I know how important it is to connect to consumers – our ultimate customers – and to be patient with them when they fail to understand what goes on on farms. But I find this rather difficult when, as over the weekend, some of them dumped about a hundred worn out car tyres in one [...]
GRATEFUL FOR SMALL MERCY’S
I have deliberately stayed away from blogging in recent weeks having reviewed my previous postings only to find that in most of them I was bitching about the drought. I decided not to post again until I had something more positive to say. Well, I’m not too sure that time has arrived but we did, [...]
HOW MUCH LONGER CAN IT LAST???
It’s ten weeks since I posted my first blog (this year) about my concerns over dry soils. I said I’d had a promonition about this being a dry spring and that we had drilled sugar beet early to try to make the most of what moisture there was in the land. I’m pleased to report [...]
FARMERS, DEFRA AND THE RSPB AGREE – WONDERFUL!
I see from todays Telegraph that Defra has initiated control measures to stop the spread of parakeets in this country. Apparently they were released several years ago and numbers in the Home Counties are beginning to build up. If left to multiply they could become a major nuisance and do untold damage to crops. So they [...]
GOOD HOLIDAY WEATHER, BUT….
OK, I don’t post very often and when I do, for the last month or two at least, I probably come over like a one trick pony. But how much longer can this drought continue? We have spring sown crops that are virtually gasping for moisture. The land is parched and although we have peas [...]
WILL WE GET SOME APRIL SHOWERS?
Despite forecasts of significant rain a couple of nights ago, here in Norfolk it was very limited indeed. On Thursday morning at 8.00oclock I tipped 3mm out of my rain recorder and by that time the clouds had passed over. Since then nothing and the freshly drilled crops, having had only a slight freshen up from [...]
MARCH DUST
When I was a boy we had a saying on the farm that March dust was worth a guinea an ounce. In other words if the land was dry enough during the month to get all the crops drilled yields should be pretty secure and the farm should be OK for the rest of the year. [...]
DANISH FARMERS ARE FED UP WITH HOW THEIR GOVERNMENT TREATS THEM
As Emily Padfields posting today makes clear, the farmers of Denmark feel the same way about their government as many of us feel about ours. Four hundred of them drove their tractors into Copenhagen the other day to protest about their representation in Brussels and over tightening regulations on water quality. They have had enough and decided to [...]
CATTLE RANCH IN THE HILLS OF MOROCCO
One of the most surprising things the FW party saw in Morocco was a traditional cattle ranch. There in the rolling hills of the Atlas mountains was a 25,000 acre ranch running the best looking beef cattle we saw during the entire tour. It had been set up in 1970 by an American as a demonstration unit [...]
HOW CHAMBERS OF AGRICULTURE PROMOTE MOROCCO’S GREEN PLAN
I have referred in passing in other postings to Morocco’s Green Plan – or Maroc Vert. It was introduced three years ago and is being enthusiastically persued by all the institutions of agriculture in the country. It’s being promoted as a domestic response to Morocco’s need to import much of its food and the fact [...]