A flying visit was made to the Lamma show in Peterborough, the UK’s largest farm machinery, equipment and agricultural services event held at the East of England Show Ground.
The event, organised by Briefing Media, had over 900 exhibitors and was huge, covering most of the trial ground either with stands, equipment or parking! The event attracts a significant number of people, reported to be over 40,000; mainly farmers, farm managers, staff and contractors.
It was a grey and dank day so sanctuary was sort in two specific Show Halls, thus avoiding the plethora of people flocking around the huge bits of kit (tractors, sprayers, combines etc) that were scattered across the ground. In a show of this size you cannot possibly visit everything so you use your map and pick your areas of interest!
My interest was in precision agriculture in both the arable and livestock sectors and related services being offered to the industry. My journey took me through a variety of stands, some good, some bad, some busy and some not! Highlights included:
- Farmdata Ltd, farm data management systems
- Shearwell Data, animal identification and management systems
- Andersons, the farm business consultants
- Herdwatch, a herd management software provider from Ireland
The meetings proved useful and gave me the opportunity to talk to a number of suppliers of hardware and software. All in all, for a free event, it was well attended and was worth the visit to catch up with these companies.