Looking back at my last article in the Free Press, which was written just before the harvest, I wished all the local farmers an easy and profitable harvest.
Well, now most of the harvest is over and, although it was relatively easy – mainly as there was so little to cart to the sheds and the weather mostly allowed us to get the crops in relatively good time, it will be anything but profitable.
As well as the low yields, the problem is likely to be the quality of the crop, as a lot of the crop harvested in this area will have been of poor quality so will not achieve the high prices that they may have done.
Due to bad weather in different parts of the world, either flooding or drought, harvest around the world has not been good.
Inevitably, this will lead to higher prices in the shops and we will all have to pay for the summer and harvest we have had.
We are busy establishing the crops for next harvest already.
Oilseed rape is drilled as soon as possible after the wheat is harvested and has established very well this year.
Wheat drilling has just begun and the recent rains have helped to make the seed beds good.
A new flock of chickens are settled in and just starting to lay.
Let us all hope for good weather and crops next year.