December 2009 Archives

I would like to draw your attention to two interesting summaries of 2009 from the UK's leading farming commentators.  Neither are particularly cheery but I think that they sum up the season well.

David Richardson is succinct in his appraisal here  while Oliver Walston writes with his usual candour here.  (Oliver is always very reticent about publicising his opinions so it is pleasure to blow his trumpet for him.)

My own opinion of 2009, for what it's worth, is that I have found the trading conditions to be the most challenging that I have ever known.  The decisions have been tougher and with more at stake.  I couldn't be as specific about our outputs and achievements as Oliver because we are not growing commodities and some of our customers have been known to read this blog.  Suffice to say 2009 will not be a great year for us.

I am in my mid-thirties and so, generally-speaking, I am much more interested in investing in long-term plans than in generating cash.  Unfortunately I have become a bit disillusioned with multiple retailers and at some point I may have to question if it is still right for us to devote our efforts to this marketplace.  I believe that the profitability of fresh produce in 2010 will be just as poor as this year and the view is corroborated by the EFFP's predictions for food deflation in the first quarter.

Despite this our plans are to carry on with the same business plan in 2010 and to see how things develop.  Our business is financially-robust and our attention to detail is improving.  The investments that we have made to reduce our staffing requirements are paying off and we have new products to launch next year. 

I wish that I had something more exciting to add to the chorus of misery and I'm sure that farmers have been saying that "the fun has gone out of farming" for one thousand years. The reality is that I am writing this on one of the shortest days of the year, it's cold, it's raining, I've got a cold and I've eaten too many chocolate brazils. 

Next week I will be at Oxford Farming Conference (I've got a new suit and everything) and I will be feeling much better equipped to face the year ahead.  Here's a Christmassy picture to cheer us up

Everyone's a cook these days.  Last week Michael Caine revealed his recipe for the perfect roast potato.  He says that cold olive oil should be poured onto a par-boiled potato before roasting.  I concur with the par-boiling, Sir Michael, but have a go with Oleifera instead - it's home grown and has much less saturated fat in it.

Me, myself, personally, I reckon that it is better to get the oil hot before you put the potatoes into it: the potatoes absorb it much better and end up crispier.  Perhaps the Potato Council have an opinion on it too (when they are not too busy using saucy photos to publicise themselves), I haven't looked.

Anyway.  I cooked Christmas dinner this year and I did the roast potatoes in goose fat.  I didn't think that they were any better than in my usual veg oil (I have a special bottle in the cupboard instilled with rosemary from the garden). 

Still.  Good old Cainy for bigging up potatoes.  Altogether now.

I was doing God-fatherly duties today and took my nephews to Lincoln for a Christmas day out.  We went on the train to add a bit of novelty value.  We went ice skating in the outdoor rink and then walked up to the castle.  Afterwards we saw the pantomime (it had Cannon and Ball in it).

On the train home the conductor started singing Christmas Carols on the tannoy and the whole carriage joined in.  It was a bizarre and magical so I recorded a bit of it for you

One of the best things about writing a blog is that several times a week you get sent a confusing email similar to the one which arrived this morning - here it is reproduced in full.

Excerpt:
Huge boobs. Wobbling bouncing boobs. Big boobs. Sexy boobs. Boobs. Full
motion boobs bouncing. Latina boobs.

URL: http://blogs.technet.com/members/Somalier.aspx
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Approve TrackBack:
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Right then, cooking tips.  This really is a one stop shop for everything, isn't it?

One of the best bits about the winter is having time and appetite to cook and eat lovely food.  I really enjoy cooking and here is where the magic happens.

As you can see from the laptop, this is where hilarious food and delicious blog entries are conceived. 

I especially enjoy cooking for friends (you can read a review from a fellow blogger here).  One of my store cupboard signature dishes is French Onion Soup.  Last night I gave it a  twist and made a Red Onion Soup with white wine (it was an Australian Semillon but really that's a superfluous detail).

Here's the thing that you need to know.  Never make a Red Onion Soup.  Ever.  Put it on your agenda now.  When it come to Red Onion Soup (or ROS) remember what the kids from Grange Hill told you "JUST SAY NO."

The soup that I gave to Eli last night was pink.  Yeh, you heard me right - I served a pink soup.  I'll tell you what it looked like.  You know the pink liquid that you get in the dentists to swill your mouth out?  You do, don't you?  You know all about the pinky drinky.  Well it looked just like that...........only with onions in it.

Only it doesn't have onions in it at the dentists.  There's a reason for that.

Did you hear Farming Today this morning?  I was up early today and was wide awake to hear it (normally I am drifting in and out of conciousness after the alarm has gone off).

There was a Norfolk beekeeper on (I think that the correct name is apiarist, do you want me to check? I checked.  Woo hoo. I was right.  It is apiarist - Apis is Latin for Bee).  Anyway, old bee boy made me chuckle because he said that there was a NOO pathogen and this NOO pathogen was making it difficult to establish a NOO NOOCLEUS of bees.

