David's Digest

Its several years since I attended a YFC Convention. The last was at Blackpool (like the one held this weekend) where my wife and I joined Henry Plumb (sorry, Lord Plumb) in judging the Miss National Young Farmer competition. I'm not even sure if they have such events now. Maybe they've bowed to political correctness and deleted it from their activities. If so I think its a pity. After all it was merely an extension of Young Farmers stock judging. You're looking for well sprung ribs, good sound legs, well developed muscle where the expensive meat is and so on. Perhaps I've said enough.

And I digress. Conventions, or AGM's as they were called when I was a Young Farmer and usually held in London, provide an opportunity for YFC members to get together with like minded young people from around the country. There are high spirits, of course. That's what youth is about. Although its a pity the Blackpool police chose to close the bars early at the fancy dress ball. From what I hear there was little or no justification for such action and it perpetuates the myth that all YFC's are about is drinking. Yes, there have been a few unfortunate incidents perpetrated by a few unruly individuals at past conventions but I had hoped the organisation had managed to live that down.

However, there are plenty of positive things at such get togethers. A talk by John Geldart, a past winner of the title Farmers Weekly Farmer of the Year, for instance. As always John gave excellent value as he encouraged members to become actively involved in their parent industry. And huge sums given to charity by clubs from all over the country. What a pity that doesn't get more publicity. 

The YFC movement, albeit smaller than it was when there were more people working in farming, is still a beacon of excellence in the countryside. It should be encouraged by all possible means. And I for one am grateful to it for providing me with a wife, a career and countless lifelong friends.

Smart suits and hairy tweeds mixed together in the corridors of power yesterday afternoon as the RSPB held a party at the House of Lords to mark the tenth anniversary of its Volunteer and Farmer Alliance. The hairy tweeds, by the way, were mainly worn by the volunteers who counted the birds - not the farmers on whose land they had done so. We had put on our best business suits for the occasion and it was difficult to tell some of us from the peers and MP's who turned up.

I am not a wholeherated fan of all that RSPB says and does as previous comments in FW and elsewhere may have made clear. But I did participate in the bird count a few years ago and was pleased the volunteers who did it identified 53 species on our land. They missed at least two that I saw a few days after they had completed their survey - Golden Plover and Grey Partridge of which we have a few pairs. So in reality we had 55 species of birds on our LEAF managed farm. The RSPB told me later they regarded 40 species as satisfactory on my type of holding.

My reason for getting involved was partly to satisfy myself that our habitats were OK and that our farming system was not harming wildlife. But if I'm honest I was also keen to have the RSPB's own confirmation that what we do here, which is unremarkable and comparable with many other farms, favours birds as well as production. I reasoned it would be much more difficult for the organisation to criticise what we do if their own evidence showed the opposite. 

Indeed, what I and 4,250 or so other farmers have done over the ten year period during which the V&F Alliance has been running is an example of the kind of voluntary approach Defra requires as an alternative to set-aside and to persuade it not to bring in yet another regulation.

Hilary Benn admitted, at the reception, that he had not yet made up his mind on that but he did concede that over the last 25 years farmers had restored or replaced some 80,000 miles of hedges. He went on to say that whether the set-aside replacement were to be voluntary or compulsory it is vital that wildlife protection and production agriculture work together in harmony. That's what I and others have been saying for years and what LEAF has preached since its inception. Perhaps Hilary Benn is beginning to understand our industry at last. Time will tell.

Wouldn't you think, given the state of national and world economies, that politicians would be too busy to have time to fiddle their expenses? Is it very surprising that the greedy bankers who got us into this mess aped the behaviour of government ministers who were themselves abusing the system? Don't we, the electors, have a right to expect better of members of Parliament who crave our support every few years on the basis that they are only in politics for our good?

As the Daily Telegraph has released more disgusting details each day the guilty ones have whined "I've done nothing wrong" or "I made a mistake". And they've gone on to blame the system - which they and their colleagues initiated and over which they have signally failed to execise discipline or morality. 

Regular readers of my thoughts will know that I have never had much time for most politicians. I am willing to concede that some are not corrupt and try to do their job with sincerity and honesty. But the rotten apples in the political barrel seem to have polluted most of the rest who privately complain they are not paid enough and have to make up their money somehow.

What rubbish! If most of them were paid on performance they would have trouble getting half what they are paid as MP's - with no expenses, Indeed, they'd be out of work at present because their efforts would have been found wanting and their cost unjustifiable. Meanwhile they continue to ride the gravy train.

