David's Digest

What a difference a few days make! There I was last week complaining about the cold, slow spring. And suddenly this week everything has changed. The land dried out, temperatures began to rise and autumn drilled crops started to turn green. So, with sun on our backs, on Wednesday we started drilling sugar beet.

By tonight (Friday) with luck we should have three quarters of our acreage in. If the forecast is right we won't complete the job because it should rain tomorrow. But even if the last field is delayed until next week some light rain should ensure those in the ground germinate evenly.

Seed beds have been achieved in one pass after the frosts of the winter meaning that the land has not been compacted and that soft soil covers the seed. All too often if we don't get a frost tilth some seeds on our heavier fields end up being covered by little clods and having to be rolled to protect them from the weather, mice and skylarks. Not this year.

In other words we are off to a good start with spring work. Soil temperatures are still a little cold for the peas that we want to drill next so we won't be in too much of a hurry. All we need now is continued warm weather with half an inch of rain every weekend. Then, despite inadequate prices for most arable crops, we will begin to enjoy farming again.

Three weeks ago I complained about the cold weather and how it was holding back autumn drilled cereals. I then went off to South America to look at farming and have just returned. I was optimistic that this farm would look a lot greener when I got back.

Well, it doesn't. And I am disappointed. I really thought temperatures would have perked up while I was away. But apparently it was wet and cold for the first half of my absence and dry and cold for the rest. Land was only just dry enough to start top dressing as I landed back at Heathrow a couple of days ago.

One of the reasons I often choose to go away at this time of year is in search of better weather. As it happens we had floods in Argentina and an earthquake in Chile. But it was warmer than the UK and by the time we reached Patagonia the sun shone every day. Further north in central Chile (not too far from the quake) farmers were combining wheat.

So, it was a nasty shock when I drove round the farm yesterday to find winter wheat still looking brown and frost damaged and showing little sign of spring growth. By mid March they should look a lot better. Ours certainly won't "hide a hare" by the end of the month. Spring drilling looks some days away, not least because the soil is so cold. And the period during which crops can grow into profit is reducing by the day.

I think I'd rather be in South America.

I've had enough of cold and snow for this winter. In a few days time I'm off to Argentina and Chile to look at farming there - and to soak up a bit of sun, I hope.

Before going I thought I had better take a close look at our autumn drilled wheats. Before winter set in they all looked pretty good; green and tillering with a respectable plant stand on every field. Since the frost and snow they've gone brown and in some fields as you drive along potholed roads beside them, almost disappeared.

On closer inspection the plants are still there. But the frosts have caused the land to lift and even almost masked the later drillings. I was reminded, when I looked at them, of a trip I made to France several years ago to look at a similar phenomenon. There, on light land around Rheims after very severe frosts, winter barley had been torn from its roots by frost heave caused by the extreme cold and whole fields had been killed. It was a tragic sight.

Fortunately, our crops don't appear to be as seriously affected. The little brown leaves and the roots beneath seem to be intact. What we need now is some warmer temperatures, a nice steady rain to pat the soil down, and an early application of nitrogen. I shall leave a note to that effect before I leave. And I fully expect those crops to look very much better when I get back.

I've been travelling around Britain most of the week speaking at a series of farmers meetings. So my knowledge of what's been happening on my home patch has been gleaned from news bulletins and the views of farmers I've met along the way.

Suffice to say that farmers in Lincolnshire, whose contracts to grow vining peas appear safe at the moment, were sounding sympathetic to the plight of the 180 growers in Norfolk and Suffolk who have just lost theirs. But behind their sympathy they were clearly concerned that if Birds Eye can close one factory overnight they can close others in the same way. "Will we still have contracts next year?" was the unspoken question.

Now that I'm back in Norfolk and a little closer to the scene of the crime I am getting more of the feeling of disgust and let-down felt by longstanding growers who are left with huge and probably unsalelable pea viners, significant acreages of uncropped land that will now have to be planted with a less profitable crop, and the loss of one of the best rotational crops that actually adds fertility to the soil through nitrogenous nodules on the roots taken from the air.

Add that to the fact that the type of land used for pea growing is also ideal potato land and that the market for spuds has gone pear shaped this year and you are coming close to knowing how pea'd off some of my Norfolk neighbours are. And its not just farmers, of course. Hauliers, farm and factory workers and those with whom they spend their wages will also be adversely affected. Will they be compensated? I doubt if anyone yet knows. But I'd be surprised if someone isn't looking at possibilites. It's bad news all round.

Crucial statistics estimated by Defra and on the basis of which the government decides what's to happen to agriculture, it has now been admitted, were more than 30% out when they were issued a couple of months ago.

As Phil Clarke has revealed in his blog of yesterday "How reliable are farm income figures?" actual income from farming during 2009 has now been calculated to be a fall of 6% from the previous year. Last autumn Defra said Total Income from Farming (TIFF) had risen during 2009 by 25%. Now they say their starting point was wrong; that they had underestimated TIFF for 2008 and that was the basis for their discrepancy.

Both Phil (in a blog) and I (in a column in FW) questioned the accuracy of the Defra figures when they were first published. Without having access to the working documents we sensed that the estimates just didn't feel right. But Defra went ahead and published anyway. Now, it seems we were right and Defra was wrong.

So, does no-one at Defra have enough understanding of our industry to have similar instincts? And if they don't, shouldn't they check them out with someone who does? Come to that why can't they get them right to start with?

Why does it matter? Because there will be many in government and out there among consumers who will remember the first figure but may not even see the correction; because government policies may well be based on false information; because this is yet another example of an incompetent administration that should be sent to the knackers yard. 

