David's Digest

I was deterbined, despite the fact that by dose is streabing and by head feels like its going to explode, to wish you the compliments of the season.

This virus hit be over the weekend and I have beed suffering ever since. Some people would complaid and look for sympathy, of course. But I'b dot like that. I suffer in silence and keep by problebs to byself. I just don't want to burded others with by paid. But thed I've always beed a selfless and long suffering patient. I think, with contidued nursing and lots of TLC, I shall probably survive and be able to rejoid the world sobetime in 2009. When I do I shall expect everybody to treat be gently recogdising what I''ve beed through.

Id the beantibe I hope you are feeling better than be and that you have a Happy Dew Year.

While I was away at the Oxford Conference this week the postman brought a letter from Defra to say our SFP was about to be paid into the bank. Hooray! We will probably now be able to survive to the end of the month.

Seriously though, it is the earliest we have ever had it - even though its still a month later than farmers in Scotland and Wales. I am also acutely aware that many of my fellow English farmers have not yet received their cheque and others have still to be paid in full for previous years.

This years payment is, of course, rather larger than before reflecting the "favourable" (for UK farmers) exchenge rate between the Euro and the £ together with an allowance to compensate for the reform of the EU's sugar beet regime.

So, as the frost and fog come down dropping outside temperatures to -4C and I throw a few more logs on the farmhouse fire in an attempt to raise the temperature, I am feeling a little happier than I was. And I hope all those farmers who have not yet had their payment get it soon. And yes, the head cold from which I was suffering last week (not man flu Isabel) is getting better.

Most people in this country, I suspect, believe the credit crunch is affecting Britain more than anywhere else. I certainly held that view until I met my friend Matt Dempsey, the editor of the Irish Farmers Journal, a few days ago. "We have much bigger problems than you do", he assured me. He went on to tell me that Irish banks are much less solvent than those in this country and that Ireland is anticipating public debt to rise to over 60% of GDP by 2010.

British farmers are probably better off than their Irish counterparts too bearing in mind that we import a significant proportion of our food and because it has to be paid for in devalued £'s it costs more. This in turn drives up the value of home produced commodities - like grain over recent weeks, for instance.

Ireland, on the other hand is a net exporter of food. Indeed Britain accounts for a total of 21% of Ireland's export earnings of which a high proportion is food. And while Ireland uses the Euro, which has revalued by about 30% against the £ since the current crisis began, Britain pays for those goods in devalued £'s. Some Irish people are understandably feeling somewhat peeved that Britain has so far failed to join the Euro.

All of which will make the Farmers Weekly study tour of Ireland starting on May 26th even more interesting than I first thought. Although I am confident that the welcome we will get from Matt Dempsey and others will be just as warm. He is helping us with the details of the programme of visits and will ensure that we see the best that Ireland has to offer.

When we are in Northern Ireland we will have the help and advice of another friend, Campbell Tweed, a former President of the NI Farmers Union (whose beautiful farm is, incidentally, to be featured on the BBC's Time Team tv programme next Sunday at 5.30pm) together with the principal and lecturers of Greenmount Agricultural College on the edge of Belfast. The ten day tour promises to be interesting, informative and the scenery is gorgeous..

There are a few of places left on the tour for anyone who would like to join. Let me know if you'd like details. You can contact me on whiterails@paston.co.uk

This time last year I was spending half my days chasing pigeons off oil seed rape crops. I was using loads of petrol, cartridges, bangers, rockets and so on every single day and it really got me down. However, much to my surprise and delight, when it came to harvest, we combined just short of five tonnes per hectare. So perhaps my daily drives round the rape fields were worthwhile.

This winter pigeon frightening has been much less onerous. The fact is, in common with most farmers in this region, because of the awful wet weather when we should have been planting we did not get the rape drilled until the middle of September last year and it never got properly established. It has clearly hated having wet feet all autumn and instead of growing away and looking like small cabbages, most of it seems to have virtually disappeared. At least thats what it looks like from the road and presumably from the air as well because most of the local pigeons are looking elsewhere for their food.

Needless to say I'm enjoying missing the daily pigeon patrol. But I am very concerned at the lack of much evidence of a crop and wondering what to do about it. I know that rape has amazing recovery powers but have we got sufficient plant stand to start with?

We walked the rape fields with our agronomist the other day and he told us not to be so pessimistic; that while we might need to redrill some areas the majority would probably be OK. I'm not so sure. But I will let you know in due course.

Time was when I might have opened a comment on the annual Economic Forum with the words "The great and the good are heading for their annual economic shindig in Davos this week.....But given the world financial crisis brought about, or at the very least, allowed to happen, by those who will attend the event it might be more appropriate to say something like "This week, as the worlds guilty parties gather at Davos, the cold wind of world recession is cooler than the snowy mountains around the ski resort.....

 For the 2,500 strong guest list will include the chairmen of several prominent but now virtually insolvent UK and other countries banks (presumably paying their delegate and hotel fees out of bail-outs provided by taxpayers); some of the worlds top economists who advise banks and politicians on the policies they should follow; and heads of government from around the world.

Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of Russia will, for instance, give the keynote address (presumably it will include information on how to exploit your customers when you are sitting on the worlds biggest supply of natural gas); and Gordon Brown, our own Prime Minister will, I imagine, try explain to delegates how to banish boom and bust. I doubt if he will have a very big audience.

In more prosperous times the Davos gathering has been an excuse for a few days skiing at public expense and lots of partying. This year, we can only hope, the leisure activities will be kept to a minimum and serious discussion about what went wrong and what to do next should dominate procedings. If not we have the right to ask the reasons why.

Last time I was in Davos (many years ago and at my own expense) I skied the famous Kublis run - at the time the longest downhill piste in Europe. For the first few miles the skiing was easy with lots of snow and relatively gentle slopes. But the nearer we got to the village the steeper and more difficult the terrain we had to negotiate. Furthermore the snow that was there had turned to ice and there were rocks everywhere to snag your ski's and trip you over. It was almost impossible to get a grip. By the time we reached the bottom we were out of control and relying on pure luck to stay on our feet.

It stikes me that world finances have travelled a similar journey over recent months and we are still on the icy bit. I hope Davos gets some metaphorical fresh snow this week to enable the guilty parties to begin to recover their (and our) balance. 

The best cow I ever milked was called Daydream. She wasn't really dreamy. In fact she was always at the head of the herd coming into the milking parlour and headed straight for her favourite stall. I should,perhaps, make clear that this was in the days of side by side parlours. Herringbones and other more modern layouts don't lend themselves to such choice.

Daydream acquired her name because her first calf was born in the year when all heifers entering the herd were given a name beginning with D. The following year they began with E and then F and so on. We didn't have computers or fancy recording systems then and this simple device enabled us to know without thinking how old a cow was and how many calves she had had. We seldom brought more than a dozen new heifers into our modest sized herd (by todays standards) each year so thinking up the names was not too onerous.

Did they give more milk than todays numbered animals? I really can't say because I had nothing to compare. We'd sold our herd before numbers came in. Although I have always believed a cow would perform better if treated as an individual and I suppose it would be a little difficult to become attached to an animal called 257. On the other hand I cannot believe a cow is capable of knowing whether she is known by a name or a number. 

Do hens lay more eggs if they are called Henrietta? Do ewes have more lambs if they are called Mary? I doubt it. What matters most, surely, is that all farm animals are treated with care and kindness. Then they'll perform at their best and provide both satisfaction and profit for those who own them. I would not have thought it would be necessary for a university study of over 500 cows to confirm it.