I used to laugh at those John Deere nerds who wear the baseball caps and the overalls and get all excited about the latest models and stuff.  John Deere could make a lot of money if they had a range of lingerie that these blokes could buy for their wives (they would probably get the VAT back as well). 

I'm a bit worried that I'm turning into a machinery nerd myself judging by how quickly I hurried out with my camera when the new tractor arrived this morning.  It's a little beauty.

It's a pun, you see.  I live in the Wash.  Well, not IN the wash (although that would provide an explanation for the webbed feet).  Our farm was reclaimed from the Wash by the Romans.  And the mouth of the wash is the bit across the top (where they should bloody well build a sea defence and motorway like they have in the Netherlands).

But this is the clever bit, the other entendre, if you will, I've got a mouth.  Ahem, that's about it basically.  It almost works on two levels (both of them below sea level, of course, this being the Fens and all).

When I think about the Opal Fruit/Starburst furore, I worry that you are probably a bit annoyed by the change.  You might not find it easy to adapt - you are probably one of those people who calls Snickers, Marathons still.  Well get with the trends, Grandma - It's the Mouth of the Wash now. 

There will probably be high-level meetings about Search Engine Optimisation and stuff at FW Towers.  This is the price of progress.

Don't you love this idea of signs in regional dialects.  This one's from Norfolk.

He is converting some of his farm to organic on the back of the growth in that sector (the rest of his farm is LEAF Marque).  

I emailed him this graph about falling organic sales this morning, what are friends for after all?  He sent a reply saying "Oh dear, looks like I could be making a lot of soup next year." 

I wonder if this sales contraction is affecting all premium lines.  Flower sales are falling at almost exactly the same rate as organic.

Does anyone have a recipe for gladioli soup?

Hooray for the burghers of Lewes in East Sussex.  They are launching their own currency next week.  This will be the first time they have had one since Queen Victoria was "on the throne", sorry, I meant on the throne.  It will be legal tender throughout the UK.

This is certainly a concern for South Lincolnshire.  Most of the wealth created around here leaves the district and very little comes in - Moulton Marsh is hardly a holiday hotspot (and I say that as a former director of Fens Tourism).

We have seen unprecendented business rationalisation under this government.  Small businesses have failed and large corporations have prospered.  Globalisation continues to concentrate wealth between fewer people and areas.  A lot of rural areas have become culturally and aesthetically bereft as a result.  Intelligent youngsters are lured away by the Pied Piper-like effect of excitement and prosperity elsewhere (Did you like that Pied Piper bit?  It was bloomin' clever, wasn't it?  I'm not sure which better, my writing or my water trough jumping).

It's good when people "make good" in their home town and bestow good on the area, either with a cracking bit of architecture, patronage of the arts or a donation towards a hospital wing.  This is not something that multinational plcs do for rural areas.  Starbucks are never going to erect a statue in Holbeach or pay for the new sails on the windwill at Moulton. 

So good on you Lewes.  I hope that you don't lewes too much of this new money (Lewes/lose.  Do you see?  Did you get it?  Blimey, I'm on fire today.  You could have the next Gyles Brandreth on your hands here)

I said that I would put the picture here unless it was bad.  Well it WAS bad but I'll put it here anyway.  I have to give each picture a filename before I can it on here.  I have given this one the filename "Idiot."  Enjoy

"Hey look over there, isn't that Matthew Naylor?"

"Christ.  I think it is.  What on earth is he's doing"

"I think he's break dancing.  Look.  He's bloody break dancing."

"Rather old school isn't it?"

"Look, look, he's wearing a tie"

"Oh. My. God, so he is.  What the hell does he think he looks like?"

"I'll tell you what there aren't many people in hip hop who can carry off a tie."

"No and he certainly can't"

"What's he's going to do next?  Body popping in a blazer and chinos?"

"Moon walking in a top hat, probably"

"He's a tit, isn't he?"

"Yup" 

I've just looked and the only reports that I can find are on FWi and on the BNP website (not one that I normally feel the need to look at); I hope that you'll forgive me for not providing a hyperlink to that.  I'm not suggesting that there are links between Farmers for Action and the BNP but they do seem remarkably well briefed about the protests.  Don't expect FFA to get favourable coverage in the Guardian or Independent if they were seen to move in those circles. 

