Weekly Wisdom 28 September 2016

CROPTEC 2016

On November 29th and 30th, Cope Seeds will be exhibiting for the first time at this year’s Croptec event, held at Peterborough Showground.

This year’s event has been designed to reflect the show’s main technical themes which are Crop Breeding, Crop Nutrition, Crop Establishment and Crop Protection.

At the show, we aim to promote our strong relationship with plant breeders. Cope Seeds has an excellent relationship with both UK and Continental Plant Breeders. This allows access Stock Seed to multiply not only the established varieties in the market place, but also new variety releases which can be on semi-exclusive and sometimes total exclusivity agreements. This way, we are involved in both the mainstream production and supply of cereal, oilseed and pulse seed and also the restricted new variety releases where strong, early demand, invariably outstrips supply.

The Recommended Lists for 2017/18 will be launched online the day before Croptec and so this will create a timely opportunity to discuss the latest varietal developments with our growers.

GRAIN

The continued weakness of the pound against the euro post EU referendum will mean higher overall payments to farmers receiving their Basic Payments in sterling.

The relative value of sterling against the Euro is influenced by a wide range of factors, including the release of economic data, policy updates, and perceptions of economic and political stability. The impact of the referendum result on 24 June has been the biggest single influence on sterling this year.

The exchange rate for the Basic Payment is now set according to an average rate for September. For 2016, the exchange rate is set €1 = £0.85228, compared to €1 = £0.73129 in 2015.

As the payment rates are set in Euros, the weakness of sterling will mean higher payment rates to UK farmers paid in sterling. When looking at 2015 payments, this represents a 16.5% increase which will be positive news to the farming community.