January is always a month that seems to drag. Short days, long nights and lots of hard work coupled with dank weather.
Sheep farmers may be lambing or at least preparing to lamb, getting the pens ready and stocking up with the veterinary products they might need.
Dairy farmers will be milking in the dark and energy bills will be sky high as milk needs to be kept at the right temperature until it's collected.
Because of the dark nights and usually bad weather and poor visibility, it is worth remembering when travelling
along the lanes, that there may be slow or large loads of feed, such as straw, silage and hay being moved about to where it's needed. Roads are often icy too!
New year is also a time for looking to the future. How did the business do last year? Could we have done things better? What can we do this year to improve?
Should we apply for the SFI - Sustainable Farming Incentive or the Environmental Land Management schemes to bring in more income?
Equally, it should also be practical and relevant to the farmer members.
So many questions and so many decisions have to be made. Farming is a business like any other - it has to make a profit and when import costs are high and outputs aren't bringing much in and policy doesn't support food production then hard decisions have to be made - bills have to be paid! This can affect food price inflation. But farmers are optimists and this year, like the previous years, they'll be hoping for fair weather, light workload and a good harvest.