Biomass Connect at the Royal Welsh Show, 22nd to 25th July 2024

The Royal Welsh Show is the largest agricultural show in Europe, attracting about 250,000 people to its site in mid Wales over the course of the annual 4 day event. It features livestock and horticultural competitions, a huge area displaying agricultural machinery, trade stands and a range of events appealing to wider audiences such as horse logging displays, parachute aerobatics, and sheepdog trials. A highlight of the farming calendar for many rural families, it provides a great opportunity to meet like-minded people and catch up with the latest developments across the farming industry.

With a 10 year waiting list for new exhibitors in the main area of the showground, Biomass Connect were able to use a portion of the IBERS Aberystwyth University Stand, which is conveniently located a stones-throw away from the major thoroughfare next to the main ring.

With such a large and varied show and so many stands competing for visitor’s attention, the key is to entice people to stop in the first place. We therefore had placed a large Heston bale of Miscanthus right at the front, with a sign posing a simple question on the side of it; ‘have you ever considered Miscanthus as livestock bedding?’. With farmers currently paying £130/tonne for cereal straw, this teaser proved too much to resist for many farmers, who were lured to the stand.

Heston Miscanthus Bale

The stand featured a range of plants from the Biomass Connect Demonstrator Hubs, and visitors were encouraged to take part in a ‘name the crop’ identification quiz, winning Biomass Connect branded merchandise if they completed it correctly. The quiz allowed farmers to become more familiar with new crop names such as black locust, sida and cup plant, and also learnt the basics of the crop agronomies and potential uses, and discussed integrating the crops into their farming systems. We also had root columns, end products and a range of literature available.

The Royal Welsh Show is not just about farmers and landowners; other visitors to the stand included Defra, Welsh Government, Forest Research, BBSRC, Innovate UK, the farming unions, several agricultural banks and the Country Land and Business Association. All were keen to learn more about the online information provision, the Demonstrator Hubs and the real potential that Biomass Connect has to allow farmers to see biomass crops in environments similar to their own farms.

We were also joined on the stand by representatives from some of the innovation projects. Thanks to Kevin representing Envirocrops, Ed representing TEMPEC and Judith representing Miscanspeed.

Topics of conversation were many and varied, but key themes emerging were

• Growing livestock bedding on farm, as a means of insuring against cereal straw price fluctuations. The case study booklet on this subject proved very popular.
• The scope for biomass crops to sequester carbon into soil, and by doing so both improve a farm’s carbon footprint and potentially be a route to additional income. This was made more visual by the bulk of Miscanthus rhizome mass on display.
• Whether biomass crops would be supported in sustainable farming incentive schemes across any of the devolved nations. Farmers expressed enthusiasm for planting grants to cover at least some of the costs of establishment, noting that income from the crops would not be seen in the first couple of years. Biomass Connect staff are regularly engaged in conversations with government officials in relation to how and why farmers might be supported to produce the biomass crops needed to meet the UK’s climate change commitments.
• Maturity of the end markets and what the various contract options are. With several end user markets at the show (e.g. biomass boiler suppliers and fuel buyers), we were able to make frequently reference these which resulted in some useful cross-referrals between stands.
• Machinery requirements for harvesting and processing were also of interest to farmers, particularly those in areas where cereal harvesting equipment such as combines are less common. A video of cutting and baling got a lot of interest and enabled potential growers to get a better understanding of how they might manage the crops on their own farm.

Trade shows are a tiring business; members of the Biomass Connect team were on the stand for 9 hours a day, 4 days in succession, and the stand was busy for much of that. We ended the show optimistic that attitudes to biomass crops are beginning to change, and that planted areas could potentially increase quite rapidly in the future.