Category Archive

Whilst Robert was hobnobbing with royalty at the Royal Show last week I had one important thing I needed to do.
I wanted to lobby someone, anyone on the Natural England board of directors about the lack of Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) agreements being granted to small and medium sized farms. So bumping into a board member I’d had contact with several years ago gave me the perfect opportunity. Though no sooner had I started to speak she announced that she was not the person I should be talking to and firmly introduced me to Natural England’s chief executive, Helen Phillips.

Well, you can’t get better than that. Now it was up to me to make a strong, cogent case for fellow farmers up and down the country. As luck would have it she was having a heated discussion with the head of policies from the NFU on this very subject before my interruption. I had no idea at the time. Serendipitous.

I was blanked…. My nerves quivered. But no, I thought, this is vitally important, get a grip and get on! So I did. And she listened. And took notice. We agreed to keep in touch. Below is an excerpt of my recent correspondence to her…

From grass roots level this is how things appear. When HLS was first floated the take up was, I believe, mainly by farms that had no previous history of environmental schemes. These first payments were often substantial and included restorations of barns and the like. Then those whose Countryside Stewardship agreements were coming to an end applied, encouraged initially by your staff. You can imagine their surprise, disappointment and frustration when few were successful. It seems that only those applications with SSSIs or many habitats, footpaths, etc were successful. Hundreds of small to medium-sized farms like ours have been left in the lurch, while the large estates often owned by pension companies or similar have been granted agreements – with very large holdings it is, of course, much easier form them to accumulate the necessary points.

The impact on those many, many farms across the country which have not been successful (or indeed have been discouraged from applying), has been significant. They have adjusted their farming systems to meet the needs of their Countryside Stewardship agreements, often with much enthusiasm, only to find themselves high and dry and without a much needed source of income. Many have really delivered the wildlife and other goods that you are seeking. Some are now going into the red and having to resort to commercial farming of the land. Given the good budget settlement from Europe and the Treasury this rejection is hard to swallow. Meanwhile, the large estates and pension funds are benefiting, but will they show the commitment to the environment that us family farms will? I doubt it!

If it helps, I can explain what has happened on our farm. We had a Countryside Stewardship agreement for some 16 years, covering nearly half our land, but when we re-applied a year ago were unsuccessful because we did not score enough points. This despite much of the land being designated a County Wildlife Site, having a magnificent flower-rich meadow, supporting good numbers of dormice, barn owls, snipe, tree pipits, marsh tits, etc, and being crossed by a public footpath. What galled was the fact we were told ‘we were just not good enough’! Please come and see for yourself. I’d like to show you…

So all you farmers out there in the same situation as us – take heart if you can; speak to the various organisations concerned, keep on pushing and perhaps those elusive agreements will be forthcoming…

On Friday I went to the Royal Show; not a show I would generally choose to go to. Once a showcase for some of the best examples of British livestock and businesses in the industry, now prohibitive costs and soaring overheads have taken it out of the reach of most exhibitors leaving it to corporate bodies, supermarkets and ubiquitous market stalls to fly the flag.

But I was going for a reason. It was the launch of Hedgelink, a partnership of organisations and individuals leading and supporting the conservation of the UK’s hedgerows, and a project that Robert has been closely involved in over the years and one he’s passionate about. Prince Charles was going to be at the launch. Robert had asked me to go along with him.

nigel with the new hedgelink banner and dvd

We left the farm at the crack of dawn and had a happily uneventful drive up to Stoneleigh, the Royal showground. The day was perfect too. No rain, just sun and clouds with a breeze. The launch was taking place on the Natural England site which is an impressive acre or so of various ponds and plots giving examples in how to encourage wildlife and diversity on farmland and in your garden. The whole was a serene, peaceful green oasis in an otherwise confusing array of stalls and roads.

Leaving Robert to fluster and muster I went off to do a reccy of the showground and inadvertently became caught up in the Prince’s and Duchess’s arrival! I duly shook hands and murmured complete nonsense while being once again taken aback by Charles’s approachability and the genuine interest he shows when talking to people.

Prince Charles with a group of very happy schoolgirls - they were chuffed!

I’ve had contact with the prince before. It was nearing the end of the 2001 FMD outbreak when a small group of us were invited to have tea with him on one of his supportive visits to a devastated West Country. He had apparently followed all my weekly TV video reporting on Countryfile; knew intimate details of my stock and farm; displayed real understanding of the trials and tribulations I and others had been through. In other words he cared, and there was no indication of doing lip service. I like that, a good egg.

