistry vacuum. With AHDB putting the harvest 2026 area at 316,000 hectares, the trade question is whether the comeback survives to February’s larvae counts, and what that means for seed, chemical and fertiliser demand in 2027.

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The Sustainable Farming Incentive’s second application window of the year was gone within six hours, and the argument about who missed out is proving much harder to close. Farmers on The Farming Forum compared notes on agents who failed to submit half their applications, the billing rows now brewing, the digital divide behind the agent question, and how SFI27 should ration money, while Defra confirms 12,200 applications, two exception groups, and a rethink of first come, first served. Agri Web Media analyses the conversation for the trade.

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A farmer weighing up a second hand tractor asked whether anyone had moved to John Deere’s CommandPro joystick and regretted it. Two weeks and 113 contributions later he had bought the demonstrator. The conversation split cleanly by labour model: one driver farms that learn the programmable controls refuse to go back, while employers with casual drivers count the cost in mistakes, including three tonnes of spilt potatoes after a driver remapped the spools. A dealer demonstration closed the sale in public.

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Cereals 2026 at Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat Farm drew more than 25,000 visitors, and a four-week Farming Forum conversation of 274 contributions swung from traffic dread and ticketing gripes to farmers calling it the best Cereals they can remember. The trade story inside the celebration: a bumper, younger, more mixed crowd, first-time visitors pulled in by the venue, exhibitors praised for effort, but wish lists that stayed wishes in the worst arable economy for years, and a venue debate already running for 2027 and beyond.

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