Kite Consulting

This week, hosts Ben and Will are joined by Mark Larwood; winner of Farmers Weekly Dairy Farmer of the year award, along with his consultant and Kite Partner; Ben Watts. After another very positive milk market update from Chris Walkland with some notable and significant price jumps, Chris puts aside the football politics to congratulate Mark on his fantastic achievement. Fully recovered from the c...

Fresh from the Question Time panel on Thursday evening, Minette Batters; NFU President, joins host Ben Eagle alongside John Allen and Chris Walkland on this weeks podcast. After some worrying comments from PM Boris Johnson earlier this week at the Conservative Party Conference, we ask Minette if she believes there is a political appetite for agriculture. Minette describes the government as having...

On this week’s podcast, Food and Nutrition Consultant; Barbara Bray MBE joins her fellow Oxford Farming Conference council member and our podcast co-host; Will Evans alongside Ben Eagle and Chris Walkland. To coincide with World School Milk Day earlier this week, and after hearing that over 2.5 million children are at risk of food insecurity, they discuss the nutritional benefits of dairy for chil...

On this week’s podcast, Enda Buckley; Director of Sustainability at Carbery Group and Rachael Madeley-Davies; Head of Sustainability at Kite join hosts Will Evans and Ben Eagle to discuss a project aiming to deliver the first ever climate neutral dairy farm by 2027. After the usual milk market update from Chris Walkland, they discuss the UCD-led Farm Zero C project which was recently awarded 2 mil...

On this week’s podcast, hosts Will Evans and Ben Eagle are joined by Neil Kennedy Chairman at Crediton, alongside Kite’s David Levick and Chris Walkland. Neil has been instrumental in driving significant changes during his career within the dairy industry, playing an important role in the Milk Link/Arla merger before acquiring the Crediton business. With extensive involvement in a number of other...

Host Ben Eagle is flying solo this week and is joined by Managing Director at AgFirst Waikato; James Allen, Kite’s John Allen and Chris Walkland. Chris gives a milk market update and they discuss New Zealand dairy farming; a view of the season so far, farm performance, cost of production along with the short and long term milk production outlook. Please note: The information provided during this p...

Hosts Ben Eagle and Will Evans are joined this week by Jersey dairy farmer and Chairman of the Jersey Milk Marketing Board; Andrew Le Gallais alongside Kite Partner Tanya Colman. After a milk market update from Chris Walkland they discuss the island of Jersey and it’s cows, dairy farmers, milk production, marketing and exports. Including how the decision to lift a ban on the import of genetics jus...

This week we are taking a global view of dairy production, consumption and farm competitiveness and to do this hosts Will Evans and Ben Eagle are joined by Dr Torsten Hemme; CEO of the International Farm Comparison Network (IFCN) alongside John Allen and Chris Walkland. After a milk market report from Chris, they discuss IFCN’s data, analysis and prediction for dairy consumption in 2050 and discus...

On this week’s podcast, hosts Will Evans and Ben Eagle welcome back Chris Walkland with more to be positive about in his Milk Market Review, along with Kite’s Head of Sustainability, Rachael Madeley Davis and Managing Partner John Allen, to discuss the most recent IPCC Report. They talk methane, the GWP* metric and what this means for the dairy industry, as well as how ruminants could be aiding gl...

On this week’s podcast, hosts Will Evans and Ben Eagle welcome a pre-recorded Chris Walkland for another positive milk market update. John Allen and Edward Lott share their thoughts on, if and how rising inflation rates will impact farm cost of production and profitability in the short-term, as well as a much longer-term view on whether rising inflation rates are positive for agriculture and food...

The Kite podcast is on tour this week as hosts Will Evans and Ben Eagle are joined from Scotland by Dairy Policy Manager at NFU Scotland; Stuart Martin, Kite’s very own David Keiley and Chris Walkland who are all in Scotland ahead of the RABDF Gold Cup. After the usual and a more positive milk market report, they discuss Gold Cup winner Robert Sloan and family and the key issues on all Scottish fa...

On this week’s podcast, hosts Will Evans and Ben Eagle welcome Chris Walkland for a milk market update and Chief Executive of Dairy UK; Judith Bryans and Kite's Head of Sustainability; Rachael Madeley-Davies. They share some of the key discussion points and sentiment from the UN Food Strategy Summit earlier this week in Rome. On the global stage, the anti-livestock agenda was minimal and many of t...