Back to Friday. The launch was due at 1pm. Robert was beginning to show signs of stress when a steward appeared and announced the Prince would be there in a few minutes as he was running well ahead of schedule. The place was immediately seething with a plethora of paparazzi and a surge of people. The line-up had only just organised itself when the prince and his entourage arrived. Feeling small and insignificant with my diminutive camera against a bank of monstrous super-zoomed beasts handled by hardened push-hardest-and-shove journos I was startled when I found myself being asked by his personal aide if I’d like to stand practically next to the price to take my photos!

robert shakes hands with the prince

It was a great success. Hands were vigorously shaken; smiles were stretched across faces in wallace & gromit-like proportions; Prince Charles grinned and crinkled, spending a good time with each member of the team discussing the work they had done in creating Hedgelink and the DVD ‘A cut above the rest’. He’s an avid supporter of the hedgerows in our countryside and went away clutching his copy of the DVD.

the prince discussing the finer points of hedgelaying

Having just watched the DVD. I can honestly recommend it to any of you that have even a tiny interest in hedges. It’s beautifully filmed and presented. The clear, practical information is easy to follow and holds your attention to the end. Even though I have a fair knowledge of hedgerows gleaned from Robert I found there’s lots which will make me look at hedges and hedgerow trees in a new light. To see excerpts of the DVD follow the link and also to order your free copy.

Well done Hedgelink!

four spotted flycatcher babies (you can just see the fourth behind the middle one) the day before they flew

We waited with bated breath for the rare Spotted Flycatcher to return this year. Our swallow numbers have plummeted and we feared for the flycatcher. On the 15 May we heard a familiar ‘tich tich tich’ outside our bedroom window – and sure enough there he was safe, well and nest prospecting. Surprisingly he settled for an extraordinarily sensible nest site too, in the apex of a small open fronted barn-shed outside the kitchen window; one that’s well protected and safe from predators. His mate soon joined him. We had a ‘birds-eye-view’ of all activities – nest building, clutch laying and sitting, hatching and feeding. Last weekend there was huge excitement and activity from both parents as they encouraged their fledglings out of the nest on their first flight. A success! Hopefully they will manage a second brood too. Watch this space.

Another rarity - the Lesser Butterfly Orchid. We found a small group of these rare and beautiful flowers in Hannaborough moor. Aren’t they something?

There are a number of commercial wind farm proposals for North and West Devon in line with the government’s Kyoto Summit agreement. These are being met with massive opposition. They destroy the look of the countryside, they are inefficient, nimby-ism, and the huge grants available to energy companies who erect them is only there to make the government look as if it’s taken the energy crisis and climate change on board. Which, according to some, they haven’t, as they have their fingers stuck firmly in some other mucky puddle.

One argument that opponents to wind farms use is that because they can only generate power when the wind blows, every time a new wind farm is built a new coal, oil or gas station has to be built as well. I’m not sure I understand this. I get the point that wind farms will only ever produce energy intermittently, so they have to be used alongside other forms of power generation. No one says they are the solution on their own, just part of it. I just don’t see why new non-green power stations have to be built as well. Provided existing such stations are kept operational and ticking over, then when the wind drops they can be turned up. The argument that we need new conventional stations seems to me only to hold true if we need more energy overall – but with the increased imperative that now exists for energy conservation that should not be necessary. Indeed wind farms should surely mean that conventional power stations have to be used less (although as I say still kept operational), so helping to reduce climate change? Can anyone please help me here?

narrow bordered bee hawkmoth

Manic, hectic, non-stop - and I’m not talking about the frenetic cutting and carrying of silage or the persistent hum drone whine of tractors, mowers, foragers, bailers and wrappers filling the air 24/7 as most of my neighbours rush to take advantage of the warm, dry weather - but of Robert’s weekend schedule. As you are, no doubt, totally aware…it’s been National Moth day, night and weekend!

chimney sweeper - a moth whose food plant is pignut

You may have gathered through various comments in other posts Robert has a keenly developed interest (obsession?) with moths – trapping, collecting, recording, rearing and photographing – the last he does with enviable artistic flare and skill. So the last forty-eight hours has been one continuous merry-go-round of places, locations and venues from first light till the early hours of the morning (most things moth taking place during the most unsocial hours). Moth traps have been set, county moth gatherings have been attended, special sites have been visited, recordings have been made and moths - ordinary-extraordinary, exquisite-dowdy, day flying or night flying - have been found, noted and documented, whilst friends, acquaintances and strangers have been persuaded, cajoled and curmudgeoned into participating in one form or another.

mother shipton - can you see the witch’s face?

