The Story of a young mans efforts to become a farmer without the aid of inheritance!
After the events of the last six months, supporting each other we returned to work. Both my wife and I immersed ourselves into our work to hide from the pain of the past. It was unsurprising that it took a further two years before our next child was conceived. We were assured as much as they could, that everything would be ok this time. Even so worries continued that nature would be kinder this time.
We had begun to pay more attention to the food we were eating and more importantly where it was coming from.
I have always enjoyed cooking ever since I moved out from home and to London. My mother would never let me into the kitchen when I lived at home. She still struggles to keep me out, but now she doesn't always succeed.
Consequently when I left home I had never cooked a meal. However being an engineer I could follow instructions. So armed with a chinese cookery book, given to me by my sister, I headed to London. Thus started a love affair with food.
I find it very satisfying to make something. Anything, I'm just a show off. It gives me great pride to say "I made that!"
And so it was with food. When I met the present good lady wife, I invited her back to my place for dinner. So the chinese cook book came in very handy. You know what they say about the way to a mans heart. Guys, it works just as well with the ladies. We both enjoy food and in particular trying different cuisine. I find cooking both easy and a joy.
Love them or loath them, I have to say that TV Chefs gave me the inspiration to try different styles of cooking and the confidence to use different techniques.
Chefs do, on the whole, promote British Food and Agriculture. Rick Stein in particular with his food heroes series. It did give me great ideas to look for specific produce. Chefs want the best, freshest produce. That's when it tastes the best. Which invariably means local produce.
I've never been one for ready meals. I can generally knock something up faster than a microwave meal takes to cook. I'm certainly faster than the local take-away by the time they deliver it.
I'm afraid though, Delia has lost her way recently. I've got her original book, a thick tome, with every type of recipe imaginable. Between that and Pru Leith's cookery bible I've learn't to make most things. Delia's last series though was the equivalent of the "let's be avin ya" incident at Carrow Road, when she started ranting at all those poor Norwich City fans. As if they hadn't enough to be sorry for.........
What was the point of teaching people to cook [series] if you are going to say; "remember how we cooked those great tasting dishes, well forget all that. Just crack open a tin of this highly processed food with heaps of preservatives, so it can sit in your cupboard for weeks. It's also got your Recommeded Daily Allowance of salt to put back the flavour lost during processing." It goes back to my previous blog in this series, about education being the key.
Now look what you've done, you've got me ranting again. Sorry I digress.
During this pregnancy my wife had extra scans and tests at the hospital. Everyone assured us that everything looked ok. Still, that didn't stop nine months of worry.
I picked up my copy of Farmers Weekly this morning to read that MP Jim Paice had told the Games Fair 2008 that:
“I want everyone at the Game Fair with TB-infected badgers on their land to take photos of them,” he told delegates at a conference discussing agricultural policy.
“There is nothing more repulsive than seeing a badger with TB. They suffer immensely.
“If we can bring this to the public’s attention, we can change their minds about a badger cull.”
He should read this blog more often. I wrote exactly that in a blog on the 22nd June this year in a piece entitled " TB, Total Badgers or Total Bullocks."
http://www.fwi.co.uk/community/blogs/viewfromtheotherside/archive/2008/06/15/tb-total-badgers-or-total-bullocks.aspx
It just goes to show that once again FWi Space is ahead of the game. So for the latest opinion before it becomes policy, keep reading these pages. It's our industry lets make our voice heard.
The story of a young mans efforts to become a farmer withou the aid of inheritance!
Whilst Foot & Mouth ravaged the British Countryside, I kept in close telephone contact with my uncle. We daren't visit nor did they want us too for fear of bringing F&M onto their farm. It came close to the farm, but thank god did not infect their herd. They were the lucky ones.
It was only afterwards that I really understood the true losses that those with cloven hooved animals suffered. The loss of a lifetimes work. Building those herds and flocks. What have those farmers left. For those who were over forty and taken 20 years to breed that herd or flock to perfection, they would have to start again. They would only just get to were they where when Foot & Mouth struck when they should have been taking life a little easier and enjoying the fruits of their labours.