I love the accents that we have here in the East.  In Lincolnshire we say COMPOOTER and pronounce dew as DOO as well only the Norfolk accent is a lot softer than ours and far more pleasant.  The Spalding and Boston dialect is especially harsh - the way that some people say "Aaaay?" instead of "Pardon?" is to hear it at its most hostile.

Whenever I meet anyone from Norfolk I can't help myself from steering the conversation to patios because I adore hearing the Norfolk pronunciation.

"That's a NOICE bit of PATTYEW, that is"

Look at this competition from the lovely people at FARMAfrica.

They are offering Young Farmers Club members the chance to win a week in Kenya doing safaris and visiting farms. 

If you are a Young Farmer you MUST enter.  You would have a brilliant and life-changing trip.

All you have to do is sell a load of your unwanted household crap on ebay and then donate the proceeds to FARMAfrica.  The group that raises the most, wins the trip.

I don't know if anyone still reads this blog but if you do then please tell everyone that you know.  FARMAfrica is a very important and worthwhile cause, they do a fantastic job of helping Eastern Africa to help itself.

I really want one of these

It's a baby Aston Martin.

Unfortunately you can only buy one if you already have one of the big gas-guzzlin' ones as well

You should know already that I hate the single farm payment.  My feelings have never been ambiguous on the matter.  Short of wearing a sandwich board all the time with "I hate the Single Farm Payment" on it and carrying a megaphone shouting "Oh yea, Oh yea, I hate the Single Farm Payment" whenever I go anywhere, there is very little more that I can do to make my feelings plain.  I hate the principles behind it, I hate the way it is is structured and, most of all, I hate the way that it has been implemented and administered.  Oh, and I hate the logo.

This is why I am jolly glad that the parlimentary ombudsman has given the Rural Payments Agency a telling off.  There is a world of difference between a bad government plan and a badly-implemented government plan.  The Single Farm Payment has been both of these things.  It has not influenced the reform of British agriculture and the systems and payment schedules have actually distracted farmers from the running of their businesses.  The most annoying thing is the stupendous arrogance that has accompanied the Rural Payments Agency failures.  They had to be brought to account.

It is almost irrelevant that the money is going on such a worthless cause as historic farm payments.  The point of principle here is that this is public money and these people are public servants.  This is a badly-run government agency.  Are our health service, our education system or the prison service.run in such a wasteful and incompetent fashion?   

I have had to make many telephone calls to the RPA over the years (the complexity of our claim is wildly disproportionate to its value) and I have always found the staff to be efficient, intelligent, polite and helpful.  The problems must be at the management and strategic levels. 

So there you go.  That's why I hate the Single Farm Payment. You might think that I'm a hypocrite.  When we get our payment this year (at somewhere between £15 and £20k it will be the most that we have ever had) then I will smile like everyone else; I won't be sending it back.  My justification is that unlike most farms our tax bill is always significantly greater than our SPS receipt - it would be wrong if we had to subsidise other farmers any more than the law forces us to already.

I looked at the FWi site a moment ago and was amused to see that in the "Latest Jobs From FWi" panel on the side, four of the five jobs were in technical/quality control.

How sad and absurd the farming industry has become.

I am sitting in the office (in a foul mood which is typical for this time of year) trying to finish off a column for the first Farmers Weekly of the New Year.  It's pretty cold in here (we have night storage heaters and I'm too mean to put them on the boost setting) and it looks uncannily like a scene from a Christmas Carol.

While I have been in here, I have received three cold telephone calls from people trying to sell me utilities or "debt things".  One was pre-recorded (that's particularly annoying because there is no one at the other end to be horrible to).  There is always a long pause before they speak to you and so I now take this as my opportunity to put the receiver back down.

The last bloke was too quick for me and said "Hello Mr Nayla, can I talk to you for a moment about your telephone provider?" before I could cut him off.

He was an Indian chap (or heavily Welsh).  I politely said "No, no, no, no no" and put the phone down.  It felt good, REAL good.

We have already registered all of our telephone numbers with the Telephone Preference Service so we shouldn't get any of these calls.  I've registered again.

If you are working in a call centre in Bangalore (or Merthyr Tydfil) then please accept my apologies in advance.  My standard response from now on will be to say "No" 5 times before putting the phone down on you.   

I will be watching the Copenhagen Climate Change summit with great interest.  It must be a major diplomatic task to get 192 nations sat around one table (and one heck of a lot of chairs too, I wonder if they all match or if they have had to bring in a few patio chairs from outside).

It makes me feel a bit excited that the whole world is involved.  Whatever your views on climate change, this debate is very important because it as much a discussion about the equality of trade and consumption throughout the world. 

I hope that something good comes from it.  The science has moved on a lot since the Kyoto agreement and hopefully this time America will behave a bit more sensibly.

