David's Digest

I shall be on my way back from a study tour of the American mid west on June 1st so will not be able to participate in the LEAF inspired Open Farm Sunday on June 1st. But we did open the farm for last years event and as a result were asked if we would host a Rogation Service for the village church this year. We were pleased to do so.

It happened yesterday and about fifty turned up. The local lay reader led the service as we walked to various points and crops around the farm. From time to time we stopped for a hymn (accompanied by a battery powered keyboard) and a prayer to bless the crop and the countryside around it. The service was based on that distributed by the Rank Centre at the Royal Showground.

At each stop I was invited to explain what we were looking at and what it was used for. Inevitably I used the occasion to express some opinions on world hunger and the need for more production. And to compensate for the fact that the crops were in their early stages of spring growth I showed samples of wheat, together with bread and biscuits made from it; rape seed and a bottle of rape cooking oil grown on a LEAF farm; and so on. The main idea of this was to educate the children but I noticed the adults taking notice as well.

Apart from the hymns and the prayers it was a bit like the Open Sunday we'd hosted a year ago. And without exception the "congregation" thanked us profusely for allowing them to visit the farm. Well worthwhile in my view and it salved my conscience a bit at not being around for June 1st.

I can't remember a year when Spring has sprung as fast and dramatically as it has this time. The cool damp weather clearly held everything back but as soon as we had a few warm days (and nights) crops (and trees and hedges and weeds) exploded into growth. Its been an absolute pleasure to watch it all happening over recent days and prospects for decent yields later in the year suddenly seem better. Or perhaps its just sunshine on my back that makes me feel that way.

Whatever, the change has co-incided with the start of the asparagus season. I've eaten it in Peru, where the taste is slightly insipid, probably because its grown incredibly fast in the hot climate and on a virtual beach with added fertiliser. A year ago I ate some white asparagus in Germany covered in Hollandaise sause. It was better than the Peruvian stuff but I still think the way we grow it in this country produces the best taste and texture. I'm right with chef, Gordon Ramsey, on that one and its true of most other fresh produce grown in this country as well.

Fortunately we have near neighbours who are masters of the asparagus art and we collect fresh supplies regularly through the season. Yes, I know it makes your pee smell but thats a price that I am very pleased to pay.

Yesterday the Financial Times and the Guardian reported that British Chancellor, Alistair Darling, was writing to all his EU counterparts to urge them to abolish the CAP. He was said to be of the opinion that some parts of it keep food prices above world market levels and he wants an end to all direct payments to farmers because they are "unacceptable".

Surprise, surprise. It is the typical short sighted reaction of a politician who seeks to shift the blame for high food prices from government to producers. Never mind international agreements; forget that it was his (and other) governments policies that led to the decline in domestic production. He ignores the fact that goverments around the world were warned for years that they were heading for a food supply disaster that is now happening forcing prices up because of insufficient supply.

Furthermore he deliberately does forgets two other key facts. One, that farmers have been subsidising consumers for much of the last ten years as they continued producing, albeit at reduced levels, for returns that in many cases were less than their costs. Two, although commodity prices have risen sharply in the last few months, production costs have gone up by at least the same percentage, if not greater.

Stop direct payments and farmers will very quickly be losing money again. And what will happen then? They will once again reduce production making the food supply crisis even worse. Alistair Darling is not only dishonest for attempting to wriggle out of agreed policies. He must also be very stupid.

I'm not involved with pigs at present (thank goodness!) but I kept them from the time I was ten until a family reorganisation a few years ago so still retain an affection for them, although not, I hasten to add, for the current economics surrounding them.

But out of habit I keep an eye on pig statistics and frankly they are unbelievably bad. In this country, for instance, the pig breeding herd that numbered just over 800,000 sows ten years ago has halved since and is forecast to decline to 380,000 by next year at this time. Numbers started to go down as a result of unilateral welfare regulations and accelerated with the rocketing cost of feed.

Quite apart from the tragedy to individuals who have either given up keeping pigs or are having to face up to the probablity that they may have to do so, the danger is that sometime soon there may be so few being produced here that there will be insufficient critical mass to support a slaughtering and processing industry and everything will have to be imported. 