However, as Foot and Mouth changed so many lives we had our own life changing moment. After a six month battle for life our son died in our arms at Great Ormond Street Hospital. God Bless Him.
It's something I wouldn't wish on anyone, but if you ever need Great Ormond Street Hospital It's a fantastic place. Not only the staff but the patients too. So many youngsters seriously ill but so few tainted by adult meloncoly. An inspiration to us all.
Whilst we had all this time in hospital to think, we had had some great support from the nursing staff that "*** is what nature intended" and our son needed the best. Something our local hospital had tried to prevent.
All this made me seriously wonder about what we eat and how we live our lives.
We did make a lot of our own food from scratch but we were eating a lot of take-aways and using cheaper basic ingredients. Possibly produced by intense farming practices, quite likely from outside the UK.
Added to that was the fact that I took part in a drugs trial as a child. No. Not the usual teenage drugs. You cynics. As a teenager I had severe acne which at the time was very unpleasant to say the least. It also wasn't a great turn on for the girls either.
At 14 I ws asked if I wantd to keep this painful almost disfiguring condition or take this new wonder drug that would 'Dry Up' my skin. Not a particularly difficult decisionfor a young testosterone filled man trying desperatly to attract the opposite sex.
However the drugs had a touch of the Ronseal's about it. "It did exactly what it said on the tin." It dried up my sin. Permanently. They reduced the dose by 50% after the trial. Too late for me. I now have a knock on condition which I will have to live with for the rest of my life. So as you can see this has made me very wary of drugs companies.
I 'm not totally against GM. I do think that we are right to explore science but we should not rush in to the magical cure. Be wary. Science could solve the problems of ensuing food shortages. But one wrong move could make the problem 100 times worse.
We need to be sure that once we have unleashed science on to the world that we know what the consequences will be.
What I learn't in that hospital whilst trying to do the best for my son was that when you use science to combat one thing you usually need two more things to counter the consequences of the decision you have just made.
We need science. Science should not rule the world though. Education should do that. Be honest and teach the world the possible consequences of new science.
After our son died we went away, back to North Yorkshire to grieve in peace and to gather our thoughts and get ready to face the world again. The pires still burned and the countryside was earily quiet. This was the first chance we had had to witness the impact of Foot & Mouth first hand.
It was awful. Farming at that time was enticing nobody..
The story of a young mans efforts to become a farmer without the aid of inheritance!
We ended the last blog with me proposing to the lady that I loved.
Would the beautiful countryside persuade her? The sound of sheep bleating nearby baa sweet nothings in her ear? Would the roaring fire of the Kings Head in February melt her heart? Or just my charm and enviable wit?
I'm not sure which it was? I didn't ask either, I didn't want to shatter the illusion, I was happy.
The lady from Del Monte, she said Yes.
So ever the practical person the next question was "Did she want to get married straight away or find somewhere to live and buy a house?"
So we bought a house. We should have bought a small farm but we didn't think of it then. We probably would have been able to afford it then as well.
We then started to save for our Wedding. I was determined it was going to be a fabulous day, but that we weren't going to pay for it until our silver wedding anniversary.
Before you ask, no I'm not Scots or a Yorkshireman. But you can see the farming traits can't you!
We had a wonderful day. Glorious sunshine, fabulous family and delightful friends helped us celebrate. It was a truly great day but it went ever so fast.
We had a London Red Bus to ferry guests from their hotel to the church and then onto the reception. Very eco-friendly for the late nineties. That's not why we did it though! No. We didn't want the guests holding up the wedding getting lost on the wrong side of the dual carriageway! However the wife's cousin managed to go to the wrong golf club (15 miles away) for the reception despite having lived in the area for years. She enjoyed the desert though. The wedding didn't cost us the earth; it did cost my father-in-law a bit though.
Anyway, we were both working in media and were into the daily grind of commuting and paying off the mortgage.