I’ve cherry picked. Choosing to accompany Robert on the more social affairs, and during the hours when most self-respecting moths are tucked up sound asleep in some cool dark hideaway, safe from marauding predators, apart, that is, from the occasional unusual treasure – such as the narrow bordered bee hawkmoth.

I’ve snatched a hasty conversation with a pal on a log in an orchard whilst traps have been set and electrics wrangled with; sipped tea in the shade of a wild rose after a walk around a stunning triple SI in search of the rare Marsh Fritillary butterfly; and been refreshed with a glass of ice cold wine in the dappled sun of early evening having trekked across the moor for supper. I have also had time to enjoy the extraordinary beauty of our flower meadows which are at their peak and taken pleasure in watching and observing the stock as they contentedly graze and relax in the early summer sunshine. A perfect June weekend.

ragged robin in dillings

for heidi - our only lunar moth - a lunar hornet moth, not as impressive as yours!

On Sunday it was Open Farm Sunday, and we went to visit a farm. It was in a beautiful hilly, undulating part of Devon, a part I’m not too familiar with and so very different from around here. Red, dry, stony land that drains far too efficiently and as a result suffers from drought. The farmers there think of it as marginal land, though to me it looked like an answer to a prayer.

It was a large arable and grass farm sporting a huge renovated farmhouse surrounded by landscaped Japanese gardens, red brick walls, laid brick drives and wrought iron gates. It receives substantial payments from set-aside and various agri-environment agreements. It’s heralded as an environmental flagship farm.

My impressions? One of wealth and prosperity. The farm has served its owner well in acquiring all manner of subsidies which I felt were not an actual necessity in the survival of the farm or the farmer. What did I feel it was delivering in terms of environmental benefits? And value for money to the tax payer? Not a lot. True it was in a beautiful part of the country and the views were stunning, true it had a fine example of a catchwork meadow and true it had some interesting swards. But nothing spectacular or mind blowing. I felt the farm lacked purpose or soul and was being managed to prescriptions laid out on paper without any real raison d’être. No stock, no vibrancy, just neat, polite management filling coffers from the public purse.

I know I’m being harsh; there were plenty of people, especially families with young children, who were really enjoying their visit. It was a good day out. The farmer had worked hard to make it a success, and it was.

Nevertheless when I think of the thousands of farms on the poorer marginal soils of England that can deliver as much, or more, in terms of the environment, landscape and biodiversity by using only a fraction of the money that’s being handed out to some large prosperous farms, I wonder at the injustice of it. To these marginal farms government/public support can make the difference between sinking and swimming.

I know very well that subsidies are not there to bolster up bad business and I’m not suggesting for a moment that they should. But it seems fundamentally unfair that farms which have taken care of their environment over the years and kept flower-rich meadows and such like in tact should be low down on the list for receiving public support, while those, often more productive and more profitable farms, which have in the past ploughed up their meadows and removed their hedges should now be being paid, as a priority, for restoring such things.

On a walk around the spectacular limestone Calanque de Marseille we came across a bumble bee that was unnaturally still on a flower; on close investigation we saw it was quite dead, held firmly in the jaws of a crab spider. The spider was nearly impossible to detect as she matched the colour of the flower she was inhabiting exactly. Returning home we read up about the habits of said crab spider. Her ability to change colour allows her to hang out in exposed positions on a flower where she ambushes pollinating insects. Her venom is so potent she’s able to prey on insects much bigger than herself and as formidable as queen bumble bees. The prey is not mutilated in any way whilst it’s being consumed and ends up as a dry but perfect husk! The book says reassuringly ‘In spite of the horrifying ease with which they will take prey larger than themselves, they are perfectly harmless to humans.’ Well, thank god for that!

And guess what? Today, at home, we found another crab spider, a different species, with a burnet companion moth as her prey. At first we didn’t notice a tiny male scuttling around behind her. He apparently walks about on her abdomen before copulation and the matings are interspersed with little perambulations too. After forty-five minutes or so of kama-sutraesque love making they separate and the male wanders off leaving the female to finish her gourmet meal in peace (which I expect is quite reassuring as he’d most probably be eyed up as a tasty little aperitif).

