Motley's Blog

In the news yesterday was the report about activities surrounding a couple of 'tasty' children in Yorkshire who did unspeakable things. Now on the face of it this story had nothing to do with farming. However in the report we were told that these children and their parents were seen or known by nine, yes 9 different agencies.

I reflected that we have all these different agencies in agriculture. I recalled at one time I was doing some investigation on farmer diversification, and came across the knowledge that there were 68 different sources of help in Yorkshire to assist farmers to diversify into tourism. As time has gone by the government assistance to farming has never at anytime sought to simplify. The dratted agency called business link drew a spider diagram on the complexity that is farm advice from government. Why didn't any one ask? Look at this mess, them like Moses smash the information and start again.

No, we now have the Rural Development Agencies (RDA) delivering rpa modulated money through a susccessful tender.

1. In the beginning is some money.
2. The money is taken away via modulation.
3. The farm money held by the rpa has enormous over heads
4. the RDA then manages the money.
5. A partnership bids for the money and perhaps has the money banked by another partner

...........and so it goes on. This is in 8 separate regions across the country of England. You can notice that along this path of money the farmer business has still not benefited.

I recall an event where a farmer was undertaking refurbishment of a building for accommodation. The building was listed and was set to be bed and breakfast accommodation. The fire regulations, heritage, planning, environment and trade description departments of the local council were all standing around the door. Non could could not agree which way the door was to swing.

This is life in Britain to day. It has come to pass because, as Robert Law has pointed out, there has been an exponential growth in the number of legal professionals we have in society to day. Let them sue - It is time to stand up to these obfuscating, time-servers, in these agencies and make them become accountable and undertake their leadership responsibilities. (I have not seen what happen to that specimen in London associated with baby P. who appears to encapsulate the problem so well. She was on about £100,000pa and held her inspection report up say that it said al is well. She could then do her cop out that she had done her job! That defence did not work at Nuremberg.)

The situation reported about these children is appalling, and should in no way be comparative to farmering. But this exposure of all these different agencies in this case begs the question. Where and when will we get a simplification of the 'support' provided? Thiss is required now to move farming forward. We don't need another report or strategy.

This period of cold weather demonstrates the impact of centralization of command and control by our government. Why do we continue to accept this? Also the demands of our nation being in such thrall to the car and lorry is demonstrated. I fear that the support of communities up and down the land by local business and supply chains will not be celebrated and people will all drift back to the gods that are tesco, walmart, and others.

People are commuting many miles to work and have to rely, especially in rural areas on individual transportation. Public service diminished to an expensive and intermittent role. However schools and colleges use enormous numbers of coaches and taxis to bring children in from a wide catchment area.

The thing we know about a system is: How can it manage under duress? This has enabled the policy perverts to coin the word resilience into parlance. Why we even now have county resilience teams looking at managing the situation Talk, talk. This is baby boomer bungler management at its very best.

Being an old git I can remember historic times such as 1963, when central power was less, cars were less, we even had railways and local shops and schools -  my what backward, primitive times.

Our reliance on the internal combustion engine has compromised our resilience. The nation has only crumbled under the pressure of snow because people often can neither drive in snow nor understand how to live given a different situation. Apparently we cannot even be expected to go to a football game. At least my noble team put their game on and won.

Over Christmas a report stated that there are 3,500 folk at work in the MI5. This set me to thinking as there are about 3,500 at work in the RPA and a similar quantity in Natural England.

Is there something magic about the number of employees in Government departments that it is set at 3,500? I don't think so given that the NHS has 1.3million on the book.

The next rumination that occurred: Why have we 3,500 RPA to check out farmers and a similar number checking out terrorists?

If there is a thing most depressing about life in Great Britain today it is the manifest distrust that government has in their own subjects. The way people let this go on, and that government resources quangos like RPA and NE with so many people and have so few doing important work.

This is again demonstrable in the military where there are a few good men on the ground and so many chiefs in Whitehall. At least Obama has come out a nailed his lot to the wall in the latest terrorist incident. Bush would have gone into the Yemen with troops with poodle toni in support.

