21st July 2020
As harvest 2020 begins, Frontier Agriculture has confirmed that it is moving to a collection only service for farm grain sampling with immediate effect.
Speaking of the reason for this change, Nick Heald, commercial director said: “The sampling service we, and other merchants, have provided at harvest has predominantly been delivered by students on their summer break. Despite every possible precaution being taken there have been a number of minor incidents involving samplers. Thankfully, nothing serious but nevertheless it highlights the risks involved in sending a colleague into an unfamiliar farm store to sample grain. Health and safety is Frontier’s number one priority. Therefore, in line with others in the industry and with Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC) support, we are ceasing this practice.”
Communicating with farmers
Whilst there are a range of farm storage systems, taking samples as grain comes into store or off the drier is generally the most efficient, accurate and safe method. To help farmers create a process for self-sampling on their farms Frontier has sent all grain customers a sampling pack containing AHDB and Frontier guidelines for sampling and a number of sample bags.
Grain collection & analysis
Frontier will continue to organise collection of grain samples from customers, transferring them to laboratories for analysis.
Farmers can then access the results of their samples online as soon as we have tested them by logging onto their free Frontier MyFarm account. Register or login at www.frontierag.co.uk/myfarm
Nick adds: “We’ve spoken to many of our farmer customers about this change that we and other merchants are making to improve safety and we’ve received positive feedback from them. We’re grateful for our farmer customers’ support with this and of course we will be happy to provide them with any help they need to adapt this harvest via our network of farm traders.”
Find out more about grain sampling on our website.
Get in touch with your local Frontier farm trader for support and advice with grain marketing and risk management this harvest.