Naturally there are plenty of lobbyists and pressure groups in attendance. 

Unfortunately some of them got a face full of tear gas yesterday.  That's not particularly amusing in itself but, as as lover of irony, it did make me wonder if CS gas is one of the greenhouse gases.

Have you ever met a CS gas?  They look like this

So pop pickers, while you are in the mood for an education, here are the top 8 eight greenhouse gases

Poor old (inappropriately-eyebrowed) Alistair Darling.  It must be so embarrassing to have to keep standing up in front of the country and delivering these speeches. 

Today's pre-budget speech is just a tiny turn on the thumb screws - the misery is being saved for the next government to dish out.

We should have known this would happen.

CHANCELLOR WITH ODD EYEBROWS = CRAP ECONOMY

Simple, isn't it?

Look at this

A company called Ecovative Design have invented an alternative to polystyrene for packaging.  Here's the clever bit - it's only bloomin' "grown."

As I understand it, they take grain husks, put them in a mould, allow a fibrous fungus to grow in there to bind it all together and then it is dried.

It bio-degrades after use and the process emits one heck of a lot less greenhouse gas than the polystyrene industry.

Isn't that clever?

Phwoar.  Look at the bonnet on that.

This is one of the beasts from the website Rate My Tractor

If you go there and you can see folks' tractors and then vote on how..........um..............er..................how cool? big? clean? sexy!!?? they are.  I'm not sure what the criteria are for the voting actually.

If you are a complete loser you might even want to put a picture up of your own tractor.

Social networking, eh?

I don't know about you but I'm completely over Facebook.  It bores me now.  I have never properly latched onto Twitter either (I'm not in front of a PC much these days and it's like a fast-moving soap opera which is not easy to dip in an out of).

I'm ready for the next social networking phenomenon and, since I like to prove that I am a man in the know, I predict it could be this.

While we are slagging off celebrities (I'm getting a real buzz out of it too) what about Mick Hucknall from Simply Red then?

He's got into a barney about the shooting and fishing rights on his country estate.  Money's still too tight to mention, eh Mick?  This chap always had plenty to say about social inequality - until he was on the right side of unequal of course. 

Q      What's the difference between a bull and Simply Red?

A      A bull has the horns at the front and the ar$&hole at the back

I thank you

I have an intelligent and very amusing friend (lucky you, she writes a blog) and she describes Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall as the annoying court jester of the middle classes.

He's on the telly right now wearing a hat with bells on and prancing around, in his medieval way, laughing at the peasants who don't have book deals and can't afford organic, artisan food.  Like a proper jester he's even got a bladder on stick - he's about to serve it with an eyelid and gooly coulis.

Here he is popping into his local shop - he's run out of Findus Crispy Pancakes again.

According to an article elsewhere on FWi, "Paul" Macca "McCartney" is lobbying MEPs to discourage meat eating in Europe.

Johann appears to have made a spelling mistake in the headline

"Paul McCartney takes meat-free drive to Brussels"

Obviously that should have read

"Paul McCartney takes meat-free drivel to Brussels"

I too am heading out to Brussels to campaign against the playing of "Wonderful Christmas Time" by Wings in public places. 

What do you say to that then, Macca?

I thought you might say that

The Commercial Farmers Group, which I belong to, has just published a concise paper which highlights the falling competitiveness of UK agriculture.  You can find it by clicking here and then clicking the paper at the top of the list.

We are a diverse group of people (so our opinions are not always identical) but the paper is nicely concise and summarises most of the issues that we feel need to be addressed.  I should be interested to here your views. 

It feels like winter all of a sudden and we are doing the last few field operations around the farm.  It is always our goal to have the ploughing finished and the plough cleaned and stored by Christmas.  It looks as though we will easily accomplish it this year.  It's like putting the farm to bed for winter.

I have done most of the ploughing myself this year and have loved every minute of it.  We are also mowing some of the dykes, hedges and wildlife strips.  We try not to do too many in any one year but some of them haven't been touched for a couple of years and will benefit from being tidied up.

Today I was ploughing a field close to the main A17 which has a large layby in front of it.  We get a staggering amount of litter thrown into the dyke from cars and lorries which park in the layby.  I was watching today (and becoming increasingly irritated) as people threw their junk from their car and drove off.  There are some foul pigs living amongst us.  This bit of Lincolnshire is already plenty ugly enough without being strewn with Ginster's pasty packets and carrier bags full of (insert your favourite word for faeces here, please).

I finished ploughing my field at 3.00 and thought that it was barely worth starting another one so I hopped on the tractor and flail mower to trim the dykes in front of our main yard.  We are based on a busy B road do we get our fair share of litter here too.  You regularly have to stop the mower to clear out some piece of someone else's rubbish.  A moment ago I heard the familiar whirring noise that occurs when a piece of plastic or fabric clog up the machine.  There was a large pair of men's pants wrapped around the drum.

HOW?  WHY?

I didn't have any gloves.