Very soon they will be bleating to the electorate about low turn-outs at elections. But their collective behaviour has destroyed any inclination I might have had to vote for any of them.

Finally, you might wonder what all this has to do with farming in which this strand is supposed to specialise. Well, look at the title. And then please pass on my apologies to pigs for associating them with politicians.

I happened to catch the Paul O'Grady TV programme yesterday afternoon when I came into the house for a cup of tea. Two of his guests were Matt Baker, a farmers son who made his name on Blue Peter and Julia Bradbury who co presents Watchdog. But the pair of them now present the new Sunday evening showing of Countryfile and that was why O'Grady had invited them on his show.

Suffice to say that all three of them, including O'Grady, presented an excellent image of British agriculture and promoted the concepts of home produced food, increased domestic production, better incomes for and appreciation of farmers, and so on. It could not have been better and at 5.00pm in the evening must have been seen by a lot of those responsible for buying groceries.

If this is to be the dominant theme of the Sunday evening edition - and it was implied that it was - it can only help farming's cause. I gathered from what was said that the audience for the programme was already better than previously expected, so thankyou BBC.

I also heard last weeks Food Programme on Radio 4 which featured LEAF's Open Farm Sunday and a long interview with Caroline Drummond by John Waite. Again there were lots of positive messages about British food and farming.

I can only imagine the spectre of potential food shortages that was widely discussed last year and subsequent speeches by politicians around the world saying production must be increased has alerted broadcasters to the fact that farming is important after all. It's taken a long while but maybe public perception of us is beginning to change. Programmes like those mentioned above will certainly help. 

Because of production and print times for magazines I have to write my columns for Farmers Weekly several days ahead of publication. Having written and sent off the piece for the latest edition, in which I moaned about lack of rain and the damage I feared it was doing, it rained quite a lot for a few days. In fact we had nearly 30mm over the course of about a week and I was beginning to think I'd made a fool of myself (again!).

For there is no doubt the rain perked up the sugar beet and the winter wheat no end and they now look reasonable, if a little late. But one of my biggest concerns was the spring oil seed rape, drilled after I was forced to pull up failed winter rape. We had tickled the top and drilled the spring crop fairly shallowly into moist soil. But as I feared the long dry spell that followed was too much for it to survive, especially on heavy land where the tilth was cobbly.

So, we now have about three quarters of the acreage of spring OSR that looks OK (always provided I can keep the ruddy pigeons from eating it - its almost a full time job) but the other quarter is gappy and thin and clearly will never make a full crop now. As I suspected when I wrote that FW piece the seeds must have germinated and then died for lack of moisture.

So, that's two partial crop failures on the same land in the same year. And its no consolation to me that other farmers of my acquaintance, in the fens and in north Norfolk have had even less rain than we have so have even greater crop failures than I have. I just hope the fact that I have applied to take our Single Farm Payment in Euro's this year helps to make up the loss.

It must be this sudden burst of Bank Holiday sunny weather. Two things have happened. I've been sneezing and rubbing my eyes because of all the pollen floating around in the atmosphere. It's really quite uncomforatable and my eyes are continuously sore. Sun glasses help but only a little.

Then yesterday afternoon when temperatures were at their highest I heard a loud humming outside the kitchen window. I looked out to see a swarm of bees outside the window and when I went to investigate further I found they were buzzing in and out of a ventilation brick beside the back door. I assume the queen must have decided the vent would make a good new home and led her drones and workers with her.

Trouble was there wasn't enough room in the wall for the whole swarm and before I could stop them thousands (well, OK, hundreds) had invaded the kitchen. Fortunately most stayed at one end of the room by the window enabling me to get to the phone and ring our pest controller. He was fishing for cod ten miles off Southwold when he answered his mobile but assured me he would be here to deal with the problem as soon as he came ashore.

A few hours later he arrived by which time most of the bees had gone to bed with their queen and sadly a lot more had died as they tried to find their way out of the kitchen. Sadder still, because I like bees and what they do for us, the only way for our pest man to deal with the swarm was to kill them in the wall.

The problem is now over and there are no more insects in the house. But at a time when bees are dieing from foul brood disease and numbers are also being depleted by other mysterious problems I regretted what we had to do. But you can't live in the same space as a swarm of bees - unless, of course, your'e another bee.