This year’s British Grassland Society Summer Meeting was a cracker – with visits to eight farms managed by inspirational farmers making the most of the natural resources around them – sunshine (not so much this year), rainfall and land that grows good grass.
Some key take home messages for me:
- If you wanted to try growing wholecrop rather than maize for silage – this was the year to do it
- A new, efficient parlour can knock hours off milking times, releasing farmers/staff to go and do other things – on or off the farm
- It is possible to grow 14t DM/ha of grass and use 90% of it in wet west Wales
- The resilience of livestock farmers in TB hotspots is truly amazing/humbling
- Rearing baby pheasants for shoots is good business – not least the fact that customers always need more the following year!
- Sheep can be rotationally grazed
- Study trips abroad widen farmers horizons and can generate real change when they return home
- Grass-based systems – be they dairy, beef or sheep can produce a profit and produce cash for reinvestment on or off the farm
- We are all big kids at heart – especially when let loose in a vintage funfair!
Thanks to all the members of Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire Grassland Societies for organising a most memorable, interesting and useful Summer Meeting.
Next year we are off to Cumbria – I can’t wait…
PS: More details of the farms visited in Wales can be found in the next issue of the BGS magazine Grass & Forage Farmer – due out 29 August 2012.
