Common sense prevails: Renewable Heat Incentive gets go-ahead
The Chancellor of the Exchequer today confirmed within the Spending Review that the 860m Renewable Heat Incentive, the first of its kind in the world, will go ahead next year. However, it will now be funded from the public purse and reduced in scope by 20%. At the same time, the Government has made it […]
Wildlife friendly farming survives environmental cuts
The RSPB has welcomed Governments decision to safeguard wildlife friendly farming schemes in the face of wider environmental cuts. In todays Comprehensive Spending Review, the chancellor George Osborne announced a cut to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of 8% per annum over 4 years. However details released by the department reveal […]
Best use of slug pellets is everyones responsibility
Despite heavy rain in September and early October encouraging slug activity, growers and advisors should take joint responsibility to make sure slug pellets are used only when they are really needed, warns ProCam. The new Metaldehyde Stewardship guidelines for this autumn place greater reliance on the need to maximise the effectiveness of pellet application and […]
Adapt now to keep farming’s water flowing says RASE report
Agricultural and horticultural businesses could face damaging water shortages in the coming decades as a result of climate change. Adaptation across the whole industry is needed to meet the impending challenge. That is the conclusion of a new joint report commissioned by the Royal Agricultural Society of England and carried out by scientists from the […]
PepsiCo unveils new i-crop precision farming technology
…and announces ambition to reduce water and carbon emissions on partner farms by 50 percent over next five years PepsiCo UK and Ireland has today announced plans to cut carbon emissions and water usage across the farming of its core crops in the UK by 50% over the next 5 years. Its first Sustainable Farming […]
Phacelia attracts too many bees to count
Phacelia planted at Great Chishill, one of the development farms run by Bayer CropScience, has been so successful in attracting beneficial insects that its area is to double next year. A single hectare of phacelia, sown in April, has both enhanced biodiversity at the farm and dealt effectively with a problem weed seed bank. As […]
UK’s largest solar panel unit installed in Cambridgeshire
The largest Photovoltaic (PV) solar panel system in the UK has been installed by renewable energy specialist RenEnergy on a grain store in Cambridgeshire. In a joint venture with renewable energy service company Esco Nrg, installation of the 745 square metre 100Kw array was completed within six weeks and is the largest commissioned project of […]
Landing lights for bumblebees
Gardeners could help maintain bumblebee populations by growing plants with red flowers or flowers with stripes along the veins, according to field observations of the common snapdragon, Antirrhinum majus, at the John Innes Centre in the UK. “Stripes following the veins of flowers are one of the most common floral pigmentation patterns so we thought […]
First set of 2010 figures on pesticide residues released
The Pesticide Residues Committee (PRC) today published findings from its first quarterly report for food samples collected in 2010. The report found that the majority of foods had no detectable residues and those that did contain pesticides were not likely to be harmful to health. Tests found that 214 out of 349 samples of 10 […]
