Anglia Farmers sees turnover slip
⁕ Lower commodity prices pushed turnover down at Anglia Farmers, the UK’s largest farmer buying group.
The year to January 31, 2016 saw group turnover drop £16.5m to £230.9m but a 10% higher operating surplus of £882,000 was achieved.
The group’s accounts include results for purchasing co-operative Anglia Farmers with three wholly owned subsidiaries AF Affinity, AF Finance and AF Biomass.
After a distribution of almost £537,000 to members, a net surplus of £323,000 has been retained, increasing the balance sheet to £2.8m. The group also runs a £5m peer-to-peer lending scheme.
Pig price on slow road to recovery
⁕ Pig producers face a long road back to profitability as the market finally starts to move up.
The EU-spec standard pig price rose to 117.49p/kg in the week to 28 May, reflecting a rise of more than 5p/kg in eight weeks.
The average British producer lost £9 a head in the first quarter of this year, compared with a £4 loss in the last part of 2015, according to AHDB Pork.
This was the fifth consecutive quarter in which the gap between pig prices and full production costs was negative.
It is estimated that about 20,000 sows have been lost from the national herd in the past few months. The breeding herd is expected to fall by a further 11,000 sows to 401,000by the end of this year.
Spud plantings and production
⁕ For clarification, the potato story on p21 in last week’s Farmers Weekly referred to GB plantings of 96,251ha in 2015 and production 5.5% lower than in 2014.
These figures excluded seed and starch, which brought the GB plantings total last year to about 111,000ha.