There are those in government and elsewhere in this country who actually advocate that, of course. They are presumably not aware or do not care that a similar situation also exists in most other pigmeat producing and exporting countries as well. Danish producers are said to have lost around £1billion over recent years and are still recording unsustainable losses. There is even talk of the monopolistic and high profile co-operative, Danish Crown, being attacked by its members who are threatening to break away and form a rival organisation.

The Irish pig population is expected to fall by another 10% this year are those in Hungary and Poland. French pig farmers are said to be losing £32/pig, and so it goes on across Europe. Only Holland appears to have escaped the worst of the crisis, presumably by finding cheaper feeds (whatever they may be) and adding extra value. Somehow the Dutch still seem to be able to sell to supermarkets at the budget prices they demand.

Meanwhile ex farm prices are beginning to rise as reduced supplies force them up. If that trend continues some producers who have weathered the crisis so far may decide to hang on. But I suspect that few of those who have left the industry will be tempted back. And this is happening at a time when, on the face of it with consumers facing higher and higher food prices with the spectre of shortage on the horizon, maximum production is required.

Our political masters and our biggest customers seem to have little concept of the long term risks they are taking by not supporting pig producers better. Will they wake up in time to save a vital sector of agriculture?

The FW study tour of the American Mid West has just passed through Illinois and Iowa and are at present in Minnesota. When we called in at the Chicago Board of Trade a few days ago there was little excitement in the open outcry trading pits compared with what had gone on there for the last few months. Prices were relatively static as traders adjusted to levels twice as high as they had been twelve months before. It was a bit like home really except that this was where new levels were established that affected values across the rest of the world.

 There was much more activity in the oil trading pits where crude peaked at $135/barrel this week. The knock-on effect this will have on fertiliser costs and virtually everything else needed to produce food had not yet transferred itself to the agricultural sector of the market - but it will.

As we travelled north and west from Chicago we called on several farmers. Most grew corn (maize) and beans (soya) and not much else. All complained that the spring had been wet and cold and that land work was at least three weeks behind normal. They didn't define what this might mean in loss of yield but reductions there will be compared with optimum planting dates. But its been dry enough this week to get on the land and big tractors and huge drills kicked up clouds of dust on fields either side of the road as our coach traversed the never ending black soils.

The Farmers Weekly study tour of the US has today been travelling through Idaho. At 4,500ft above sea level and with an average rainfall (in the southern one third of the State anyway) of 8 to 10 inches, you might think it ought not to be growing crops at all. But the metre deep sandy soil lies over an enormous acquifer fed by the Snake River. It takes its water from snow melt from the Rockie Mountains just to the east and enables the farmers to irrigate to their hearts content. And the water is free!

Farmers are quick to point out that it costs them a fair bit in electricity to pump the water. Even so our touring party had never before seen so much of it being sprayed onto land over such a wide area. Virtually every field was covered with sprinklers either from linear wheeled irrigators or centre pivots. And they were watering winter and spring wheat, freshly planted spring barley, sugar beet, potatoes, maize and alfalfa. It really was a sight to behold, especially as it was raining hard at the time. But rain, we were told, was unusual and was no reason to switch off the sprinklers.

Yields were said to be comparable to ours at home in the UK and crop diseases were few and far between. Hardly any fungicide spraying is required on most crops, probably because of the altitude. But here again, as in Iowa and other states further east that we visited last week, spring planting had been seriously delayed by rain and farmers were worried about the potential yield loss this would mean.

But not too worried! At least that was true of the ones we visited. These included multi thousand acre potato and sugar beet growers and muti thousand head dairy farmers. All had cashed in on the light land and water rights and appeared to be doing very nicely indeed.

No time for more now. Got to get changed and go out to a Chuck Wagon Dinner plus entertainment featuring Buckskin Lady and Six Shooter Sal. So, from Pocatello, Idaho, for now, Ye Ha. I will try to fill in further details of our trip later, either by blog or in FW.