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About this time of year, the RPA announces the latest round of the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund. The Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF) provides support to farming businesses so that they can invest in equipment and technology to improve sustainable agricultural, horticultural, and forestry productivity.

The grants are for a minimum of £2,000 and a maximum of £25,000, a fixed amount for each item as set out in the details.

Items include:

• Feed pushing robots
• Direct drills
• Slurry dribble bars and trailing shoes
• Cattle crushes
• Cattle handling systems

For a list of all the available options and application details please send us an email mailto:contact@esusagri.co.uk with FETF in the subject line, send us a message https://www.esusagri.co.uk/contact/, or call us on 01398 392011

ESUS Agri Ltd recently calculated that the base ingredient (pea protein) cost per kg for plant-based burgers is £0.16, a vast difference compared with the top-of-the-range beef burger at £3.55.

The most significant ingredient in the plant-based burger is water, 16% is pea protein.

The beef burger contains 85% beef, whereas water is a small ingredient in the beef burger.

The margin over the base ingredient for the plant-based burger is 99.7% compared to 66.4% for the beef burger.

It seems to us that profit is driving plant-based burgers more than concern for the planet.

We set out our calculations below:

	Beyond Meat Burger Plant Based Burger	Reds Original Beef Burger 284G
Retail Price £/kg www.tesco.com	17.70	10.57
Base Ingredient	Peas	Beef
Base Ingredient %	50%	85%
Base Ingredient Price  £/kg Ex farm www.fwi.co.uk	0.317	4.180
Base Ingredient Cost £/kg*	0.16	3.55
Margin/ Base Ingredient Costs	99.1%	66.4%
Ingredients	Water, Pea Protein*(16%), Rapeseed Oil, Coconut Oil, Rice Protein, Flavouring, Stabiliser (Methyl Cellulose), Potato Starch, Apple Extract, Colour (Beetroot Red), Maltodextrin, Pomegranate Extract, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Concentrated Lemon Juice, Maize Vinegar, Carrot Powder, Emulsifier (Sunflower Lecithin),	Beef (85%), Fortified Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin (B3), Thiamin (B1)), Beef Bone Marrow (3%), Water, Onions, Seasoning (Sugar, Salt, Spices (Black Pepper, Ginger, Cumin), Onion Powder, Emulsifier (Diphosphates), Mushroom Extract Powder, Yeast Extract, Natural Flavouring, Antioxidant (Ascorbic Acid)), Brewed Shio Koji (Rice, Salt)
*Assumes 3.5kg peas to produce 1kg pea protein

Less than ¼ mile from ESUS Agri HQ, on the farm of our neighbours JR, RA & RD Stanbury, in a new Innovative Farmers field lab, livestock farmers are driving new research into a variety of winter grazing crops to reduce feed and input costs while enhancing soil health and biodiversity.
The study’s objectives are to lessen soil erosion and provide habitat.
The farmers will contrast their customary winter forage, which consists of a single type of Brassica monoculture, with a diversified, 16 species fodder crop mix, which includes clovers, hairy vetch, ryegrass, spring oats, kale, and linseed.
In addition to supplying a nutrient-rich crop that supports animal health and performance, their objectives include reducing soil erosion and fostering natural habitats for wildlife during winter grazing.

Cost Saving

Farmers will cut down on feed expenses and the amount of time the herd spends indoors during the winter, many beef farmers plant just one brassica forage crop, such kale or fodder beet.
This field experiment will examine if a diverse crop’s increased biomass might increase farm resilience by safeguarding the soil structure. Benefits are anticipated to include decreased erosion and runoff as well as increased worm populations, infiltration rates, and water holding capacity.

Benefits That Extend to Farmers

The government’s upcoming transition to a new farm payment system and the new Sustainable Farming Incentives programme make the field lab’s findings potentially especially important as there is a growing emphasis on keeping the soil covered over the winter.

Extension of Arable Regen Ag

The benefits of diverse cropping have been well documented in arable farming context. In the livestock sector diverse grass mixtures went out of fashion as high-yielding varieties were bred that performed well when highly fertilised monocultures protected from pests and diseases with agrochemicals outperformed the traditional mixes and were much simpler to manage. The current hike in energy and fertiliser prices is renewing interest in diverse mixtures and work done in New Zealand, Germany and Canada confirms that new diverse mixes can outperform monocultures, improve soils and add to farm resilience.
Please check out the video presentation on our You Tube Channel  https://youtu.be/h-gAn5zF-OQ

The Countryside Stewardship (CS) scheme’s next application window is now open, giving more farmers and land managers in England the opportunity to plan while also receiving money for environmental activities and sustainable food production. There are four offers:

Mid Tier

Five-year agreements with a variety of alternatives for ongoing land management, as well as up to £120,000 for capital projects such as fencing installation. Acceptance is not guaranteed, but last year all our applications were accepted. The deadline is July 29, 2022.

Wildlife Offers

To assist farmers and land managers in protecting and preserving wildlife and the natural environment:

• The Arable Offer,
• Lowland Grazing Offer,
• Mixed Farming Offer
• Upland Offer

Guaranteed acceptance. The deadline is July 29, 2022.

Capital Grants

For specific environmental projects, such as:

• Restoring hedgerows,
• Planting trees
• Installing hardcore tracks,
• Roofing yards and silage pits
• Fencing ditches and watercourses

Available year-round.

Higher Tier

Five or 10-year agreements to manage complex land in environmentally significant sites, commons, or woodlands that require support from Natural England or the Forestry Commission. Deadline: 29 April 2023. These agreements take a lot of preparation and should be considered well in advance.