Locks Park is thought by some to be rather special. When visiting ecologists, environmentalists and conservationists ooh and ahh over our flower-filled meadows, the butterflies, birds and bees, the richness and diversity of the wildlife, hedgerows and pastures I feel privileged to live and farm such a piece of land. But I’m also made to feel culpable. When completing the infamous Higher Level Stewardship application I was brought to task over keeping sheep and ‘lost points’ as this is considered detrimental to the wildlife.
‘Bbbut’ I stammered ‘Sheep are good little farmers. They aerate the soils, break open rush clumps, encourage other plant species. Mixed grazing is important for many reasons too. And …’
I was cut short. Sheep, I was informed, eat flowers, so are unwelcome.
I also have too many cattle. More points lost. What about replenishing nutrients in depleted soils, sensitively of course, as in dung spreading and liming? Frowned upon.

I’m told that farms like this have always been subsistence farms. Minimal stock was kept, I mean just look at the buildings. Proves a point really.

I scratched my head and thought ‘I wonder. I’ll ask Elli’. Elli is the daughter of the couple we bought the farm from eighteen years ago. Elli is enthusiastic and a keen member of the community. Athletic, up before the crack of dawn and when not working all god’s hours she’s often seen cycling up three-in-one hills with her graceful dog Mel beside her. Her father, George, came to Locks Park when he was a small boy of six and seamlessly took over farming it from his father and mother when they retired. Elli has a deep affinity for the place. She remembers well the stories her grandparents and father told of their lives here. She reminisces on those fabled forever, long hot summers and winters of snow and icicles. Helping out on the farm throughout her childhood she continued even after she’d left and married running her sheep on the Rutleighs. She loves the place and I believe if circumstances had been different she would have gladly taken over from her parents.

I knew she would know exactly what was farmed here and how – it’s part of her very being, her core. “Well now, twenty-five to thirty milking cows. They were up at the house and in all winter. Followers, young stock and the like: we wintered them out on the bottom of Scadsbury. Never in. Again twenty-five to thirty. You know max, Paula.”

the out-wintering land, Scadsbury meadow

Scadsbury was forty acres of rented land. Land, unfortunately, we never managed to acquire, and the out-wintering field she was talking about is the most glorious ten acres of flower-filled culm.

“The cows were grazed at home on Top, Flop, Little Hill, Five Acres, Dung and Rushy. Followers continued over at Scadsbury, you know, when the grass came on in the better fields.”

She went on to say they never brought in any forage, cutting it all at Locks. Fertiliser, 20-10-10, was applied, sparingly of course, as well as lime and slag when needed.
“Even on Dillings?” I chip in. Dillings being our ultra special flower filled meadow.
“Yes, yes, of course.”
They used to bale up rushes for bedding and she can’t remember them ever buying in straw. “Nothing was ever tilled at Locks, too wet, not even in the war. Yes, I know I’m right, though I think they once did a small piece over Scadsbury and we must’ve baled that as straw.”

And sheep? “Oh, eighty ewes give or take.”’

So who’s right? These small, beautiful, diverse farms were working, commercial farms. We’ve been left a legacy that no money can create. Should we now treat their land as museum pieces – to be polished and treated with kid gloves, or should we too work them to provide food and income, allowing them to reflect the character of our age, not ages past?

An afterthought. I believe I’m trying to express my idea of what I feel is wondrous and astonishing. So let me try and find an analogy. To me true beauty in a human has nothing to do with the plastic nip and tucked, contrived, gleaming and polished doll-like exterior we are apparently meant to aspire to in today’s consumer-driven/celebrity-culture existence. True beauty is an extraordinary mix of the physical and metaphysical, the body and soul to use a well worn phrase. A magnetic pull towards a radiating working energy. Not a self-serving manufactured appearance deprived of age or history. So if you can translate these clumsy thought images to farms (the physical) and nature (the spirit) maybe you’ll have an inkling of what I’m trying to express.

flowers in Dillings

On Saturday evening we visited a farm. Robert knew of it many years back when it was owned by two extremely ancient old boys. For numerous decades the farm sat in glorious isolation and neglect, the land and buildings softened and crumbled; definition of field and hedge, lane and track, farmhouse and barn sagged into tangled green obscurity. The old boys continued to live in their decaying farmhouse looking out over a farmyard of bent disintegrating barns and humped undulating roofs; astonishingly they were still using the original cloam oven and still gathering and burning bundles of faggots.

