WHAT DID WE HEAR AT THE EDITH MARY GAYTON LECTURE AT READING UNIVERSITY?

This is an event held on an annual basis - Edith Gayton was an agricultural student (although not too much is known about her beyond this) at Reading and some 40 years ago, she left a sum of money to the university to do “good things with” for the benefit of teaching students: this included the establishment of the Farm Management Unit at Reading, and in turn, an annual lecture was created in her memory. This therefore is an annual event organised by the Farm Management Unit of the School of Agriculture and Policy Development at Reading.

This year was the 40th of these and David Exwood (the recently appointed Vice President of the NFU and farmer of 1,200 ha of land in Sussex) and the well known dairy farmer, David Christensen, from Oxfordshire were asked to address this event under the title of “Smart Farming Management Practices to Revolutionise Agriculture”.

During the evening, there were a plethora of really well made points by the two speakers, as you might expect. Some of the most important of these to me seemed to be as follows:

• farming as a way of earning a living is inherently hard work - so let’s not make it any more complicated than it needs to be, but there is a very strong need to make sure that what is done well is done very well
• ?labour is going to remain a major issue in UK farming. Even developments such as robotics do not always provide the full answer. There is a big challenge ahead to retain good staff and improve the quality of their working lives
• new “tech” based solutions need to be low cost, simple, robust, effective and most importantly of all, must deliver benefit to farmers to see their wider adoption
• demand from major customers operating close to the point of sale for food, in respect to more data and information about how food is produced and the carbon footprint of this, are not going to go away
• farming must remain relevant to whichever government the UK has later this year - not just for the next period of term, but well beyond this too
• government money to help farming will be tight and so farming must think carefully about what it can deliver to the UK economy per se, both in terms of meeting targets on carbon reduction and of market growth
• the era of “macho” farming is coming to an end: we still need more food, but with less inputs and this needs a reduction in the use of fertilisers, better use of renewable energy, more use of green ammonia, fewer sprays, less use of insecticides and more attention to biodiversity
• farm infrastructure still needs to be improved and there is a need for more use of data, including satellite technology and less managing by “gut feel”
• we still need better farm management skills developed and the opportunity for the Next Generation of students coming through is huge
• in the future, smart, efficient, low cost and productive farms ?in the UK will always do well
• UK farming can cope with the massive changes that are ahead of it, but this needs financial help, investment and much better still supply chain partnerships across the board to deliver benefits to all those involved. The short term approach of the last 30 years needs to be replaced by a new way of thinking, as we are now at a “tipping point” in how the supply chain operates to best effect

This was a well attended, very informative and enjoyable event and an important part of the calendar of events undertaken at Reading in the agricultural and food sector.

We had some great insights from the “2 Davids” and thanks again to Edith Mary Gayton – your legacy lives on and is in good hands.

===================================================

John Giles is a Visiting Lecturer at the THE SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE, POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT (SAPD) at the University of Reading and a Divisional Director at Promar International , the agri food consulting arm of Genus ABS He also serves on the National Council of the Institute of Agricultural Management