The Dealer sees that the Minister for Agriculture recently announced a Fishing Gear Retirement Scheme.

As the name suggests, the initiative is aimed at collecting old and damaged fishing gear, thereby addressing the growing problem of plastics and other waste in our oceans.

Is a similar scheme being countenanced by the Department for abandoned and defunct tractors and farm machinery, The Dealer wonders?

Could the old chestnut of a PTO scrappage scheme, oft proposed by the farm bodies, finally have a chance of making the statute books?

Tantalising

It’s a tantalising thought. Farmers could finally clear old houses, haggards and hedges of generations of scrap; and maybe even get paid for doing it.

As a stalwart of the PTO scrappage campaign told The Dealer: “If such a scheme is worth doing for the seas, it must surely be justified on land.” Watch this space, but it could be a good summer for scrap.