Cutting prices in some food sectors while inflating those in others is neither reasonable nor sensible.  I wasn't aware that life was ever promised to be either of those things though.

I know it's becoming pretty bloody in retail.  The retail price of one of the flower products that we supply is being reduced by 25% today in an effort to get the sales figures up.  In the supply chain which I work in, we all agreed that discounting was the right thing to do.  We need to keep those sales.   

I will be able to tell you the effect it has in a couple of weeks.  If it increases sales, I will be able to calculate if it's better to sell all of my production at a lower price or to cut my production next year and sell less of it at a higher price.  Each time we discount we re-establish a lower price point in the consumers mind.  It's a flawed strategy and it's certainly not a long term solution but the option is to sell less product.

David and the milk producers have the same choicein a recession that I have, lay off staff, get rid of production, cut supply and sell less for more.  The trouble is there is always another kamikaze farmer prepared to do more for less.  Sometimes you need to have the courage to let them get on with it.

It is the same for all types of fresh produce with a long production lead time be it milk, potatoes, flowers, whatever.  We commit to produce it before we know what the demand is and it makes us weak negotiators.  We can only negotiate when there is a shortage and two potential customers.  At the moment there are always two potential suppliers.

This is the market economy that Margaret Thatcher strived to create.  Competition between suppliers drives down prices for consumers.  If farmers had supported a more diverse supply base then we would be in a better position too.  We didn't and so we deal with cartels and monopolies to buy most of our inputs.

Some say that the answer lies in powerful cooperatives to deal with the supermarkets.  This way competition between farmers is kept within the co-op.  The same process applies and gradually the most efficient producer takes over from the others.

It is sad for farmers just as it was sad for coal miners or steel workers who suffered under this system.  Although the process of change is painful, ultimately the logic works.  I would wager that a lot of the dairy farmers who are currently painting banners to wave outside Tesco were Tory voters in the 1980s.  I bet that there weren't many of them cheering support for Arthur Scargill.

Please argue with this post because I'm not sure that I like what I have just written.  I'm hopeful that this will rouse Mike P from his statin-induced meditative state.

Coming to work at 5.30am is a revelation.  I have cross a busy A road to get from home to the farm and it isempty at that time of day.  30 minutes later and the roads are as busy as they would be at 8.30am. 

I love the feeling of being alone on the planet for a short while.  If someone dropped a nuclear bomb during the night I wouldn't realise for a couple of hours; the symptoms of radiation poisoning, like swollen blotchy skin, weak limbs and hair falling out, affect me on a good day.

I'm normally moaning about Jamie Oliver on here, saying that he's a self-publicist with disproportionate influence, happy to stick his face in front of things he doesn't understand.

Well today, I like him.  He has given an interview to Paris Match which is reveals that he and I share exactly the same predjudices about our country of birth.  You can read the interview here.  Or here if you didn't so to school.  It's a classic example of him whipping up a mini controversy to promote his next programme but I'm fine with that now.

I even have to admit that I was impressed by his mate Jimmy's programme about farming.  You could see the influence of the NFU in a lot of it rather than the big single issue NGOs which was pleasantly reassuring - that's what we pay our subscription for.

I maintain, however, that we shouldn't depend on these two blokes as industry spokesmen.  Ultimately they are thinking about their own profiles and popularity and they could just as easily say bad or inaccurate things about food production.

It's a bloomin pity that farmers are too stoopid and ugly to get onto the telly themselves.

You know how a lot of surnames are derived from ancient professions, like Baker,Cooper or Driver (I never realised that they had cars in Anglo Saxon times), well I think that we should start that again.

I started thinking about this the other night when Armstrong and Miller were on telly.  Those are two great English names - particularly Armstrong.  I like the idea of forebears who were strong of arm.  I've never met anyone called Tony Weaklegs, presumably that family died out, or Shirley Longtoes but maybe they exist.

