Alder Bioinsights News Review: Feedstock Issue 149, August 2024

Foreword

The UK government has announced that the first Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) agreements for 2024 are now live. Along with Countryside Stewardship (CS) and Landscape Recovery (LR), SFI forms part of the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme. SFI aims to address applications from eligible farmers who seek to secure grants from the following categories: actions for soils, nutrient management, integrated pest management, precision farming, farmland wildlife (horticultural land), farmland wildlife (grasslands), moorlands, species recovery and management, agroforestry, boundary features, waterbodies, buffer strips, heritage and organic farming. The applicants are encouraged to follow a flexible ‘pick-and-mix approach’ and choose multiple subcategories under a single agreement. It is also possible to have more than one agreement running at any time.

The EU domestic production of soybean has more than tripled within the last decade. The EU Commission expects the soybean harvest to reach almost 3 million tonnes by the end of 2024, which is equal to a 6% rise compared to last year. This is thought to be the biggest soybean harvest EU has achieved on record. Italy is expected to occupy almost one third of the total production, whereas France and Romania are projected to come second and third respectively with contributions of around 12% each. Romania and Croatia are predicted to see the highest expansions in soybean harvests compared to last year, with expected growth of 24% and 26.5% respectively. Austria is anticipated to harvest 293,000 tonnes, around 8.5 per cent more compared to last year.

EU data, reported by Germany’s Union for the Promotion of Oil and Protein Plants (UFOP), shows Ukraine to be the regions largest supplier of rapeseed. The imports have increased by around 6% in the examined period 2023/24 reaching around 3.2 million tonnes…