Technology is fundamental to our farming futures

The harvest of the spring combine crops has shown some spring wheat outyielding the winter crop, and soya and maize are now being gathered in. The spring sown root crops of potatoes and beet have been nearer the long term average so far. This highlights the importance of the unusual hot spell in June damaging grain set in cereals.

Autumn drilling has gone well so far, but crops are sometimes variable in emergence due to drier conditions and seeding depth variability. Interesting news is that the end of the moratorium on farmland sales has been mooted by our new ex-comic president, Volodymyr Zelensky. No laughing matter, watch this space for investment opportunities in some of the best farmland on the globe.

I was delighted to attend the Potatoes in Practice event near Dundee in August, which is now the largest field potato event in the UK. There were worrying aspects to the day, with much discussion of the loss of diquat as a desiccant, like sulphur acid was banned. This time there will be even greater implications as the alternatives are much poorer than diquat and will require flailing to achieve anything like a half respectable job.

This is particularly crucial to Scottish seed growers, as to avoid spread of tuber and viral diseases a quick knockdown and senescence is crucial to destroy the green stem and leaf foliage on which aphids and pathogens can lurk through to lifting. I recall trials we did at CSC PotatoCare following the acid ban comparing various flailing techniques and diquat and Spotlight (carfentrazone). Then as now, the comparison is not exciting to see.

The new option pyraflufen in Gozai did not appear to offer any improvement. I can't help feeling that using an organosilicone wetter to dramatically increase spread on difficult to hit stems and leaves will help. The lack of manufacturer support for this option was deafening as from a complaint point of view these products will be difficult enough to market alone. Talking to an old friend from NI, who invested with us in Ukraine a decade ago much to his subsequent delight, he was in despair for the even wetter NI seed industry.

The use of precision farming was featured at the event and here there are real benefits for growers. The use of drones to improve targetting of inputs was featured heavily. Over 40kha have been flown with the more stable fixed wing drones in Ukraine this year to aid evaluation. Sadly I have to relate I have not seen any tangible benefit thus far – only cost and abundant hassle. This technology will come, but extravagant claims and marketing froth do little to convince when margins are tight. A good example is pre-harvest glyphosate drone mapping. It is no good spending £8/ha to save £8/ha. Life is too tough to be a busy fool. As ever, be open minded, but beware of snake oil salesmen bearing 'gifts' – all that glisters is not necessarily golden! Over-promising benefits does little to help the implementation of a new technology where there are some genuine pioneers attempting to help the farmer.

It is interesting to note again the progress that farming has made in the last two hundred years post the 19th century Enlightenment, when reason and scientific endeavour overcame religious and political authorities' dogma. There are parallels sadly evident again now in the 21st century, whether with green guff or Brexit. Having qualified and trained as a passionate environmental scientist in the late 70s, it makes me despair how unenlightened green dogma has distorted our agenda and become 'progressophobia' for the well off.

It has slowed down the adoption of good new technologies, starved people, increased the cost of food and energy for the poor, harmed the natural environment and denied farming valuable tools. This is true whether we talk about genetic engineering, CRISPR technology, worthless pesticide bans or indeed climate policies. If agricultural efficiency had remained the same as only 50 years ago, we would need extra farmland covering the area of China, Canada and the US combined to feed the world. What price the Amazonian rainforest or millions dead then? We have reached peak farmland now by our use of this technology.

Never have so many been fed so well and so cheaply by so few. Obesity is now a bigger problem than famine – what a success! A far preferable position to the reverse. As the comedian Chris Rock said: "This is the first generation in history where the poor are fat."

Malthus and Ehlrich have been proven wrong with their doomsday predictions on food security. You can't stop population growth by letting poor children die as they proposed. The same morality is evident today in several policies of the Green movement, notably organic farming which in most cases dramatically increases the cost of a calorie and harms the poor. In the 19th century it took 25 men a long day to harvest a ton of grain, now one person on a combine can do it in under five minutes.

Technology is thus fundamental to our farming futures. It was both humorous and frightening to hear Boris Johnson cite the success of the Apollo landings recently as well as the Hulk, as a metaphor for the ease with which technology could solve the Irish border problems. A little more research would have taught him that due to unforeseen minor air currents on separation, the lunar module ended up miles from the intended landing site in uncharted and unknown territory. These unplanned and unforeseen events seriously risked the lives of the astronauts, who were lucky to escape alive. The Hulk was the tortured, lonely, damaging result of a toxic experiment gone badly wrong! On reflection maybe they're not such bad metaphors for the uncharted Brexit risks that our industry and public are now facing?

The Apollo landing relied on years of careful planning by highly trained teams of experts. Brexit and the Irish border issues appear to rest on one man with a questionable and unquenched lust for power, above his abilities, and a penchant for lying about kippers and children. A man more often out of his briefs than on top of them. Time will indeed tell what Brexit harvest we reap.