Recently we set the hare running under the starter gun blasted by the Lancet about culling cattle.

The thread raised the usual suspects and responses.

What smacked me between the eyes is the view shared by many on the tread that it is practical men who are of value, education and thinking is of no value, apparently.

Why do farmers continue to extol the value of practice and experience over all other things? If this was true surely farming would be in a better place than it is at present. Farming is in a bad place because

• very few young people are attracted to come into the practice and experience of farming.
• farming is in a bad place because no investment is being made in research and development.

However this is not true of all countries across the planet - fortunately. 

Last week, I had to go into the fine market town of Ipswich, and give a talk to a group of folk about the past 50 years of farming in Suffolk.

The summary and thanks pointed to the success of agriculture creating it's own vision becoming a nightmare. This in turn led to the thought that farmers must indeed change, or be taken out by the slow and assiduous, attrition of financial selection.

It really is this slow pace that is farming's strenght and weakness.

inety nine people out of one hundred have nothing to do with agriculture, in Britain. We absolve ourselves from the peasant task of producing our own food. We appear to be a nation more interested in gardening than having the land produce food. Our food is to be produced by other nation’s less well endowed in resources than our own.

Meeting held at Harper Adams 8 and 9 September 2009, attended by 45 delegates, included 22 theatre papers and 16 posters. Why does a population of 500,000 working in British Agriculture only manage to provide so few, to such an excellent opportunity, to find out more knowledge and sharpen skills? I was the only attendee from English FE college. Are we all so busy that we don't want to learn more? Are we so hard up that £200 for a two day conference is too much? Added into this is the amalgamation of institutes to Universities and the continued erosion of support to agriculture that such a conference demonstrates.

I had been to the previous Conference in 2006 where there were 65 delegates and again very little English interest or involvement. Will it be that one day farmers in England, together with their policy makers wake up to what is going on, all we can say is this is a real lost generation. Talking with the younger delegates from the various institutions present from the countries already identified; they are more interested in going to work in New Zealand.

Now I do understand that the majority of farmers don't give a fig for research, education or innovation because they do not attend or take part. There is a top 10% of farmers that do use consultancy, farm walks and education and make great strides forward, they have to be more influential and leaders of their industry, they have to realize that we are in this together. There is a further 20 - 30% who undertake through duress training for legislation or assurance work. Why do agriculture and farm if it is such hard work and no fun? If it was fun then farmers would come out to find out what is happening, colleges and farm institutions would come out to these events to update because they would see the need.

An excellent range of papers were given from Scottish, Irish (north and South) and Welsh institutions. One from England and that was on Organic Lupins (don't do it!).

One of the papers delivered looked at the Phosphate problem, as Phosphate will be finished in about 100 years time. This paper was introduced by the Chairman who claims to be a farmer. He introduced the speakers as working at Aberyatwyth for 37 years which goes back to the time when he was there also. He said "when I left I had to teach myself farming as they had taught me nothing". My this is depressing stuff, if you don't listen then of course you will not learn. What did he expect to learn, why did he go? Why if it was so bad did he not leave? No I woukld say an industry standard view to educators- though not all farmers believe schooling to be a bad thing, probably a maajority though. When you are in a bad place kick (bully) someone else is the answer.

The question I had is: What can we do to animate and energize farmers, policy makers to understand the problem of phosphates. In essence the British farmers are uncompetitive on a global basis and the phosphate will go to the nations like India and China that will be able to pay for it, or already have it. I can't see the NFU/CLA working with the Moroccans for their phosphate.

The best paper delivered was by a Kiwi from Teagasc (now there is athing). This demonstrated the need for farmers to monitor their own soil temperatures for efficient Nitrogen application and blew the old T-Sum 200 out of the water. What is simply amazing is the difference in farmer ability to use Nitrogen effectively. Most applications of N are wasted. But who cares hey-ho. Time of application is more than crucial.