It was sold a few years ago and by chance we met the new owners in the pub. They are a delightful couple. Not in their first flush of youth Jim is instantly noticeable by a shock of wild bright white hair; he’s buzzing with energy, passionate and eager, a zinging wire – his edges rounded and softened by a warm brown voice and a distinct west country burr. Mary has her feet firmly on the ground and a gentle yet tough stoicism. She has an open sincere face and large, expressive eyes in which you glimpse hidden depth. Both of them shine with the ruddy glow of outdoor living and smell of fresh air and wood, plaster and earth. Working ceaselessly on the farmhouse and buildings they have made a temporary home in one of the open crumbling barns and a caravan. To Robert’s delight they didn’t hesitate in inviting him over do some mothing.

Robert returned home his eyes bright with passion for the untamed and unspoiled beauty of the place. Brimming with excitement he said ‘It’s quite extraordinary. You stand in the farm and look out over the surrounding countryside with all those neatly clipped hedges and bright green fields and just know…’

‘Hang on, hang on’ I said ‘Maybe you shouldn’t class it as a farm, should you? I mean it hasn’t actually produced food in an age, has it? Isn’t it an area, a wildlife haven. Extraordinary, yes, but a farm?’

As often happens in our own feisty, ardent relationship a discussion was soon raging about, as Robert will have it, the semantics of the definition of farm…

A farm is the basic unit in agriculture. It is a section of land devoted to the production and management of food, either produce or livestock.
So says Wikipeidia and the Oxford dictionary.

‘Uh!’ poofs Robert ‘That is such outdated thinking’ and dismisses it out of hand.

With us this is an old, well worn and often revisited spat. Robert believes, fervently, that not all farms – land - have to be managed mainly for food. Some of it, just a small proportion should be managed for nature – marginal farms like ours and Jim and Mary’s. We are pretty refined and adept at this dialogue now, but still it manages to get our blood boiling, turns us red in the face, gasping and choking at the heinous atrocities the other is mouthing. Yet we are basically of the same mind and thought about most things. We cycle tandem ninety percent of the time.

Why am I at odds with this? Why do I feel it’s slightly immoral? Why do I feel it’s a luxury to be the custodian of a farm (as that’s what we are) and manage it primarily for wildlife? Running through me is a twist of tough chewed fibre – possibly a remnant of my bog Irish ancestry or strands of my Scottish heritage. Whatever, this part of me feels vaguely uncomfortable - almost guilty. To me, as guardian of a farm, I have a sense of duty, an obligation, to try to grow the best quality produce I can without compromise to my stock, the wildlife or the landscape. Can I achieve the balance I strive for? Robert thinks not. He believes I do compromise nature…and due to the demands of my livestock I’m unable to allow wildlife the unfettered freedom it requires; nor am I able to produce enough food on these marginal soils to render the farm economically viable. I’m falling between two stools. He has a point.

urban countryside?

I’ve just read an article in the CPRE’s spring edition of Countryside Voice by self-confessed city lover, Robert Elms, who can’t stand the ‘the dreary predictability of muddy little England’. Compared to ‘the buzz, thrill and noisy creative glory of a city’ to him the countryside is ‘a depressing rejection of all that in favour of safe, samey conformity’. And I find myself nodding in partial agreement. Too much of England has become over-sanitised, too safe, too uniform.
Often when Robert (husband) and I return to visit old walking haunts we are surprised to find how much they have changed. Gone are the haphazard pastures and meadows filled with a riot of dandelions and daisies. No more are there crumbling stone or earth banks, gaps stuffed with old bedsprings and handy corrugated iron. Gone is the decrepit rusty fencing tied up with fading fibrous pieces of bailer twine to the nearest gnarled stump of hedgerow bush. Gone too is the exhilarating feeling of a remote and wild place. In its place we find acre after acre of bottle-green nitrogen ryegrass, geometrically divided by straight, neatly trimmed hedges bounded by bright tight squeaky clean fencing. Smart tanalised styles, each with neat dog gate and sporting a brand new painted signpost. Barn conversions all following the same brown-window syndrome

I feel angry, upset and cheated. But, if I’m honest, I can remember thinking once that all that broken decay was a sign of shoddy farming! Okay, so our rush-infested fields and pastures are either a waterlogged, sink-sucking morass or an ankle-breaking, knee-twisting concrete with nothing inbetween, and they are exacting and unproductive, but we are blessed with a farm that has character. It is totally individual and exciting. So we resolve to leave that old dung-spreader where it was in the field corner, not to make any more hedgerows redundant through fencing them, to tolerate those thickets of brambles springing out here and there and to leave that muddy gateway where the house martins collect the mud for their nests.

