Food for Thought

The presenters of a daily radio farming programme in New Zealand have recorded a song in response to British pig farmers’ version of ‘Stand by your Ham’.

Hosts of The Farming Show, Jamie Mackay and his right-hand-man Bradley, have composed and recorded a Kiwi version called Stand by your Lamb.

Stand by Your Ham - the pig farmers' version of the Tammy Wynette classic Stand by your Man is capturing the public's imagination. Newspaper reports and radio play have sparked interest in Farmers Weekly's video on YouTube and in the FWiSpace discussion forums. If you haven't watched it already - here it is:

When I found out I was going to visit a 2000-cow dairy, the last thing I expected I’d compare it to was my local branch of the Body Shop.

The final day of the World Ag Expo in California, I headed about 40 miles in the opposite direction from the farm I visited the previous day, towards the slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

My route saw me take in more of the region’s farmland – fields of neatly aligned peach trees, walnut and almond trees stretching for acres, and thousands of orange trees.

When I arrived at Fletcher Dairy, it quickly became obvious that farm owner Ed Fletcher, like many of the valley’s other dairy farmers, uses this local produce on his farm.

As well as silage cut from hay and alfalfa, feed also includes almond husks, orange liquor and orange peel, giving off a sweet, fruity flavour across the farm that smells more like bubble bath than cattle feed.

The nut husks come from local nut-shelling factories, while farmers take orange pith and liqour from local citrus pressers.

“These ingredients would only be thrown away by the processors, so in reality we are doing them a favour,” Ed explains. “Plus it adds moisture to the feed, which is much needed in this region because it gets so hot during the summer that it’s easy for the cows to become dehydrated.”

But perhaps one important factor Ed was overlooking was the scent.

This week is a big one for British farmers because there a three programmes planned which put agricultural production systems and the slaughter process firmly under the spotlight.

Two of the shows start their run tonight. There's Hugh's Chicken Run on Channel 4 at 9pm looking at chicken production and then Kill it, Cook it, Eat it on BBC3 at 10.30pm and both have already got farmers talking on FWiSpace.

On Friday, chef Jamie Oliver will also return to the issue of chicken production with a show called Jamie's Fowl Dinners.

My colleague Isabel is right to welcome Waitrose's price increases for beef and lamb producers. Current values for prime lambs are diabolical. But Waitrose's record isn't as squeaky-clean as its many plaudits suggest.

The NFU has persuaded top chef Jamie Oliver to make a public call for shoppers to buy British lamb, as the outbreaks of foot and mouth and bluetongue continue to hit livestock farming.

The celebrity chef said there had never been a more important time to buy lamb and create meals which are both healthy and versatile.

The UK livestock industry has been crippled by movement restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of disease in East Anglia and Surrey. Although markets are set to re-open on Thursday, the current oversupply has weighed heavily on sheep prices which are now some 30% below the cost of production.

Mr Oliver said: “Now is the time for a call to action to help our British farmers. It’s been a tough year for them and for many it’s just getting worse.

“I’d like to encourage everyone to buy more British lamb, at least for the next few weeks. Try lamb mince in your Spaghetti Bolognese for a change. Or try a beautiful roast shoulder of lamb on Sunday instead of what you might usually have.”

NFU livestock board chairman Thomas Binns said: “It is a fantastic endorsement to get Jamie Oliver on board and his support will inject some much needed confidence in the industry. Hopefully consumers will support British sheep farmers through this extremely difficult time by buying lamb which carries the Red Tractor logo.”

Yesterday's announcement of movement rule relaxations is a welcome relief for the livestock sector, but will come as cold comfort for many with the lamb trade currently in freefall and store sheep buyers reluctant to buy lambs, let alone pay sensible prices.

For those farmers outside either the foot and mouth risk area or the bluetongue control zone life can return to some kind of normality, stock can be moved between farms and many of the animals trapped with little fodder will be able to head to better grazings, provided of course buyers can be found for them.

Farming’s a tough industry, full of tough people. You have to be to cope with the ups and downs. Feed wheat at £130/t and foot and mouth, in the same week! Drought stricken crops in April and a deluge in July! Most people would simply give up.

But the great thing about farming is that tough people grapple with tough times and succeed. The only worry is that tough people are getting worn down by people who seem to lack commitment, who have jobs that are 9-5, who invest no personal equity in their occupations. All too often they seem to clash horrifically with the enthusiasts who invest everything in doing the job properly.

Maybe that helps explain the frustration welling up in farmhouses across the land, as the inability of government agencies.......

WHEN dread livestock disease foot and mouth led last Friday’s Ten O’Clock News Farmers Weekly journalists knew it would be no ordinary weekend – not for farmers, not for farming and not for farm journalists either.

For many it was an unwelcome rewind to March 2001 and the devastating foot and mouth epidemic that followed, claiming 7m animals, costing the UK £8bn and forcing many farmers from the industry.

Within half an hour a core team of FW journalists was hard at work, establishing facts and loading information onto the FWi web-site. Our new FWiSpace on-line forum was used to field questions from worried farmers. Journalists chased contacts until well after midnight.

First thing Saturday the team reconvened in FW’s south London newsroom. Newsgathering

Sheep aren't the cleverest of animals at times, so I'm intrigued by this tale of a sheep on FWi which might be able to turn a tap on and off.

What do 'ewe' reckon?

Not something you often see, but the BBC has a picture of a sheep sunning itself in a deck chair in Hyde Park (you will need to flick through to picture 5).