4 EDITOR’S INTRO
APR/MAY 2019 • farmers-mart.co.uk
Welcome to another bumper
packed issue of The Farmers
Mart. Spring is here and we are
about to drift slowly into the
summer, before you know it, we’ll
be at the year’s end and drinking our
way to Christmas. The time just seems to fly by
these days, or is that just a sign I’m getting older?
WELL what do we have in this issue, for
starters the guys at Rentokil provide some
valuable information at keeping your silos
pest free. There is also a great article on
diversifying into setting up a camp site on
your farm, which could provide another
valuable source of income. We also have
an article looking at using LPG as an alter-
native energy source during the winter
months.
The Rickerby show reached its 18th
consecutive show, and Ian popped
along to see what all the fuss was about.
He gives us a review of the show and an
insight to those behind the success.
Chris Berry was very busy over the
last couple of months visiting several
farms including the 9000 acres Sledmore
Estate, to sit down with Farm Estate
manager James Fenwick to discuss the
ins and outs of running a 2500-acre farm
within the estate. He also managed to
meet up with the Broadheads over at
Swithens Farm in Rothwell to chat about
becoming a Farm Visitor attraction. If
that wasn’t enough, he managed to
squeeze in visits to Annabelle Robinson
& Nick Taylor to have a chinwag about
setting up a farm shop, and he also
popped along to Croftbank Farm where
he met up with Gerrad & Verita Farmer.
We also look at two pieces of machin-
ery this month, the first is the McCor-
mick X7 Series Tractor, a new range of
McCormick four-cylinder tractors with
several performance and driver com-
fort advances are now available from
Argo Tractors dealerships. The second
is the new combine from Fendt. The
Fendt IDEAL is a combine that has been
developed from scratch, AGCO worked
closely with its global centres of exper-
tise and developed each module so
that it gives perfect results under any
harvesting conditions.
That’s just a glimpse into this bumper
packed issue of The Farmers Mart, so sit
down, relax and enjoy the rest of the mag-
azine and we’ll see you again next time.
Editor, Jason
ISSUE 62
APR/MAY 2019
For more news, views and stories from the number one
farming guide in the North, visit www.farmers-mart.co.uk
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New app allows remote
monitoring of milking robots
FULLWOOD Packo has launched a smart-
phone app which enables dairy farmers
to remotely monitor the performance and
functionality of their M2erlin automatic
milking systems.
The M2erlinInfo app enables users to
view real-time and historical data of each
cow’s milking records, or for the herd as a
whole, from any location and at any time
via a Wi-Fi or mobile data connection.
Parameters such as milk yield, number
and duration of milkings per day and time
of last milking are easily accessible, with
users also able to compare 10-day and 24-
hour yield averages.
The app also delivers a series of alarms
and warnings to alert the farmer/herd man-
ager of potential problems – either with
the milking machine or an individual cow
– and gives users easy access to the robot’s
cleaning records and maintenance sched-
ules, thus ensuring each M2erlin is working
as efficiently and hygienically as.
The M2erlinInfo app also warns of any devi-
ations in terms of cluster attachment timings
and milk captured during the first two minutes
of milking to provide an immediate warning of
potential problems.
The app has been tested on several farms
where it has proven to be a useful farm
management tool:
The M2erlinInfo app is fully customisable,
with users able to select what type of noti-
fications to receive and when. The app can
also be configured to remain silent during
hours defined by the user, therefore ensur-
ing uninterrupted sleep for off-duty staff.
A demo of the app’s key functions can be
viewed by downloading the app and using
the following log-in details:
Account: [email protected]
Password: demo123
www.fullwoodpacko.com
Countryside Alliance warns
of rural labour shortages
THE Countryside Alliance has written to
Home Secretary, Sajid Javid MP, to warn that
the Government’s proposals for immigration
policy outside the EU create a “very real risk”
of labour shortages in the rural economy.
The warning was issued in re-
sponse to the Government’s White
Paper on immigration which
was published at the end of the
last year, and the Home Office
has begun a 12-month period
of consultation with interested
groups on the proposals.
The White Paper is focused on
high skilled migration, but the Coun-
tryside Alliance has highlighted the need in
rural areas for low skilled workers, particu-
larly at important times of the year, in part
thanks to low unemployment figures across
the country.
The White Paper sets out a route for short-
term low skilled workers, but this route will be
subject to “tightly defined conditions” and the
Government will set “restrictions on nation-
alities, duration and possibly numbers.” This
route is also only intended to be a transitional
measure to enable employers to “change
their ways of working”, but the Countryside
Alliance has stressed that for many rural
businesses, reliance upon low skilled workers
cannot be avoided.
The Countryside Alliance has called for the
reintroduction of a seasonal agricul-
tural workers scheme, or equiv-
alent scheme, to allow farmers
and rural businesses to access
labour from abroad after the
UK leaves the EU. The Govern-
ment has announced plans for
a pilot scheme, to commence
in April this year, but this will only
allow 2,500 workers to enter the UK
from outside the EU. The UK requires approx-
imately 80,000 seasonal agricultural work-
ers every year and the Office for National
Statistics has stated that 99 per cent of these
workers come from countries within the EU.
To read the Countryside Alliance letter to the
Home Secretary please visit www.countryside-
alliance.org/getattachment/e7c1b195-b04f-4388-
8764-3ede8312fd78/Letter-to-Home-Secretary-re-
White-Paper-on-immigration.pdf?lang=en-GB.