Would Mr Elms, I wonder, find this countryside - wild, unkempt, unpredictable - a more interesting exchange for his culturally exciting, glorious buzzy urbanity? Or would he still feel all the countryside has to offer is various forms of soil?

to read the whole article see May edition of Devon Today

bluetongue’s winter warmer

Now here’s a thing. I had a fit of the giggles. Actually it was probably a touch of mini-hysteria; the uncontrolled, raucous, thigh-slapping, tears-pouring-down-face kind, coloured by total disbelief. Wishful thinking there – what I would hope to be total disbelief.

In this week’s New Scientist under the heading ‘Bluetongue’s Winter Warmer‘ we were told about the distinct possibility of bluetongue virus overwintering in the unborn calf cosseted and protected by the cosy bubble of bovine uterine warmth.

And as those hungry veracious biting midges reappear (the end of the non-vector period was the 15th March) these bonny babies would become a delicious fresh source of the bluetounge virus. Hey-presto! Yup, you have it in one.

Pirbright suggest there should be additional controls targeted at newborn animals. Now, me-wonders, what on earth have they in mind? No vaccine around yet. Could only be one other thing.

And if that’s not sinister enough – listen to this…the only bluetongue virus ever seen to cross the placenta of infected mothers to infect their foetuses was a laboratory-adapted strain used in experiments with sheep in the 70s.

Ring any bells? Shades of last summer’s FMD fiasco? Afterall the great and the good have been wondering how the BTV8 strain gained such an unshakable foothold in northern Europe.

Maybe they now have their answer.

What do I hope for the future of farming?

What I hope for is probably irrelevant. Our countryside will change hugely in the coming years. Since the Second World War farming and countryside has been in a constant state of flux due to changing food demands and growing new crops. Farming has never been stable; but now more than ever farming has to alter to meet the demands of a planet in crisis.

What can we expect? Fields of tree planting for carbon storage; hectares of elephant grass and acres of withies to fuel power stations; drought resistant crops –sunflowers perhaps; less methane belching grazing animals and huge areas of cereals for human, rather than animal, consumption. We will become more and more conscious of energy (wind farms, solar power), food miles and food security (growing our own), and national biosecurity.

Whenever an industry undergoes massive transformation it’s hard for those involved. Change is frightening and we are not good at accepting it. But I do feel that there are huge opportunities to be had for people with sight, vocation and enthusiasm, but most of all innovation. After all we have to eat to survive. The countryside is changing and I for one will mourn it. I love the quintessential Englishness of our pastoral idle - our patchwork of fields; hedges, trees, woodlands and moorlands; our grazing animals. But preserving that in aspic is no longer something we or the planet can afford: farming and the landscape either change dramatically or we face extinction. The trick will be to guide the change in ways that create beauty and inspiration, that feed our souls as well as our bellies.

endangered?

What would you do for farming if you were government?

This was one of the questions I was asked when being interviewed the other day. A ribbon of quicksilver thoughts free-fell through my brain – global economies, EU legislation, free-trade, climate change, energy, air-miles? Where would I make a change, what would have an effect? I was about to open my mouth with something along the lines that the topic was far too involved and deserved discussion in its own right, when I heard myself say – Education. Simplest, cheapest and most effective. Educate all our children from an early age about food, farming, countryside and the environment, locally, nationally and internationally. Integrated fully into the curricula of subjects already taught, future generations would come to understand the value of quality food (so they are prepared to pay the extra to buy it and farmers can earn a decent crust), and about the way food and the environment and our cultural heritage are inseparable. So, the current Year of Food and Farming is on entirely the right lines, but it needs to be continued, become mainstream. Ultimately, farming depends upon all of us as consumers, and this is where government should show real leadership, not through passing yet more laws but through helping us to make informed choices.

I’m tired. Sand-grainy, blink-wet eyes; fogwebbed clouds obscuring any coherent thought process and bumbled lips, ones that refuse to form letters, words, sentences and end up vacantly tuttering.

