Monitor Farm meeting: Loppington

Reducing Actives by legislation, weed, disease and pest resistance, environmental concerns, pressure on profitable UK crop farming – the list is long and daunting.

Is there a solution?

Through a different approach, some growers have reduced input costs by 50%. At the March Loppington Monitor Farm meeting we will explore this approach as well as the lessons that can be learnt from organic farming systems.

Mike Harrington is a lead Agronomist adopting a new line of thinking which he will be discussing at this meeting. He bases his advice on the core principles of soil and plant health garnered before the nitrogen boom of the 1920s, which allows him to take a whole systems approach where chemistry is the last resort, not the first.

Mark Lea has been farming organically at Green Acres Farm in Shifnal for 18 years. It is an organic mixed arable and livestock farm that is mostly in a five-year arable rotation including wheat, oats, peas, red clover for seed or silage.