The paper I liked best was on the difference of 10 NI farmers grazing ability, which followed on from a paper on "Grasscheck". The speaker stated that most farmers did not know how much Dry matter they had, did not know when and how grass grew. I fell off my chair. This is science I was taught in 1973. So I am more confirmed in my opinion that we have a population of farmers who don't need to get more efficient. Another paper delivered asked why don't farmers use manure more efficiently use clover, use energy efficient milk pumps? Because they don't have too is the answer. They know about it but the culture is to be conservative and wait for normal service to resume. The grasscheck tool is available on line and gets 10 to 12 hits a week in the season. WHY DON’T FARMERS USE THE INTERNET? Normal service is not to go back to the past. The normal service is changed weather (look at Irish Harvest, 63mm of rain in Aberdeen on one day). Well that is normal according to many farmers, occupational hazard.

 NO.

Farmer culture needs to adapt to new ways and fast, because it is elsewhere. A paper given on New Zealand agriculture showed how dairying is expanding there, of which I was unaware. Returning to the NI experience, why is there no correlation between milk yields and profit. The inabilty of farmers to be profitable boils down to intellectual capacity age, family background, education, succession planning and networking. What I call a world view.

If you are raised on a farm that has not had to fight hard for business survival and adapt to new culture then why should you change? They will have to pay us a sensible price for our milk  - one day, and that will serve them right! The thing is; will you be in business then.

What is your EBIT number? EBIT - earnings before investment and tax. Speak with george fisher from Dairyco and he will help. Dairyco is not a sponger, or parasite on the back of farming. daiyco is a source of help to farmers with a different worldview.

There was much talk about housing dairy cows, and that this is inevitable, this being the case find another market to sell your milk in because the British consumer will not buy milk from housed dairy cows. British farming needs to get out of the idea that: "I have a problem, so I will buy this tin, that says, do this and it will be alright. I will milk cows and carry excess grass and when things go wrong I will chuck more concentrates at the cows and will get more milk, simple"

Husbandry will be rediscovered - one day, when the oil runs dry. Clover will no longer be a weed and muck will not be a mystery. Why wait that long it can be done now it was by the Romans, it ain't new.

Research presented at the conference in the main broke away from the old paradigm of intensive science based husbandry to more of a systems approach using clover, biodiversity value, reduction of fixed costs and pointing out that 1 in 10 farmers are on top of the job, the other 9 are needing to do something. This will be drift out of the industry or wise up.

The summary can be coined from Dr Roberts, who cited the Philips woman from Natural Engalnd, in her interview in FW. Here she asked for better integration of knowledge. But as we know she ain't going to do anything about it. Dr. Roberts explained that agriculture is not about anything other than trade offs, and it is something that has to be learnt by these government policy wonks.

 Government has done no more than squeezed on a rice pudding in their efforts to improve agricultural husbandry. There will not be any change in the future, we have to do more ourselves to make it better.

In a few days time we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing with those famous steps taken by Armstrong and Aldrin. Honoured though is the time famous image, that of a blue planet in a universe of darkness.

This image cut across the generations, who all responded differently to the vision. At that time we had barely scratched the surface of increased crop yields, the environmental accusations leveled at farming were only whispers. The Governments of the industrial world were in support of their farmers. However the seeds of distrust were sown.

Now we have an agriculture dominated by large farms and agri business, and social failure of farming to regenerate in the traditional ways of father to son. land is procured by business, either through contract or direct purchase. Many farmers left hanging on are either part-time, rely on off-farm income. There is little or no research being done in Britain, there is certainly no state sponsored programmes for knowledge extension. Farmers are at logger-heads with others over what constitutes agriculture, or more specifically "good agriculture".

• Many farmers conclude that the world is not a beautiful thing.
• Society generally rolls up to the food store, fills the boot with goods and goes home.
• Government has abdicated responsibility for land ethics, and is morally bankrupt.

However we can look down on our planet with aerial photographs, and we can see where our Saxon ancestors walked and practiced their agriculture. This gives us heart and confidence to know that our belief in good husbandry is sustainable over time. The problem is the past two generations issue of property rights, and failure of property responsibilities. This is to leave the land in better heart than when it was found.

