By BRIAN HENDERSON

IT’S GETTING to the time of year when, for many of us, thoughts of harvest tend to eclipse everything else as we either anxiously fret while waiting for some decent weather – or crack on with the job to get as much done in a brief dry spell as we possibly can.
It’s still early days for the harvest around the country, but early indications seem to be that crops have taken a wee step back from the thumping yields of the last couple of years.
While I’m told that yields aren’t actually all that far away from the five-year average, the trailers don’t seem to be groaning quite as much as they shuttle back and forward between the combine and the grain store.
Reports are that the earlier, lighter land seems to be the worst affected by those (now far distant) two weeks back in early June when crops burnt up and things might improve as we get deeper into the harvest.
Of course, being at the coo’s tail of Europe’s harvest, when it comes to grain prices we often reap what others have sown – or, more correctly, already harvested.
While we’re well used to getting pretty dismal prices when the harvest on the continent exceeds expectations in both yields and quality, we can sometimes pick up a few extra quid when these two factors turn out to be poorer than expected in the main grain growing areas of Europe.
There was some disappointment in the German crop – but it seems to have been in France where there has been the biggest drop in production. Put as high as 25% by some commentators, due mainly to worse-than-normal weather.
This has been at least partly responsible for the stabilisation in what looked set to be a continued downward spiral in prices.
Much of what was harvested in that country has also been down-graded on the quality front, a situation which can work against us as it puts more onto the feed market rather than going for milling.
However, if English wheat is of sufficient quality to fill this gap then that, together with lower plantings down south, might help the UK clear its feet of some of this crop.
Reports that the Russian and Black Sea crops are faring well, along with yield upgrades for wheat in the US are, however, likely to keep a lid on any upwards movement – and a mid-week price dip confirmed just how unsettled the markets are.
So, as usual, the weather seems to hold most of the cards at this crucial time of year – but even the harvest isn’t divorced entirely from the wider political scene.
While it would be going too far to say that grain growers have seen a Brexit bonus – there’s no denying that the slide in the value of the pound has provided a bit of buffering from prices which looked to be in free-fall for much of the year.
And the fall in the value of sterling – of about 12% against both the euro and US dollar – has probably been responsible for much of the rally in UK prices since the referendum vote.
That said, though, any cocky Brexiteer out there should be reminded that the current devaluation reflects short-term uncertainty rather than necessarily any longer-term changes in currency value – and as such can’t be banked on going forward.
But – away from the harvest altogether and looking at the domestic political front – much has been made of the promise made a fortnight ago by the UK Treasury that it would match EU farm spending through until 2020.
Now there’s no denying that this should be viewed as good news – but since we’re unlikely to be out of the EU before 2019 at the earliest, it doesn’t really represent a huge commitment on Westminster’s part.
However, more worryingly, there was a lack of information on how that money – and probably, more importantly, that going forward beyond 2020 – will actually be paid out to the devolved administrations who are likely to have responsibility for their own farm policies.
And it has to be said that the most recent example of the UK Government carving up shares of EU funds – the highly contentious allocation of the EU’s convergence uplift funds granted only because Scotland’s payments per hectare were so low – hardly covered the then Westminster Government in glory.
That should be enough to set alarm bells in both political and farming circles ringing on this side of the Border.
While there’s no clear indication yet of how farm support will be allocated to the devolved governments, at the moment Scotland’s block budget funding is based on the so-called Barnett formula – and is based on a rough sort of ‘headage’ payment for the population at large.
However, putting it in farming terms, our human ‘stocking density’ is far lower on this side of the Border than it is down south. Although Scotland accounts for around a third of the UK’s total land area, we only have about 8% of the population.
My arithmetic might be wrong, but my calculations would indicate that if CAP payments were allocated on the same basis, come Brexit, we in Scotland could be left with area payments which were only a fraction of those being handed out in the rest of the UK.
So, there’s likely to be a big battle ahead to ensure that we get our fair share of farm support– and that’s even before we get down to the bare-knuckle fist-fight which is likely to take place when we start to decide on the actual policies we’d like to see in operation.
Maybe it’s simpler just to concentrate on the harvest!