FarmlyticsThe use of UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) or drones has been talked about a lot in farming circles recently; however it is clear the use of agricultural drones is been held back in many countries. This is due to legislation, and in some case’s the lack of clear benefits to the farmers bottom line. In […]
The latest USDA livestock outlook report suggest that the US cattle herd is continuing to recover with cattle numbers up on this time last year, however the report suggests that this is likely to put pressure on cattle prices during the rest of 2015. Beef cow numbers are up by 2%, whilst heifers for beef […]
Recent USDA reports on the oilseed market show the impact of falling oil prices and tariff rate changes in the EU – with falling prices for bio-diesel driving down demand for palm oil in Malaysia and Indonesia. These developments clearly show the inter-dependency of food and energy markets.
Press coverage of falling milk prices and the impact on the UK dairy sector is borne out by the latest statistics from DEFRA, (UK Food and Farming Brief Jan 2015) dairy farm incomes in England are expected to be 11% down for 2014/15, driven by the falling farm-gate milk prices. Higher milk commodity prices and […]
The latest USDA meat production figures are out for 2014, beef is estimated as down by 5.7% on 2013, pig meat down by 1.5%, whilst poultry meat is up by 1.5%. The fall in beef production is being driven by falling cattle slaughter numbers, down by 7.1% year on year, with cattle in historically short […]
Latest dairy production figures for the US show that production in December 2014 was 3.2% up on December 2013, with cow numbers 1.3% up. Retail milk prices were 4.3% up; the bad news for farmers is that farm gate prices are 7.7% down.
According to the latest report from Mckinsey productivity growth in developed country agriculture will come from precision technology. Essentially this is producing more with less, using precision sensors and satellite data to target inputs. This will also be accompanied by productivity growth in the food processing sector – with less waste, more efficient storage and […]