Take less and give more is the only way we will get out of our present mess. If agriculture is so central to the economy why is Argentina is such a position and USof A in another. only 100 years ago they were pretty much in the same place economically. This is because in the States there is a culture of giving, Argentina the rich keep it for themselves. As Mr. Clover expressed better than I can, in the Sunday Times, The Royal Show fell on the sword of big's barren legacy. Now Big's barrenness seeks to deliver environmental goods for society in cahoots with defra. I don't think so.

This is why all the people look at the world from afar, as show in the image from the moon, and see blue in a mass of dark. These barren biggers are leading us into another dark age of farming, through failure to undertake agriculture, they undertake 'agriextracture' as requested by government, supermarkets and city dwellers. They don' care if it is Brazil or Bedfordshire.

Cobbett undertook a series of tours around the nation in the early part of the 19th century, taking the pulse of the nation, though reporting with his individual stamp it was not exactly un biased.

There is a long tradition of reporting on the social aspect of the people and agriculture in Britain. Defoe, Cobbett, Young and including some  in the last century. Though these agricultural tours have now fallen out of fashion given the power of media of moving pictures, photographs and now the web.

 Now we have the blog-o-sphere, where people write for themselves. Is it possible to re-create a rural ride in 2009 as a virtual ride with tools such as u-tube, and weblogs? The trouble is even though Cobbett and others were biased they were more objective in their appraisals than the average weblog.

However the Utube posting of Farmer and Fitzpatrick by FWi does enable the type rural ride to be a possibility. These communications require organization, to build into a picture. The web is fantastic at anarchy, there are selection tools like google but the collective knowledge on a site like FWi is incredible. It is the attraction of this type of activity to me, as I am convinced that with the help of a pencil sharpener and much scrawling Shakespeare re-cast is possible. But I just don't know how. I think the fact that Fw can use the new media in this way enables a transparency to be obtained in the new world where farming and agriculture are reduced to bit part of human endeavour.

I do regret that there is not more debate about agriculture, or the way we do agriculture, on this site. However the range in threads, blogs and photos does demonstrate the concerns of many. The picture galley observations show this is indeed the communication of preference as they say a picture is as good as a thousand words.

Keep up the good work FWi and congratulations on your award.

It has all become a bit like squeezing on a rice pudding. If you want to get any truth with the environmental scientists who continue to berate farmers. They will say  "not them".

This was the title of a conference I attended on 4th June.  This conference attempted to address some of the problems in land use. For the first time I heard that the problem in essence is about property rights, which is most pleasant. The audience and speakers were overwhelmingly political and academic concerned in the main with 'eco-system services'. Until society places a true economic value on the other services of land then farmers will continue to plough and seed. This audience had no clue how to take their academic theories and make them fly in the real world. There was absolutely no link of this academic work to farming. The link was to study a few selected farms like observing a mouse in a cage turning on a wheel. Well why is he doing that?

The answers to the problem centered around a particularly Stalinist view that central land planning was the answer, with Baroness Young in the Chair there is no surprise, added in this audience were plenty of socialist academics and NGOs. Others collected together were in essence the people who would sponsor or pay for further research. This work may influence policy, but it will not be taken up by farmers because they have not addressed the ways in which it could be used in agricultural husbandry, real ivory tower work.

The event had a series of speakers and two panel sessions, the buzz of the day was more political than scientific.

• It was noted that 80% of landscape is farmed and 80% of land is privately owned
• What would the impact be of more health diets? More sheep and less dairy, which in turn releases more productive land.
• Uplands rely on public support, but if we go away from farming people do not want to pay for the landscape. It was suggested that this would lead to land idling. Well the large man from the RSPB became emotional about that at panel time. Birds are apparently not land idling. Perhaps fungi, insects and bacteria oh and people are?
• A farmer (well more estate owner) questioned whether AONB was correct. To call land an area of beauty? This is the classic case of a farmer perception of what is beautiful and the remaining 98% of the population who have a very different view of what constitutes landscape beauty.
• Speakers often concluded that their data was improved by undertaking advice of local knowledge. There is variability in farmers just as there is in wildlife.
• The conclusions cited the complexity of introducing environmental management into agricultural management. If we cannot get society to pay for eco-system services in the uplands, then there is no chance anywhere else in Britain.

