Harvest 2017 has become one of two tales, highlighting the fragile nature of Scottish farming’s fortunes.
An early start to harvest with reports of promising yields and good quality grain has turned into a nightmare harvest with reports of combines getting stuck in fields, grain quality deterioriating by the day, and thousands upon thousands of tonnes of drenched straw waiting to be baled.
What is normally an exciting, yet busy time of the year,has turned into a stressful time with growers conetmplating how they will salvage crops and get next year’s plants in the ground.
Constant wet weather has wreaked havoc in many parts of Aberdeenshire and high hopes now rest on a prolonged spell of dry weather coming to allow vital harvest work to commence again.
This is in stark contrast to the spring when some farmers, mainly those in Angus and Perthshire, were forced to irrigate spring crops due to a lack of rain.
And while growers north of Aberdeen have been plagued with the impact of awful weather, some of their neighbours further south have been lucky and reported bumper yields.
The outcome of Harvest 2017 has truly been weather dependent, and localised conditions have resulted in such varying fortunes.
And it’s not just arable farmers who are feeling the impact – some livestock farmers face the prospect of higher winter feed and bedding costs following the wash-out summer.
Producers in the west were particularly badly hit and consultants have now urged everyone keeping livestock to assess their future winter feed needs to see whether they will have enough to see them through the coming months.
In cases where there is a lack of good, quality silage, producers have been told to consider selling all lambs and calves as stores and to get rid of any barren, lean females.
All of this highlights the impact weather – an unknown to everyone – has on farm and croft businesses.
Rather than a rain dance, all farmers in the north-east will be keeping their fingers crossed for sun.
And rather than getting glum, I know farmers will power through and make the best of a bad situation.
They are of course the epitome of resilience.