For those of you from the countryside, uninitiated in the joys of London Tube and Train commuting, be grateful of your one bus an hour. Because of its lack of frequency nobody wants to use that one Bus. Which means if it coincides with you're Need to take a journey by public transport at least you get a seat...
If train drivers had to comply with the "Transport of Animals" legislature the country would grind to a halt. That's another blog though, I digress.
No, no, no don't start having a go at me. I can feel you're seethings through the web page. Have you not worked out I like irony yet. See, another farming trait.
We both learn't Spanish and were very much into Spain. Taking our holidays off the beaten tourists track and improving our language. On our Honeymoon we arrived in a mountain village of southern Spain at 10pm, just after a terrific thunderstorm. We found the café where we were to collect the keys was closed. Nobody spoke English.
I had to use my best Spanish to get us a bed for the night. Mobile phones didn't work in the village. But because I had at least made an attempt with my language the locals couldn't have been more helpful. One lady allowed me to use her telephone to call the caretaker to bring us another set of keys. By the following morning everyone in the village knew who we were. Minor celebrities.
We even thought of buying somewhere out there.
Twelve months after we had got married came the inevitable pitter-patter of tiny feet. A wonderful time, joyous.
Shortly followed by the disaster of Foot & Mouth. We didn't have time to worry about Foot & Mouth though. Our child was seriously ill!
The story of a young mans efforts to become a farmer without the aid of inheritance!
I've always been interested in farming. No sorry, I'll start again.
I've always been obsessed with farming.
Only as a child I was more fascinated with it all. The great outdoors, the animals, the seasons and the machinery all had me captivated. Accurate scale models by 'Britains' helped. I used to run a 250 acre scale farm in my bedroom.
Regular visits to my uncle's farm also stoked the fire.
Back when I was a child his farm was 360 acres of Limousin Beef Suckler and Sheep.
My Uncle was one of the first to run Limousin cattle when they were first imported into this country. I didn't quite understand then. I just remember seeing these magnificent red cattle.
At the age of 16 I'd had enough of education. I wasn't very good at it and it wasn't very good to me. I had my heart set on farming when I left school but my uncle's farm wasn't big enough to employ me. If he had it would only have been short term as I had a cousin ten years my junior. Anyway discussions didn't get that far. My father suggested farming wasn't a very secure or profitable business to go into. That was that.
I was disappointed at the time. He persuaded me to get a real job, a skill, an apprenticeship.
So I did. I became an electrician specializing in High Voltage and industrial and commercial sites. So having managed to leave school at 16 I started work and went straight back to college for two years with the odd bit of on the job training. The careers advisers never quite explained that bit well enough I thought.
However, I found education a bit more exciting this time. I'm a practical guy, english literature never really engaged me. Math's was completely different. I could do that. Which was just as well because after my two years basic college education I then carried on to engineer level (Hnc.)
It was good fun and six year's before I caught the Bright Light's and Money of London.
I'd almost forgotten about farming. I was enjoying the money in my pocket. And after twelve months in London I found another distraction. A woman.
I have to admit I had discovered women some years before. Strangely though this one seemed interested in me. I couldn't seem to shake her.
After a short while we became fed up of commuting across London to spend time together. So we rented a terraced house in the east of London. That didn't work either; she still wanted to be with me. So I took her away to the Yorkshire Dales and proposed.
What was the answer? Watch this space all will be revealed.
I'm writing this from the Nelson Mandela at 90 Concert here in Hyde Park. Having just seen Nelson Mandela on stage handing the baton on to others to fight oppression and REAL human rights abuses.
He is one of the greatest men of our generation. His Supporters created a sea change of opinion throughout the world. Nelson Mandela had the courage of his convictions to stand up for what he believed was right. I know for sure I couldn't have indured half of what Nelson Mandela did in jail. Let alone go on to run the country once having been released from jail.
Morgan Tsvangirai could do the same if he wasn't so afraid of being killed rather than just to be thrown in Jail as Nelson Mandela was.
Things like this do put our own trouble with Defra and the RPA in perspective. Although it sometimes seems like it might take just as long to get our point understood.