Yesterday was my annual Soil Association Inspection and audit. I hate it.

Annual questionnaire-accounts-invoicescorrelatingincomingsoutgoings; marketingdetails-labelexamples-derogations-restrictedpractices; croppingdetails-rotation-forage-harvest-grazing; manuremanagement-source-treatment-inputs-pestcontrol-declarations; livestockmanagementplan-movementrecords-grazingrecords-anualfeedingrecords-feedpurchaserecords-vet.treatmentrecords- vet.purchaserecords-recordsofkeepingrecords-noncompliance-crosscompliance-compliance and…oh yes, one concussed, stressed farmer!

However much I uphold the need to scrutinise all licensees to ensure they are farming and producing food to organic standards as stipulated by EU law, it is, nevertheless, a daunting task to collect, collate and present all relevant information. Because of this it’s one of those jobs destined to the back-burner until that looming deadline is kicking you in the butt, has invade all your avoidance tactics and is infiltrating your dreams!

I’ve farmed using organic principles for years and as organic farming has grown in popularity I’ve seen how the Soil Association has had to adapt and change with the pressure of growth and new legislation. One of the things I’ve found ‘challenging’ (not to put too finer point on it) about the annual inspections is the choice of some inspectors.

I’m passionate; passionate about the way I farm, passionate about the extraordinary beauty and diversity of the British countyside and the people that live there; passionate about keeping stock happy healthy and as naturally as possible; passionate about producing the best food I can. But I make mistakes and I’m certainly not infallible. Nevertheless I strongly object to inspectors, with little practical farming experience, insinuating I’m trying to cheat, to hide a non-compliance or I’m guilty of gross misconduct until proven innocent (after all, what is the point?). I wait with trepidation to see who has been sent to ‘do’ me.

But yesterday I was pleasantly surprised. I had a human! Yes, a normal, speaking, smiling, courteous person that was not only knowledgeable about organic farming but was an organic farmer to boot. He was thorough, but fair, interested yet professional. A far cry from the zealous mini-hitler I was expecting. And what a difference it made to a day that is long and demanding, especially when suffering from concussion.

Relaxed, relived and sleepy, I checked the cows before flopping into bed. Wildcat had started calving. So it was up at 2am and again at 3.30am to check her conscious of Jennifer’s long labour. Happily everything was fine and she had a very lively, bonny calf. Today I had to attend an assessment of my mother’s care plan and tomorrow I’m being interviewed for an article. So it’s off to bed to dream sweetly and regain some control of my senses before the morning. Fingers crossed there are no middle of the night calvings tonight.

bluetongue 2

My fears have been confirmed. We are in the bluetongue surveillance zone. I arrived home this evening checked the answer phone and there was the man from DEFRA with his recorded message – in a dead-pan voice he stated ‘some, part, or all of my holding now came within the bluetongue surveillance zone and…’

Below is an excerpt from an email sent to me by a fellow farmer in Norfolk. I won’t add anything. The words tell their own story - poignant and thought provoking.

‘Our stock are our livelihood, such as it is, we run an organic beef suckler herd and 700 laying hens, and work long hours trying to make a living, but that’s life: farmings’ shit at the moment, but what else do we do?’

Last year they were hit by restrictions from both FMD and Avian flu (twice), having just, in the very nick of time, saved their entire suckler herd from drowning during the floods they heard the news about bluetounge. In her own words…

‘Just after that Bluetongue was detected, and we thought Now What!!? how do we deal with this? what are the symptoms? is it contagious? does it cross species? and the media had a field day; yet again; (They virtually camped in the area during the first Avian Flu outbreak- 9 miles from us) and there was no clear information, later on the farmers that had cows with the disease said there were few symptoms to tell they were affected, but since then our vet has been trying to keep abreast of the disease, and how it will affect cows in the future, and it seems as though some of the affects of the disease is to cause infertility in some and may cause calves to be born with abnormalities. I can only liken that to thalidomide in pregnant women. Follow that up again with Liver Fluke and a blasted fox getting my five 12 week old chicks from off the lawn, and traumatising their mother half to death. (she spent hours in the pond to avoid getting caught), and one might wonder why we carry on!’

She ends…

‘Yes, you bet we’re worried, but we can’t allow it to take over our lives. We just take heart that life here, at the moment, goes on in the age old tradition, and we are thankful that at least this year we have some beautiful calves to see bounding and gambolling about, and we will worry when the time comes (and hopefully it won’t). I’ve got enough grey hairs, and F has none, he has pulled all his out over the years!!’

