By Jack Bosworth, Director, FJ Bosworth & Sons. Published 24 October 2023.
I hope everyone is well. It feels like October is passing us by in no time at all.
The recent wet weather has kept machines in the shed after a good stint, getting us around 75 per cent of the way through winter cereal drilling. I will be glad to get the rest in so we know the large majority of our 2024-25 pig food is in production.
Pigs and arable: opposite directions, same year
Around this time last year, our home-mixed Grower and Finisher diet was costing us £295.00/t, and we had averaged a price of £2.00/kg deadweight across both units for the first time ever.
For September this year, the numbers have moved in opposite directions:
- Feed costs for that same diet are back by around 17.5 per cent.
- Our average sale price has increased by around 15 per cent.
- Sale volumes are down by around 5 per cent.
It is the swing we had genuinely hoped for, and that we needed. Perhaps not quite the swing we expected.
How we cost between enterprises, and why that matters
We cost our own cereals in at market prices, so we know both enterprises can genuinely stand on their own feet. That accounting is what tells us how each side is actually performing, rather than letting one quietly subsidise the other.
The trade-off, though, is real. Typically, the more one side of the business earns, the more the other is going to struggle. This year is a textbook example.
Year-on-year input prices: feed grain
Our grain used for feed in September was costed into the pigs at the following prices:
| Cereal | September 2023 | September 2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Barley | £164/t | £243/t |
| Wheat | £177/t | £268/t |
Lower grain prices have been a big part of the relief on the pig side. They are an equally big part of the squeeze on the arable side.
The nitrogen swing
The other thing that has moved hard is fertiliser. We paid:
- £0.61/kg of nitrogen put into the harvest 2022 crop.
- £1.76/kg of nitrogen put into the harvest 2023 crop.
That is nearly three times the cost on one of our biggest arable inputs, going into a year where the grain price has fallen back. The two together explain a lot.
With that, plus other input inflation, BPS reductions, and the current pig price, we expect:
- The pigs to have a better financial year, although the price has started to head back already.
- The arable side to run tight.
The unit, in numbers
Meanwhile, KPIs across the feeding and breeding herds are running consistently better than they have. From the last six months:
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Liveborn per sow per year | 33.71 |
| Pre-weaning mortality | 4.11 per cent |
| Post-weaning mortality | 1.60 per cent |
Gilt performance has improved well since we moved to a more data-driven approach to age and weight at service. The work we have done on the gilt weighing programme, the parity 2 feed plan, and the overall environment is showing through in numbers that are quietly trending the right way.
Thinking of those caught by Storm Babet
Lastly, I hope the situation is improving for those across the UK who have experienced such extreme conditions as a result of Storm Babet. Floods at that scale leave farms and rural communities dealing with consequences for months, long after the news cameras have moved on. The industry sticks together at moments like this, and rightly so.
About the author
Jack Bosworth is a fourth-generation farmer and Director of FJ Bosworth & Sons, an arable and pig farming business at Spains Hall, Willingale, Essex. The farm has been in the family since 1919, and Jack farms alongside his father Stuart Bosworth, who was named Farmers Weekly Pig Farmer of the Year in 2011. The business is Red Tractor assured and runs an integrated farm-to-fork model, with home-grown cereals milled on site using solar-generated electricity.
You can follow Jack’s articles on fjbosworth.com, or get in touch via the WhatsApp link on the site.
Fourth-generation farmer at Spains Hall, Willingale. Runs the contracting team and writes most of what appears here.