Generally there was some excellent information being generated which would be of interest to farmers. When you think about £20 million is being spent it is incomprehensible that there is no scheme to either engage farmers in this work as it is happening, nor is there more on-farm work shop and seminar activity included in the programme. Typical environmental scientists and environmental NGOs they don't like getting involved with people.

Nothing was more telling to this delegate than when 2 Professors put up a matrix that included a quadrant with Interest along the vertical axis, and influence along the bottom axis in regard to their areas of either eco-system services (Morris) or Biodiversity (Sutherland) - two nice political, as opposed to production uses of land. These quadrants were made up of

1. Crowd (bottom left quad) low influence and low interest
2. Subject (top left quad) high interest and low influence
3. Context setters (bottom right quad) high influence and low interest
4. Key players (top right quad) High interest and high influence

Farmers were not in the key players. These Professors identified government, or government bodies as the key players. What can I say.

It is good to attend these types of events. Refection can often make you feel frustrated by the lack of connection between science and farming in this country. Until there is more transparency in the communication between science and farming through education then the future is limited by this "iron curtain". The science community, government and farmers have to learn to trust each other again. Equally it is incomprehensible why farmers call for "the Science" when what they ware in fact calling for is some information to justify their side of the equation, at the expense of others.

Farmers have to accept that there is a role for multiple uses of land other than food production, scientists have to accept that farmer knowledge has a role, that they can persaude the government this is the case, is something farmers should take advantage of. The remaining 'players' i.e. RSPB, Environment Agency and Natural England have to accept that there is local knowledge and be less prescriptive and singular in their solutions. Land nationalization and land use strategies are a waste of energy, do something don't talk about it!

I visited a friend in Czech with the spouse last week. He is close to the Austrian border and has a small vineyard. He had a Czech mother, so he is able to own property in Czech, as only Czech people are allowed to own property in Czech.

It was wonderful to get away from the perpetually apocalyptic news and feel of blighty. The Czech's are aghast at what is happening in the 'mother of parliaments'. I was also very pleased to be able to observe many younger folk going about their business, when for example visiting a supermarket or traveling on a train. Children are not seen as freaks. They play in the streets, travel alone on cycles, trains. Generally very relaxed and fun. We walked through road building, no hi-viz jackets, no hard hats, oh yes they were smoking! workers speak to you and smile, we walked on old buildings not cut off for public viewing, we walked through building sites, no fences, no hard hats, no chewing gum on the streets, no kids gobbing all the time in likeness of their favourite footballer on tv. Beer 50p for 0.5 litre, and they were smoking! The pace of life, if it is possible to measure is much slower. Less mobiles, less people jabbering into mobiles, none of the teenager angster with a earplug and wire attached to head, head down and covered. You can walk or cycle along roads with out cars roaring up to and at you.

I often wondered why I walk on farm foot paths here. Well it reminded me there is no where else to walk here in peace and quite.

In this particular part of Czech near Znojmo there is a wonderful national park of 200ha which in essence became wild because of the iron curtain. Wonderful old buildings, and remains of estates, from pre communist time, a time warp. It is really more like the 1960s than 2000. What comes to you is the dynamism and energy released because of a new way of working for these people. The grey hair prefers the communist way, well that is not an option any more. Therefore the young have it in their gift, the wall went down in 1989, so any one born after 1989 is already 20 and the nation is being driven forward by people under the age of 50 in the main. None of the baby boomer problem that we have here where the generation born after the war talk the talk BUT don't walk the walk as demonstrated so wonderfully by the present parliament dominated by the baby boomers, with the former supposed radical student leaders of the 1960's (Straw and Clarke).