Regenerative Farming

Countryside Stewardship projects can be used to ease your way into Regenerative Farming in several ways. You can get paid to grow:
• GS4: Legume and herb-rich swards
• SW6: Winter cover crops
• AB3: Beetle banks
• AB8: Flower-rich margins and plots
• AB15: Two-year sown legume fallow

ESUS Agri Ltd has the knowledge and experience to assist you in exploring the options and navigating the application and delivery process.

Application

Esus Agri Ltd provides a free initial consultation to examine your farm’s application possibilities, explore choices, and advise you on rules and regulations. We use mapping software to create schemes that emphasize the most significant available possibilities, ensuring that every selection is appropriate for your farm. Then we produce an evaluation report with extra information, such as costs and financial returns. If you decide to proceed we will complete the application for you and deal with any queries from the RPA and/or Natural England.

Ongoing Management.

If you are already a part of a scheme or are contemplating joining one, we can assist you with the ongoing management. You can choose from our range of packages that range from keeping you on track with paperwork and management to getting your entire scheme mapped through The Land App and supporting you with day-to-day decisions.

ESUS Agri was incorporated in 1995, however we can trace our history back to 1969 to Harrison’s Fleming Advisory Services (HFAS) whose business we took over 1995. HFAS provided technical and management consultancy to large scale tropical plantations companies, governments, and development banks. HFAS was always at the forefront of sustainable and renewable agriculture, it was a world leader in biological pest control, the optimization of fertiliser usage and improving conditions for employees. HFAS Diversified into privatisation and was responsible for the largest privatisation of a plantation company in Africa.

ESUS Agri has built on the legacy of HFAS, whilst broadening the range of services and the geographical areas in which we operate, to encompass large scale cereal production in Eastern Europe. For 10 years we operated our own sheep and arable farm in North Devon, and since 2018 our focus has shifted from overseas work to our work in South-West England.

Brexit has brought change and uncertainty to farmers in South-West England. ESUS Agri has been operating in markets where change and uncertainty are the norm, we have the skills, experience, and techniques to help our clients survive and thrive.

There are many myths currently being circulated about Farm Carbon Credits.

Antony Pearce dispels three of the myths

To learn more about The First Certified, Multi-National Carbon Payment Programme for Farmers in Europe check out our web site click the button below

At ESUS Agri we are looking all over the world for innovations in Regen Ag that can be introduced into South West England. New Zealand farmers get no subsidies so they have to innovate all the time, and mixed species winter grazing is one such innovation.

This video from Quronsense NZ shows some of the exciting potential of multi-species winter crops and bale grazing for improving soil health, animal health, resilience, profitability and the well being of farmers. However these innovations are not silver bullets, they won’t suit everyone, and need to be adapted to each unique situation.

Analysis of the Groundswell Benchmarking Group results from 2020 harvest shows that No-Till Regenerative Farming more profitable than conventional tillage.

Average output per hectare is 21% lower

Variable costs are 18% lower

Gross margin is 24% lower

Labour and machinery costs are 32% lower

Net margin very similar – the Groundswell group achieved£27/ha, while those with conventional systems ended up with £7/ha

It is when we look at the investment per hectare that we see the big savings. In 2020 the Regenerative Farms had over £ 300 per hectare less at risk than the Conventional Farms. In 2022 the difference is likely to be in the region of £ 400 per hectare, imagine the effect of that on the overdraft!

Whilst the cost of financing £ 300 in 2020 was about £ 15 for most farmers, the change in financial gearing puts the farmer back in charge of his/her business, not her/his bank manager.

It is the Regenerative Agricultural Practices which sequester carbon and thus the Soil Capital Carbon Payments for more details follow this link https://esusagri.co.uk/services-2#Soil-Carbon of email JamesSiggs ajs@esusagri.co.uk

To see the full Groundswell Benchmarking presentation follow this link https://youtu.be/ShzYKInyeKg

Following on from our last blog, we are looking at how to generate income from no-till beyond the savings identified in our last blog.

ESUS Agri is a partner of Soil Capital Carbon and works with farmers throughout South West England who are taking up the Soil Capital Carbon Offer. At present farmers have lots of questions about carbon schemes . In the last issue of Direct Driller Magazine (https://www.directdriller.com/latest-issue/), Andrew Voysey, Head of Sales and Carbon at Soil Capital Limited writes about 10 questions farmers ask. He concludes:

“But new revenues from carbon should be seen as the cherry on the cake of practice change. Even more significant are the cost savings and operational resilience that can be achieved as soil health is continuously improved.

There are plenty of other questions that we field from farmers about the carbon markets and our particular programme every day. You should be full of such questions and you should do your due diligence carefully.

But with the right perspective on how to navigate the offers that are emerging, this does not need to be overwhelming or paralysing. On the contrary, an exciting world of new opportunity is emerging and there are plenty of reasons why it makes sense to get involved sooner rather than later.

But new revenues from carbon should be seen as the cherry on the cake of practice change. Even more significant are the cost savings and operational resilience that can be achieved as soil health is continuously improved.”

Download the article here

Direct+Driller+Magazine+Issue+15

Famers have always understood that soil organic matter (SOM) underpins soil health. However, since the invention of the steel mouldboard plough and specialisation of farming, all too often, SOM is being destroyed faster than the soill can replenish it. Reducing cultivations, returning to diverse rotations and planting cover crops between cash crops can increase SOM, soil carbon, reduce costs and increase profits. Then there is the cherry on the top of Soil Capital Soil Carbon Payments.

To learn more about Soil Capital Soil Carbon Payments go to https://esusagri.co.uk/services-2#Soil-Carbon

To read Dr Tom Sizmur, Associate Professor in Environmental Chemistry at the University of Reading’s paper “Crops and Carbon Farming” presented at the AHDB Webinar “Cover Crops and Carbon Farming”which sets out how SOM accumulates and the means of increasing SOM and the benefits click on the download below.