Almost since the beginning of the gluten-free oats development, I grew it on contract.

Suddenly in last Friday’s post, I was told that I would not have a contract this year because of “strong Irish oat yields in recent years and increased availability of oats in key global markets”.

So at the stroke of a pen, about one-fifth of our total cereal acreage is without a crop.

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I know now how beet farmers must have felt with the demise of the sugar industry, but at least they received significant compensation.

There is no mention of compensation in this case.

I just wonder how would dairy farmers react if they were told that one-fifth of their production would not be accepted for processing.

If oats intake had to be reduced then I would have expected a range of factors to be taken into account: factors such as length of time growing the crop, its quality, reports from the harvesting contractors on the care taken with the crop in the field. We always strimmed around the headlands. Other factors such as loyalty in the case of buying inputs and if necessary, an adjustment to the minimum size of contracted area to allow for combine and chaser bin transport. But to just abolish a contract which was for a crop that was portrayed as being the poster-child for premium cereal production in Ireland seems extraordinary, especially as up to last year, we were being told that the market was expanding, the prospects were exciting and extra area was being sought.

It strikes me as an impulsive decision which I suspect will need some revision.

Elsewhere on the tillage side, while most of the beans seem ripe, the stems are still quite green so we will leave them for a week or so.

We hope to get the oilseed rape sown within the next few days and then it will be on to preparing for the winter barley.

This year I am being told we can expect to have a suitable variety for the roasting trade, which is also resistant to Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus – which would be a useful development.

I continue to be mesmerised by the price of cattle and the cost of bought in stores.

We have stopped buying in for the moment and will as I mentioned last week, take the opportunity to take some grass out of the system and reseed it.

Hopefully that should give us extra high quality grazing next spring with better weight gain from grass.

Autumn performance on grass is in my view one of the key challenges facing the dairy-beef steer system.