I like the idea of becoming Matthew Farmer.  That sounds perfectly healthy and noble.  My system is designed to stop people doing a job that they don't believe in because "it pays the bills."

Actually I've just realised that I might be able to get a column for the magazine out of this idea.

I hate it when people say "my job doesn't define me."  As a farmer, one is very much living and breathing the task.  It would be a much better world if everyone invested as much of themselves and their beliefs into their work.

I think that suddenly there would be a rush for jobs that had a practical and productive side to them.  Would you want to be called Ian Auditor?  Or Keith Deskbased? 

It would be a lot easier when people arrived to do business with you too, "Hi I'm Barry Sprayrep."  Or when they phoned up, "Good Morning, my names Karen Cold-Caller, do you have a moment?"   

Right, I'm going to have yet another coffee and start writing this as a column

The Relfster is a judge along with Pam Ayres (I'm pretty sure that she is a different Pam to our own cool correspondent, Poodle Pam).

Anyway.  In case you've forgotten what she looks like, here's a picture of Tim Relf

The Relfster set the ball rolling on one of the forums with his own poem. 

They come in all shapes and sizes,
To suit kids tiny feet and big farmers' plates of meat,
Some like them green,
Some keep them clean,
Hunters are trendy,
All of them are bendy,
They keep out the rain,
And stop you going lame,
Where on earth would we be without wellies?

So they stop you going lame eh, Tim?  Well you ought to get a pair because that is the lamest poem that I have ever read.  Or was.  Until I read a bit further down this discussion forum.

I don't want to be too cruel to Tim after his excellent post on the World's Biggest Scotch Egg.  We sing from the same hymn sheet when it comes to sausages and related savouries.

I do hope that the standard rises.  This stuff gives the Vogons a run for their money.  And do check out Owd Fred, I'm sure he was the inspiration for Bert Fry. 

Tractor time is usually an opportunity to mull subjects over and this is where I normally assemble an idea.  Today, though, it was like rattling an empty tin.  I was like a zombie.

The pressure is on because my mate, Jules, wrote a pretty good piece for the Growers page of the Lincolnshire Free Press this week.  It was about incorporating tractor exhaust gas into the soil where the carbon yuk and nitrous poison act as a fertiliser. Similar article here. 

Unfortunately he performed a cardinal sin by signing off the article with the awful cliche "Interesting Times."  Oh Jules.  It was like going out for a delicious five course meal with fine wine and then being served Haribo and a cup of Mellow Birds at the end.  He knew that he had dropped one the minute that he sent the email to the paper.

I've been mocking him all week saying "Yep, interesting times" after every comment that he makes.  I wish I hadn't made such a big deal about it because now I've got to come up with something better before Friday.

Interesting Times.

Personally I would prefer to see more government funding applied to the practical use of new breeding technology to reduce pesticide and water use.  The benefits of this (cheap food and cleaner air and water) are not something that on their own would motivate a profit-driven company.

I do admire Charles' passion, however, and the way that he tries to lead by his own example.  He has a curious role in the country's governance and I like the fact that he is not afraid to be left-field.

I thought that you might enjoy the counter argument to his comments from the unfailingly excellent Dennis Avery.  (Henry Fell always distributes Dennis' articles).  I don't always entirely agree with him, I'm not happy to take a chance on global warming for starters, but his stuff is always full of facts and brilliantly written.

BY: Dennis T. and Alex A. Avery, Hudson Institute

CHURCHVILLE, VA--Prince Charles of England has come out again against the genetically modified foods that are a key hope for producing the extra food needed by our richer, more populous world in the decades just ahead. He must know that, thanks to science, world grain production tripled during his lifetime, from about 700 million tons per year to nearly 2,100 million tons. This achievement was certainly not due to his elitist organic farming, which continues to yield about half as much per acre as conventional farming. For fifty years, we've even bombarded seeds with radioactive isotopes to force useful new seed mutations!

Dr. Norman Borlaug, winner of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize was honored for breeding the high-yield seeds of the Green Revolution of the 1960. What if we hadn't tripled the world's crop yields with the Green Revolution? Not only would one billion people have starved, but the fabric of the planet would have been rent by more "hunger wars." Millions more would have died in the battles, and in the famines and disease epidemics that always accompany wars.