So how will farms and good, caring people like this cope? Beef animal are already making a loss of £139 per animal. Not to mention the heartache caused from tending sick and dying stock. We will loose those very farms and farmers that are trying their best to produce high quality food from healthy, happy, animals whilst caring as best they can for the environment.

I have a wild passion for the north Devon and adjacent Cornish coast. I farmed, twenty years or so ago, on a bleak windswept moor overlooking Lundy and the Atlantic. During this time the boys (my sons) and I explored every wind-blasted ridge, each hidden, veiled, greenly-secret valley; walked along peregrine-lifting cliff tops and discovered unknown coves. We collected driftwood from winter storms, and, against a backdrop of wild seas and towering rock faces, would make a fire and cook sausages - sizzling, spitting hot - and bake, deep in the glowing ashes, black charcoal-crisp potatoes. Never, ever, will food taste better than it did then. We, all of us, nurture a hunger, a need for the raw, shattered beauty of the place. Read the rest of this entry »

midges flying over hanaborough moor 7th february 2008

Bluetongue. Twenty-four different BT strains identified so far each needing a strain-specific vaccine. This disease is expected to become endemic in Britain. There will be no compensation. Vaccination will be the only way of protecting livestock. Our native and indigenous breeds of cattle and sheep will be more susceptible to the disease having never encountered it before.

Bluetongue. The BTV-8 strain is now affecting the Eastern and South-eastern counties of the UK with the surveillance zone having been extended into some parts of Dorset. DEFRA are expecting different strains of the disease to arrive along the South West coast from France this spring and spread northwards.
In the UK midges have not been killed off during the mild winter and are already flying. They travel two kilometres a day in normal weather conditions and much further in strong headwinds. It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out how long it will take to reach Devon.

Bluetongue. It is hoped, according to DEFRA, there will be enough BTV-8 vaccine ready to carry out vaccination in the South East during May. There is no indication of a more comprehensive vaccination programme this year, next year or ever. The costs of developing vaccines for the 24 various strains and for implementing a countrywide vaccination programme will be staggering. Will DEFRA or the government be willing to help with the costs? I’m not so sure.

I’m shit scared and worried. It seems extraordinary to me that some people appear to be acting as if it’s a mild inconvenience. This disease is potentially devastating; especially to an already beleaguered livestock industry. And I don’t know if I have the heart or energy left to cope with a farm of sick and dying animals. This could be the death-knoll for Locks Park Farm.

Twinkling fairies? Or the harbinger of devastation?

I’m sitting thirty six thousand feet above the Atlantic. Yes, you’ve guessed I’m in a plane. A rather cramped one.
You may remember that in my Jemima Calves post I mentioned that we were going away, hence my relief Jemima had calved. So here I am, gone and many thousands of miles away from Locks Park Farm. Read the rest of this entry »

Jane has asked for my opinions on set-aside. So here goes, not, I’m afraid, a terribly sexy subject!

Set-aside was originally put in place in the early nineties as a production control measure to take around 10% of arable land out of cropping; it was not an environmental scheme. I can remember the huge outcry from the farming community as some of England’s good arable land lay fallow. Apart from letting the land revert there were specific things you could and could not do to manage the land; these requirements changed over the years. Back at the beginning, for example, you could grow fodder legumes (lucerne, vetches and clovers) and graze at certain times with goats, camilids and horses (hence the exorbitant prices alpacas and lamas commanded back then and the start of the huge surge into horsiculture). These things stick in my mind as I was running a milking herd of goats that benefited from a neighbour’s lucerne hay and some herb-rich grazing. There was some talk of environmental opportunities missed, but the increases is farmland birds and rare arable plants that followed was incidental, not a planned benefit. Read the rest of this entry »

He’s bonny, bright and doing just fine. Despite his mum being a little over excited at his first clumsy movements, they have bonded well and Jemima is turning into an adoring, gentle mother. Read the rest of this entry »

farming has devastated the environment?

‘And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’ (the Bible Genesis 1:28).

Shouldn’t it be so? Shouldn’t the earth be used to feed the starving in any way she can? A recipe for global disaster! We need the Earth’s diverse and complex ecosystems to support life, give as the oxygen we breathe. Don’t we need it too to inspire us and bring us wonder? Read the rest of this entry »