The Concert has just finished with a Queen medley and of course "Free Nelson Mandela." Fantastic!!
The Government has announced it's policy for Renewable Energy. The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has outlinned the Governments targets for Renewable Energy of 15% by 2020.
However, as was pointed out on the BBC News Channel, Gordon Brown arrived in his Priministerial Jaguar, that doesn't exactly have the highest of Green Credentials.
With Oil at $130 a barrel the UK economy is in great danger. Agriculture has a large part of it's inputs are fossil fuel based. There has to be a reduction in the dependency on OIl. Low Carbon Energy has to come to the fore. According to Gordon Brown, Britain could have a million people employed in environmental jobs in the next few years.
He also announced that all new homes must zero carbon by 2016 and commercial premises by 2019. Will this have an impact on Agricultural buildings?
There will be 3000 offshore wind turbines by 2020
Waste and Biomass energy is to be promoted, with barriers to access to the National Grid, so that surplus energy can be sold, to be reduced.
There will be incentives to install Low Carbon Energy Schemes. These will be announced at a later date. Will Defra utilise more of the National Modulation as the incentives for Low Carbon Energy?
The planning system is also to change so that renewable energy schemes are easier implement. Less of the NIMBYism slowing progress.
However, The devil is always in the detail and how it works at a local level. The government wants to spend the next 2 years talking about these green plans. Surely we need to start immediately investing in renewable energy. Will the new technology be cost effective to install. I'm sure that it will very shortly, especially if the oil price keeps rising at current levels.
Reported recently in Farmers Weekly a whole Herd of 83 Healthy Pedigree Guernsey cattle were slaughtered. They were all killed because of ONE reactor following skin tests, against 88 positives, (All Clear) for the gamma-interferon blood test.
This was just a waste of effort. Not to say soul destroying for the farmer whose lifes work it was. It seems to me a total waste.
Maybe someone can help me out here? Do Badgers carry TB but are not infected themselves? Has there been any clinical studies into the effects of TB on the Badgers themselves?
Most people can console themselves to farming practices so long as the animals have been treated well and had a good life. I'm in no way suggesting that these cattle did not have a good life, I am questioning whether they were killed unnecessarily? Most of Joe Public would not be happy with that.
The Badger Trust has worked it to their advantage. Engaged in a publicity campaign to get Joe Public on their side. British Agriculture has yet again shyed away from publicity instead of using it to encourage the outcome it needs.
DEFRA has put off the cull of badgers time and again. Whilst it hasn't admitted as much it has all but said that "public outrage would cost them votes." The government cannot afford the loss of votes from any quarter at the moment. It's time to make an advantage.
The public will be no less appalled at the needless slaughter of cattle that fail an unproven test. We cannot campaign against the slaughter of cattle that do carry the disease, but we must campaign for an even handed approach to erradicate this disease which costs the industry and the taxpayer alike. It is time to eradicate this disease and protect farming and wildlife.
There are plenty of younger people out there who'd like to train to farm, but they can't afford to.
The invitation has been sent out by UK Agriculture plc but is there anyone there to welcome you in?
To find out more, read Talking Point in this weeks (30th May 2008) hard copy Farmers Weekly.
So Major fuel protests in Wales and the South East today. Should the Famers be joining in? Or are we happy we've been getting our farmgate costs rises?
Fuel has nearly doubled in the last 12 months, whether it's domestic fuel or Red Diesel.
So should the government have abandoned the biofuel policy? Or should it press ahead as the USA is?
The UK government finances are in a mess. It needs as much money into the treasury as it can. Fuel is easy money. However if these protests escalate to blockades of fuel depots what next for Gordon Brown?
Which is Cheaper for UK plc High inflation or High fuel costs?
Lowering the fuel duty could help the inflation figures but it won't last long with the price of fuel spirraling upwards.
Would an "Essential Users Rebate", help as some lorry drivers are calling for?
The Freight Transport Association (fta) is calling for a duty reduction of 25p/litre to bring us in line with the rest of Europe.
Of course the cost of fuel rise hits food twice, in Agriculture and the Transportation of the Food for processing and the Shops.