Charles says biotech crops "haven't raised crop yields."  Nonsense!  For openers, biotechnology's pest-resistant cotton seeds have raised yields by one-third on the 35 million cotton acres in China and India. That has freed 15 million acres for additional food crops in the very countries which are currently adding the most pressure on world food supplies. Biotech varieties also produce higher corn and soy yields.

In Africa, genetically researched corn produces four times as much corn per acre--and an even bigger gain in food security--because new varieties are naturally tolerant of an herbicide called imazopyr. When these corn seeds are soaked in small amounts of the herbicide, the imazopyr suppresses the endemic witchweed, a parasitic weed that invades grain plants through their roots.

The newest biotech rice, wheat and rapeseed varieties suddenly need only half as much nitrogen fertilizer to produce a full yield. This cuts food costs, and means almost no N left over to leach into nearby streams. Nitrogen-efficient corn is also on its way.

We might ask the future King of England: "What about the millions of pounds of pesticide that haven't been sprayed in the air to protect our crops, because a safe and ubiquitous soil organism called Bacillus thuringiensis, engineered into the plants, kills crop-eating caterpillars?" 

If humans will need twice as much food and feed in 2040 how would we feed ourselves and our increasing number of pets with low organic yields? Organic fields yields are limited primarily because of the global shortage of manure. However, the world would need billions more cattle to get extra manure, and we'd have to clear forests to grow their forage. "Green manure crops" steal land, sunshine, water, and soil nutrients from food and feed crops.

How would the future king tell the cat and dog owners of Britain that, because of his anti-science elitism, pet food sales must be banned so people could eat?

The best non-science solution I've heard is from Vijay Prakash, Secretary of Welfare in India's Bihar state. Prakash says we should eat rats. Then the rats won't eat the stored grain, and the people will get more high-quality protein. He is promoting rat meat in the villages--and talking with hotels about rat meat on their menus. It's at least more realistic than expecting humans to become vegetarian.

And we wish Queen Elizabeth a very long and healthy life.

DENNIS T. AVERY is a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC and is the Director for the Center for Global Food Issues. (www.cgfi.org) He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 2442 or email to cgfi@hughes.net

Before we draw a veil over the whole thing and form a pact that we never speak of it again, here is your final image.  ENJOY

Is it wrong to find that commentary just a little bit sexy?  Bon bon au farce

Normal service now resumes

I couldn't decide which to use so I'm going to let you vote on which one should be today's featured costume.  Steel yourself, it's not going to be easy.  Leave your vote in the comment section...

(I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to deleting this stuff from my computer tomorrow.)

Should it be B, a member of the Terriercotta Army

OK, nearly there, have a deep breath.  Lean on a table if you need to. 

Who's this foxy lady in the hula skirt?  Oh look, it's contestant number C. (That flowery bra is a particularly nice touch, I thought.)  Feel free to pitch in with a pun; I've given up - I'm losing the will to live here.

Dog D who, to his credit, is the first one who looks as though he might be enjoying himself.  Maybe he's just smoked a joint. 

Dog E.  (Or should that be Doggie?)  More Star Wars stuff.  If you vote for this one you are clearly a nerd and I will block you from leaving comments in the future

Dog F which was kindly sent in by B. Matthews from Norfolk

Dog G, sweet baby Jesus, it's bad.

Dog H, which in absolute seriousness, I actually find really rather disturbing

What did you just say?  That your life feels incomplete because you've never seen a low-quality picture of a dog dressed as a bee keeper.  Believe it or not, I may just be able to help you with the help of Dog I

And finally, if you are still here,is dog J

You know what, I thought it was going to be hard to find pictures for each of the seven days but there's a whole underground movement of this stuff.  Thank God tomorrow is the grand finale, I don't think that I can stand anymore.

Is anyone still reading?  Do you need to be put on suicide watch?

Right, Voting. Who wins?  You decide.  Please vote for your favourite in the comment section.

I promise that tomorrow will be the last day and we can get back to potato data, the weather and toilet humour.