On this week’s podcast, hosts Will Evans & Ben Eagle are joined by Yorkshire farmer and NFU County Chair for West Riding; Rachel Hallos alongside John Allen and Chris Walkland to discuss the recently published, long awaited National Food Strategy.  They discuss and critique the key proposals of the document, including the recommendation to cut meat consumption by 30%  and an acceptance of the GWP*...

On this week’s podcast we have the regular milk market update from Chris Walkland who then joins Erik Elgersma; Director of Strategic Analysis Services BV & former Director of Strategic Intelligence at Friesland Campina and John Allen to discuss the global drivers of milk markets. They consider how the current demand from and supply from the USA is effecting the short and longer term market outloo...

On this week’s podcast, we cover the two topics most farmers are discussing at the moment; the football and farm labour. After Chris Walkland has given his analysis of the football and the milk markets, hosts Ben Eagle and Will Evans are joined by Devon dairy farmer Julie Webber alongside Kite’s Rachael Madeley-Davies and Becki Leach to discuss current labour challenges on farm and the opportuniti...

On this week’s podcast, hosts Will Evans and Ben Eagle are joined by Professor Jude Capper; Livestock Sustainability Consultant and Harper Adams Professor of Sustainable Beef Production alongside John Allen and Chris Walkland. After the usual milk market update from Chris, Jude and John discuss the science behind products designed to reduce methane output from cows, the challenges of measuring red...

On this week’s podcast, hosts Will Evans and Ben Eagle are joined by John Allen and George Heler; grandson of Cheshire Cheesemaker Joseph Heler and Managing Director of his namesake business. George describes succession of the business from his Dad, Mike, to him and how he is continuing the family legacy of investment, innovation and growth through investing in secondary processing allowing the bu...

Given the turn in the market, a somewhat subdued milk market report from Chris Walkland precedes a very upbeat discussion with Cogent Chairman and Managing Director at Grosvenor Farms; Mark Roach and Kite’s Managing Partner; David Levick. They debate the return on investment from genetic spend, the increasing importance and potential impact of Feed Conversion Efficiency (FCE) and how breeding effi...

On this week’s podcast, hosts Will Evans and Ben Eagle are joined by Muller’s Chief Operating Officer; Rob Hutchison alongside John Allen and Chris Walkland. We ask: will Muller Advantage help the business and its suppliers regain the Advantage with retailers? Along with discussing the recent deal with Lidl to offer a 3-year fixed price of 29ppl and hear the outcomes and opportunities from project...

Hosts Will Evans and Ben Eagle are joined by Tom Forshaw; Senior Policy Analyst at AHDB with comments from Chris Walkland and Becki Leach as they discuss the details of the proposed trade deal with Australia and what this might mean for dairy, along with an update on how Brexit continues to impact trade and prices. Chris Walkland also gives his usual milk market update. Please note: The informatio...

It’s World Milk Day on 1st June and whilst in the western world dairy, milk consumption and cows are often challenged on how important and relevant they are in the modern world, the story is very different elsewhere. In India, the largest producer and consumer of dairy in the world, not only are cows sacred and culturally significant, dairy supports local economies and is a vital source of nutriti...

It’s #AgriLeadership week so hosts Will Evans and Ben Eagle are talking to Stuart Roberts; NFU Deputy President and Becki Leach about what they think great leadership looks like both at industry and farm level. They discuss the challenge of leading through significant change and the complexities of leading a membership organisation. Please note: The information provided during this podcast has bee...

Well known UCD Professor; Frank Mitloehner (@GHGGuru) joins our Head of Sustainability; Rachael Madeley-Davies this week to debunk myths about the climate impact of cows. They discuss the limitations of the GWP100 climate calculation in accounting for methane, possible alternative calculations, the UN Conference for Climate Change (COP26) later this year and how ruminant agriculture could contribu...

Whilst most of the UK has had at least some rain in the last week, persistent low temperatures are still limiting grass growth and impacting milk flows.  Similar challenging weather conditions have and are impacting crop establishment and growth worldwide and could impact commodity and feed prices in the coming weeks and months.  James Bolesworth; Managing Director at CRM AgriCommodities, John All...

Hosts Will Evans & Ben Eagle are joined this week by First Milk’s CEO Shelagh Hancock and Kite’s David Keiley to reflect on First Milk’s strategy and transformation over the past 5 years and to share more details about their recent announcements on Net Zero and Carbon Capture which form a key part of their sustainability strategy going forward. We also have the usual milk market update from Chris...