Why should we believe anything Defra tells us? 

Last weekend, as you may remember, was a bit wet. Indeed the Saturday was said to be the wettest day of the winter here in Norfolk. That was the day we decided to clear up a few cock pheasants before the end of the shooting season.

Needless to say our strong land clung to our rubber boots. It was like walking with four stone weights attached to your feet. This didn't help the shooting and there are still rather more long tailoed birds roaming around the farm than there should be.

At one point in the afternoon I was walking down a farm track where there were deep puddles. I took advantage of the water to try to wash some of the mud off my boots. What I had not expected was that there would be bricks under the surface of the water - the remains of some attempt to repair the road - and I tripped on one.

I fell, like a sack of potatoes, into the puddle around which was thick and sticky mud. By the time I had rolled about a bit to get up I was smothered in mud and my waterproof clothes had demonstrated their limitations. I also cut and bruised my knee on another brick under the water. Some members of the shooting party thought all this was very funny. I found it difficult to agree.

A couple of days later a was eating lunch and suddenly felt a back tooth break off level with my gum. It didn't hurt much but I thought I had better get the root removed. I phoned my dentist and she fitted me in the next day.

I thought she would be able to hoik it out without a problem and perhaps without an injection. How wrong could I be. Three quarters of an hour after I sat in the dentists chair and after much pulling and wriggling accompanied by quite a lot of pain, the root emerged. My dentist held it up in the pliers and said "Its a boy". Once again I did not really see the funny side.

Then two days ago I developed a head cold. My nose streamed, my head ached, I could not breath. And it has since gone onto my throat and chest leaving me unable to speak properly. I suspect I shall loose my voice. It hasn't been a very good week!

I wish I could claim to have been surprised when I read over the weekend that staff at the Rural Payments Agency had been paid almost £2m in bonuses since 2005. I was angry, of course, that a body so consistently inefficient since its inception should have received anything other than severe censure. But the fact that they got extra payments, supposedly on merit as interpreted by government, says more about that government than it does the individuals who benefited.

The Sunday papers were also full of information about even bigger bonuses being paid to bankers. These are the people who we, the taxpayers, at the whim of government and without our permission, were bailed out just moths ago. And now, having not repaid a penny, they are awarding themselves obscene rewards because the economy has taken a modest upturn.

Will that apparent improvement last? Who knows? And if it doesn't will they repay their bonuses? Not on you life. The brass kneck of such people defies belief. Is it any wonder they are vilified by most of us?

I offer some free public relations advice to the bankers and RPA personnel which they should heed if they ever wish to regain the respect of the rest of society.

Take your bonuses if you must. But if you have any conscience at all, donate at least half of what you get to those poor earthquake victims in Haiti. Such an action might help you sleep at night. 

And I am very glad I did wear my winter draws - and vest - when I attended the Oxford Conference this week. By the time I bailed out at about 11am on the second day, Wednesdy, (my apologies to the speakers on after that but I felt I was in danger of being snowed in) to catch a series of three trains back to Norfolk, there was at least nine inches of snow in Oxford and it was still snowing. For the record the trains were delayed but the journey was not too bad and with changes I made it in just under five hours. I reckon it would have taken that in a car with road conditions the way they were and at least I could doze and read on the trains.

Back here in Norfolk on Wednesday evening there was nothing like as much snow as further west. But this morning I woke to find there had been about six inches overnight. Virtually every school in the county was closed and both road and rail transport were disrupted. I congratulated myself on getting home last evening.

Then I got a message from the livery yard that one of our workers had slid into a bank on the way into work and damaged his car. Could I collect him in my 4x4? I went and although the snow made me take it slowly I was fine and stable. The trouble was other motorists. Few, it seemed to me, had any idea how to drive on slippery surfaces. Most were revving and sliding and the biggest danger was other cars, out of control, smashing into me.

Anyway, we completed the thirty mile round trip without serious incident and got the livery worker here to do his job. Now, as soon as I have finished writing this, I have to take him home again. I just hope the horse owners appreciate the trouble we go to on their behalf.

Farming wise I am not too unhappy at the way the weather has turned. We got virtually all our ploughing done before Christmas, having completed autumn cereal drilling well before that. We do have a few more sugar beet to lift out of light land but none in clamp where they can suffer frost damage. The covering of snow should protect those still in the ground from too much damage. Otherwise I think the cold spell will do good to the soil, kill of  some pests and ensure we are able to make excellent seedbeds for spring crops.

Perhaps its my memory playing tricks but my feeling is that 2008 was a pretty good year on the whole. 2009 on the other hand has been b..... awful for me both personally and business wise and I can't wait for it to be over.

And as if to emphasise the fact, yesterday we had a couple of horses from the livery running round on our lawn. It will not be difficult for you to imagine the damage they did. Just a few days after 8 inches of snow had melted and with all the frost having left the ground they had a wonderful time galloping round and round the chestnut tree. The worst part of it was that they only got out of their paddock because one of the livery girls had failed to fasten the gate properly, so it could have been avoided. Too much alcohol over Christmas, I suppose.

OK, its not the end of the world and I expect a few hours with a flat shovel and later in the spring a heavy roll will put the matter right by next summer. Either that, or as some wag suggested, we could use the deep hoof prints as a putting green. I didn't find that very funny. 

So, roll on 2010. And I just hope my usually sunny temperament, which has been severely tested in 2009, recovers to its happy habit and that there are fewer reasons for me to lose my rag during the next twelve months. 

Happy New Year.