David's Digest

When the last load of our grain came into the barn my late father used to say - "Anyone who hasn't finished harvest by now deserves to lose it". He wasn't being vindictive. It was meant as a joke. And despite the fact that we finished everything, including the spring rape, on Saturday evening I am much too sensitive to repeat his words this year because I am well aware that whereas we in the east have had the easiest harvest for a long time, those in the west and north haven't been so lucky and still have a fair bit to bring in.

But that doesn't mean I'm happy - Oh no. We are now desperate for some of that rain that's been falling on other parts of the country. Autumn cultivations are proving difficult and costly using tonnes of steel. A lot of the rape that's been drilled in the last few days has gone into clods and dust and won't germinate until we get a downpour. Early drillers of winter cereals, of which there are a few in this area, will find the same.

And the sugar beet, which need a great deal of moisture at this time of year, have gone to sleep. In other words the leaves have wilted and dropped to the ground and when we do get rain will use much of the energy (ie sugar) stored in the roots during the sunny summer to re-grow those leaves reducing their sugar content and value.

Tomorrow I shall join lots of other sugar beet growers at the East of England Showground for a crunch meeting on the price British Sugar will pay for beet next year. I expect and hope that growers will stick together and support the NFU in its tough stance of demanding fair treatment by the monoploy processor. More on that in FW next week.

As the worlds top finance ministers meet in London to discuss the ongoing crisis and try to agree how to curb the risk taking of the bankers who got us into this mess in the first place, it seems clear they will fail. Yes, a few of the ministers want to cap bankers bonuses but most don't think it would work. In any case, says Alistair Darling, we cannot afford to cut bankers pay because if we do they will leave their jobs and go to another country where the gravy train still rolls.

Am I being naive if I ask why we need to hang on to the guilty ones? Wouldn't we have been better off and saved the cost and ignominy of bailing them out if they had left some time ago, before they dragged us all down? Isn't it obvious their greed will lead them to try the same games again if they are not controlled and probably with similar consquences?

Ah, but these people can earn a lot of money for Britain if they are allowed a free rein, say those who defend the status quo. And huge bonuses for themselves merely by shuffling bits of paper, making a few phone calls and putting other peoples cash at risk, say I. But I don't suppose my complaints will change anything. After all, bankers are important to our economy.

But don't you find it interesting that there is no such defence of food producers. We receive modest payments from government for playing a key role in feeding the nation and all hell breaks loose. Much of the time we sell commodities for less than it has cost us to produce them. But does anyone think it appropriate that farmers should be paid big bonuses for the continuity of our efforts, often in bad weather and despite regularly recording losses on the operation?

Not a bit of it. Because food producers are not considered to be as important as bankers.

Our industry owes a debt of gratitude to a number of organisations and events, all of which have helped alert British consumers to the benefits of buying home produced food. Cynics would probably say the changes in public opinion in favour of what we produce have been consolidated by the fall in the value of sterling that makes imports more expensive.

That broad point cannot be denied but never forget government policy was leading to increased imports and reduced self sufficiency until recently and our home grown promotional bodies have worked magnificently to try to reverse that situation. Currency changes have merely made food buyers appreciate local food more.

The Red Tractor has played its part and LEAF, of course, in which I declare and interest. But one of the most successful campaigns has been British Food Fortnight (BFF), now in its eighth year, which runs this year from Sept 19th to Oct 4th.

From a standing start back then Alexia Robinson and her team have worked tirelessly to promote British food to British people. This year all the major supermarkets are running special promotions and there will be the widest and greatest support for the concept from the food industry since the project began.

And its not just retailers who are taking part. Most of the big food service catering organisations will be involved as well and are planning special BFF menu's. Several major pub chains are participating as well as high profile public venues like Wembley Stadium, the Cabinet Office, John Lewis, the National Trust, the BBC, and even the fictional Grey Gables hotel in The Archers where they will be serving British Food, as will The Farmers Club in Whitehall, London.

So, thanks Alexia for what you have done and will keep on doing, I hope. I for one will be looking out for special menu's whenever I eat out during the fortnight and complementing the chefs when appropriate in the hope that they carry on cooking British when this years Fortnight is over.

The author of what came to be called the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, died last Saturday aged 95. Back in the 1960's countries like India, Pakistan and Mexico were constantly on the brink of famine. Borlaug, an Iowan farmers son, who grew up in the Dirty Thirties of Mid West America had long been concerned at poor farming practices that led to such phenomena and the need to feed the starving millions.

He developed drought resistant strains of cereals that increased yields in dry countries by huge amounts. Some claim he saved the lives of hundreds of millions of people in Developing Countries. For this pioneering humanitarian work he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

But his successes in producing more food around the world involved greater intensification of agriculture and this attracted criticism from environmentalists. Moreover, during the latter part of his life he was vilified by the green movement.

I for one hope that he became aware during his final days of growing concerns over food security and that his work was once again receiving the respect it deserved. For he was a great man of vision and there are many people alive in the world today who would not have survived without his pioneering activities. 

I still feel a bit guilty complaining about lack of rain when I hear of the problems in Scotland and Ireland. In fact I had dinner with a farmer from south west Scotland the other evening who said his grassland was so wet he had been unable to mow second cut hay, despite a good crop.

But here in East Anglia, where we were quite content to enjoy mainly fine weather for the grain harvest, it has still not rained. All through August we had a total of about 12mm and there has been no measurable rainfall in September so far. After the wet July, land has dried like concrete and on those fields which were early ploughed in order to get ready for autumn drilling there are clods as big as horses heads and as hard as steel.

A few hardy souls have tried drilling wheat into such fields. We've even done a couple ourselves on kind land. But the seeds went into clods and dust and we wore a fair bit of steel off the cultivators and drill coulters as we forced a seedbed. We've given up for now in the hope of rain but there is no sign of it on the weather horizon.

This dry land is playing havoc with lifting potatoes - some are being irrigated first in the hope of reducing lifting damage. And although the first sugar beet factory - Wissington - opens tomorrow I can't believe many beet will be delivered. Getting them out of the ground in these conditions is liable to smash your harvester and leave half the roots broken in the soil.

So, frustrating times here in Norfolk. But I don't suppose we'll get much sympathy from the north. 

As the plane from Frankfurt banked over Essex before landing at Stansted I looked out of the window at a brown countryside almost bereft of moisture. The only exceptions were the bright green areas around the 18 holes of a golf course that had clearly been irrigated. The rest was cultivated land, some probably drilled and most not and stubbles that were too hard to plough. Even the hedges and trees looked drab and dull with leaves senescing prematurely and falling onto the parched ground.

I had been to Germany for a short business trip and been reasonably impressed with the way crops looked over there and with progress with autumn land work. They could probably do with a rain but nothing like as urgently as we do in East Anglia. 

I am well aware that this must be very boring to farmers in the west and north whose land is still saturated from recent rain. But the drought is getting serious and some of the rape and grain seed already drilled may be vulnerable to inadequate moisture to keep delicate seedlings alive. Most farmers who had started drilling into dry soils have given up the battle with clods. And British Sugar has, wisely, put back the start of its processing campaign in the hope of rain to allow beet to be lifted without breaking the roots.

Remember last year? We were still suffering from continuous rain on the equivalent date and land was too wet to carry a tractor. What an interesting, surprising and challenging life we farmers lead!