- Visitors to Cereals can enjoy all their favourite attractions plus some exciting new ones at this year’s event
New features for 2022 include Crop to Kitchen which will showcase arable farmers selling direct to consumers, a curated version of the winter wheat and barley RL and a demo area for machinery and kit that qualifies for the Improving Farm Productivity grant scheme.
With farmers seeking new ways to generate income as BPS payments decline, Crop to Kitchen will explore how growers are creating opportunities using redundant farm buildings and crop diversification, explains Cereals event director Alli McEntyre.
“Farmers will be able to talk to other farmers with experience of selling directly to consumers. Products featured include quinoa, mushrooms, rhubarb, oilseed rape oil, wine, juices, heritage wheat, flour and beer.”
And winter wheat and barley growers will be able to compare varieties more easily at Cereals. Working with exhibitors, arable project manager Jonathan Backhouse has curated a spread of 26 popular winter wheats, including representation from every breeder on the AHDB RL with varieties representing winter wheat Groups 1-4.
This feature will also showcase 14 winter barleys, again with popular picks from all breeders to represent malting, two-row feed and six-row hybrid varieties.
“While many of these varieties are on display elsewhere in the show, this gives growers the opportunity to walk among them in one place for side-by-side comparison,” says Mr Backhouse.
The Improving Farm Productivity grant scheme covers up to 40% of the costs for slurry treatment and robotics and innovation equipment. Such kit, including for robotic weeding and harvesting, will be on show in the dedicated demo area.
Join the Direct Drill Arena for its inaugural year at Cereals, expanded for 2022 to include a full arena with amplified AV and presentation. Demonstrators will showcase and discuss the benefits of their technology and offer sustainable solutions for farmers. Aitchison, Amazone, Claydon, Horizon, Horsch, John Deere, Kuhn and Mzuri will be among the exhibitors demonstrating in this area.
Among the regular features are the crop plots, both breeder variety plots and agronomy trial plots – with big hitters such as Bayer, Corteva, KWS and Senova/Just Oats back this year. The popular NIAB Soil Hole is returning and the Syngenta Sprays and Sprayers arena will be centre stage.
Keeping on top of weeds is an ever-present challenge for growers and as well as inter-row weeding demos there are also plans to have in-row weeding demos, says Allan Knight, technical sales and marketing manager at Garford.
“Inter-row weeding can be used for cereals whereas in-row weeding is used for salad crops such as lettuces. There is more and more machinery being demonstrated at Cereals which isn’t just for cereals. Farmers are diversifying into other crops as well and it is important that we show this machinery off.” Demonstrating companies include Garford, Lemken and Terrington.
Visitors will also be able to see working demo plots from Agxeed, Claydon, Horizon, J. Brock, Kuhn, Mzuri, New Holland and TWB Engineering.
After its successful debut at last year’s Cereals, the NAAC Drainage Hub will be back to help farmers find out more about this topical subject. It will bring together leading agricultural contractors with land drainage expertise and include presentations, video demos and drainage equipment.
AHDB will be running its seminar programme – Code Green for Farming – including details on new agricultural policy, tackling rising input costs, making the environment pay and new technology.
And Farmers Weekly will be running a seminar in the New Era Theatre on both days based on its popular Transition series, which looks at how farmers can make their businesses more financially and environmentally sustainable.
Around the event there will numerous exhibitors on hand to answer visitors’ questions, with post-harvest technology and the latest crop protection and nutrition products on show, to name but a few.
“At this time of transition for farmers, Cereals offers an ideal one-stop-shop to see all the latest innovation in action so that arable farmers can get a real flavour of what technology will be most suited to their farm,” says Ms McEntyre.
The Cereals Event will be held near Duxford, Cambridgeshire on 8-9 June 2022. For more information or to purchase tickets visit the relaunched website at www.cerealsevent.co.uk.
