Move To More Intensified Farming In U.K.

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31832, 9 November 1968, Page 8

Move To More Intensified Farming In U.K.

The high level of production on arable farms with their big expansion in cereal cropping in recent years is well known. Mr N. Q. Wright, a Canterbury mixed farmer, of Sheffield, who recently returned from a study of farming in Britain under a Nuffield scholarship, notes that these farmers are moving towards still greater diversification and specialisation in the interests of better use of labour and greater returns to the acre. Berry fruits and crops such as strawberries are a recent innovation.

Mr Wright said this week he believed that what was

happening on a 470-acre property he visited could be an indication of future trends. This was a farm with a programme of mainly cereal growing and potato production. But there were also eight acres of strawberries and three acres in daffodils. With a low yield this year, only 10 tons of strawberries had been produced, and these had been selling at about 2s 2d per lb. The daffodils had been grossing some £2OO an acre from the sale of flowers and every three years the bulbs were sold at £lOO per ton. This property also grew 120 acres of potatoes and 45 acres of sugar beet and vegetables, including leeks and carrots.

British farmers, he said, had been forced into intensive cropping by the high price of land—it was selling at up to £3OO an acre—and by the lower returns from and greater number of man-hours involved in the care of livestock.

On a National Agricultural Advisory Service experimental farm on heavy clay soils in Warwickshire, he said, a nine-year rotation included two crops of wheat, then tick beans, a break crop of high protein content giving a gross return comparable with barley, then two more crops of wheat, oats, tick beans, and two further crops of wheat This might be a little more

intensive cereal rotation than the average, but it was an indication of the trend in arable fanning. The winter wheat was sown with 1801 b of seed and 20 units of nitrogen to the acre, in addition to superphosphate, and a further top-dress-ing of 50 units of nitrogen to the acre was given in the spring. On this farm wheat was yielding some two tons or about 74 or 75 bushels to the acre and was bringing a similar price to New Zealand wheat at about 14s a bushel or about £26 a ton.

On another property of 3000 acres of lighter soils in Worcestershire, 500 acres of wheat, 1500 acres of barley, 250 acres of beans and 160 acres of potatoes were being grown, and here where one field had been in barley for 12 years in succession the yield had averaged about 63 bushels on land that was hilly in nature and quite stony. This was being done through strict attention to cultivation techniques and weed control with spraying. As well as tick beans, Mr Wright said, ryegrass crops for seed were being grown in the cereal cropping rotations and with improved harvesting methods he believed British farmers could in future grow most of their ryegrass seed requirements. A potato grower himself, Mr Wright also looked at potato production in Britain where 750,000 acres are grown annually. While the movement to mechanised harvesting was increasing, because of a shortage of seasonal labour and particularly because of rising costs, and also a current oversupply of potatoes in Britain, Mr Wright said different factors on particular farms influenced growers in deciding whether they should go completely into mechanical handling or palletisation. There were, however, no clear-cut guide lines. Where seed growers were handling their crops mechan-

ically, he said, they were using palletised boxes and where tables were handled mechanically they were stored in bulk and then graded over the winter, although he had seen a number of cases where, with a big population nearby, the potatoes were packed directly into 561 b bags in the field and sent straight off to the market. One fanner, who grew 500 acres of seed potatoes and who was a pioneer in mechanical handling in Britain and Scotland, had over 10 years built up a supply of 22,000 lOcwt palletised boxes which were worth 48s 2d each. Most of the harvesting machines he had seen were of European origin and did not have a very high output a day, but he believed that machines of new design, which would be on the market shortly, would have a higher output

Mr Wright made contact with seed growers in Scotland and also visited potato breeding stations. He said that with the large-scale breeding programmes in progress at such stations it was most desirable that New Zealand, which could not undertake this work on so large a scale because of Its smaller national crop, should be in close contact with these institutions so that new varieties could be brought out for testing under local conditions.

Like many other Nuffield scholars who have visited Britain, Mr Wright was impressed with the role of nitrogen in the British fanning scene.

With dairy farmers using up to 400 units an acre each year to grow grass, mixed cropping farmers using more than 80 units an acre, and even sheepfarmers using up to 180 units to the acre for growing grass, he said it could be seen how this type of fertiliser dominated the British farming scene. New Zealand farmers had developed a high level of production an acre, he said, based on clover-dominant pastures, but if New Zealand was to continue increasing production at more than 4 per cent annually and with the greater intensity of farming that might be expected in the future, soils would require a greater source of fertility than could be supplied by clover pasture* and a source of cheap nitrogen could be a key to a tremendous increase in production. Along with the use of irrigation, it seemed there was scope for greatly increased crop production in Canterbury,' particularly in the field of vegetables for processing. Mr Wright, who is vicechainnan of .the agriculture section of North Canterbury