Can anything be done?
What do you think should happen?
Does Alistair Darling's letter to the other EU finance ministers, suggesting the scrapping of the CAP, show that the government does not care about Agriculture in the UK? Even more worrying, does it show a distinct lack of understand of public perceptions and the UK Economy?
The Government seems only to care about the inflation figures and how it will reflect on them. Do you see this theme of self-preservation from my last Blog, again?
But just because farmers are making a little profit, will the removal of Farm Subsidies help the "Inflation Figures?" Not for this recession, that's for sure.
In fact it will cause inflation to rise in the short term with no prospect of it coming back down again. More small farms going out of business. Large farms getting bigger. Fewer suppliers in the UK!
The current situation of high food prices is not a result of greedy farmers pushing up farmgate prices because supply is low and demand is high with world food. In fact its more about large corporations protecting profit margins for shareholders than value for money for the consumer.
Alistair Darling is worried about the impact of food price rises upon inflation. I hope he used his food summit on Thursday (22nd May) to talk to the Supermarkets about distributing a more proportionate part of their profit to the farmers and ensuring they have a sustainable future. Then we might be able to discuss the lowering of CAP subsidy as the EU itself is planning.
So what are Ministers doing? Are they on a wrecking spree? Are they out to destroy the UK farmers the way that Maggie did with the Miners?
If the CAP is dropped suddenly, food prices are guaranteed to increase substantialy. UK farmers will rightly put up the farmgate price, to replace the income lost, or go out of business. If it's the latter suppliers will have to purchase on the world market and we all know there is less food to go around which will drive prices higher still.
I would suggest that if there is to be a recession it is going to hit hard. The government does not want food inflation to impact on the countries economy and is happy for Food to be imported at the cheapest price.
Except that cannot happen. World food is already in short supply. Import price will not stay low for long. So the future still looks rosy for British Agriculture.
UK Agriculture can help the UK and World economies if it's given the helping hand not the Boot of the British Government.
Agriculture looks to be in a rosy position at the moment! Milk price is up. Beef price is up. Lamb prices are recovering. Pigs are still struggling but a continued marketing campaign should see that improve.
Agriculture looks to be in a rosy position at the moment! Milk price is up. Beef price is up. Lamb prices are recovering. Pigs are still struggling but a continued marketing campaign should see that improve.
But we still hear cries the industry will collapse unless farm gate prices rise further.
Oh, I almost forgot, grain prices are double this time last year.
Unfortunately that's what has taken the shine from the livestock industry price rises over the last twelve months.
The thing is, Joe Public has really not complained about the price rises yet. The thing is, fuel has also nearly doubled over the last year. The price rise of food pales into obscurity by comparison.
However when inflation starts to filter through in the next 6 months, (already the Retail Prices Index has just been announced this week at 3%,) the people will really start to notice. Partly because the press will start to analyze why inflation is rising. If house prices continue to fall we just need a few job loses in construction and marketing and we will be deep into recession. The Government wants to keep a lid on inflation and Gordon has promised to do so. It will be his downfall.
All these land sales at ridiculous prices will soon hit home, if not sink a few businesses. Profitability in British Agriculture is based on premium products. In a recession premium brands are the first to be dropped by the consumer. Especially when the supermarkets wants to keep its profits up. Will they turn to high turnover and feet through the door, and not to promote the premium product line that has the most margin. Only time will tell. In a recession it's about self-preservation.
Don't think that the supermarkets haven't thought about this. Sorry am I being too cynical. Isn't that why they are being helpful to producers at the moment?
Alright they have to be helpful at the moment because the competition commission is breathing down their necks. If they have the largest range of products in store this gives them the largest percentage of all food shopping taking place within the supermarkets. Then when it comes to recession they control the entire food market and can promote or drop any product they like.
If it's a premium product on contract through the supermarket you're highly unlikely to have another outlet to sell your product.
Somebody's bitter experience led to the phrase "Don't put all you're eggs in one basket."
That's not just aimed at the free-range poultry producers!!