We visited Vien (Vienna), not batches of cameras watching you, underground clean, air fresh (well relatively). No tattoos, no body piercings, no gangs of youths, no hi-viz jackets everywhere, friendly folk want to help you. Space on the trains. The fare for 3 of us was £25 for the 1 hour journey  (Peterborough about equivalent distance is £70 return for one). They are building railways, stations, and infra-structure. Why do they get peak oil, and global warming and we don't? Visited a Vienna coffee house for coffee and cake, absolutely wonderful and worth the £25 for 3 of us. Same as out train fares! People are trusted to ride the underground in Vienna, no ticket then you get a 75 Euro fine, simple (if caught), not many risk it.

Visited and spoke with a vineyard owner in Austria and he explained to me that they too face succession problems, labour problems and a future that will be restricted by climate, oil and credit. the Austrians are budgeting on no more skiing in 30 years time and are putting things in place now. What is it we don't get about climate change? He also collaborates on use of machines, contracts out land and yes his father does not appreciate that times are different and yes the son is wrong. They have a family of 8 living off the 11ha of wine, so mix and match skills with working off farm. But they are all part of the farm still.

The agriculture was obviously dynamic in both countries. What was wonderful is the line on the border where you can see the massive fields of communist past, and small family fields in Austria right next door to each other, with a straight line crossing the landscape. There was more diversity of agriculture with fields of wheat, barley (spring and Winter), oil seed rape, sunflowers, soya (I think), Sugar beet, Potatoes, onions (no irrigation) Linseed, Borage all mixed in. therefore evidence of more wildlife. What was missing were animals, I saw three fields with cattle in and one of sheep on the whole visit. In the six days there I did not see one sprayer at work ( I know there is a lot of Organic in Austria), but in Czech equally nothing going on much with chemicals, and to look at the crops, I think there is less nitrogen used. Crops looked well they seem to get about 6t/ha of wheat. Though we did see fields decimated by hail. interesting one field of potatoes wiped out, next door field of wheat fine, then later wheat fields with areas damaged and others not so damaged by the storm.

I chatted with folk about things and it is my comprehension that the local accountability of politicians is the big difference. Even in erstwhile communist country there is significant local power for mayors and villages. We simply do not have this. It is too my mind much more Stalinist and centrally controlled here than in Czech for people's everyday living. Austria of course never had the dead hand of communism.

I am pro-Europe and what I have seen on my latest trip, there is much we could learn from our friends on the continent. How to get on with your neighbour, reduction in the dead hand of the state. Europe is seen as a positive good in Austria and Czech especially, not with standing the present travails of European elections. The opportunities are seen not the negatives. The trouble here is not Europe; it is big business, vested interests and big government in London. the answer is to give more power out to the people and spend less time oppressing folk with petty regulations. These regulations are blamed on Europe - they are Crash's (Gordon Brown) regulations, not Brussels. Why does our government have such a low level of trust in their people? It is so very interesting that Wales can adopt a different attitude to their farmers that Defra does in England.

• LEAF staged a superb knowledge transfer day at Loddington this week. This function was attended by about 200 farmers, I wonder why not more came along.

  The day consisted of a walk around 8 different stops for a 20 minute presentations and discussion, with groups of about a dozen or more in each group. The idea tied up the various points to undertake integrated farm mangement linking in aspects of our farm manangement other than simple production. A well thought through day in enabling education and x-fertilization of ideas.

  I have included the various stops we undertook with some of my thoughts, they are not meant to be cynical and negative, I just can never help myself. I wish I was postive and optimistic, life seems wonderful, except sometimes I react in my default way to information provided. I would recommend this day to anyone as a good way to take on new ideas, and hope it is done again.

  First we looked at value adding to lamb. These two young men where selling lamb directly and now found that they need to spend more time on marketing and had set on a new person to help with the stock, releasing more time for them to devote to marketing. They had leant that farm work pays at say £10/hr or £15/hr but marketing is so much more valuable per hour.

  The next stop was on waste management, very interesting stop. This diversification born out of need, and the fact that this is a leading farm, with 8 farmers involved now with 80. The problem here highlighted was the need for markets in recycled plastic. Also the need for chemical manufacturers to get their head around recycling in the containers produced. One container demonstrated had 3 different types of plastic. The need is for farmers to hassle regulators more.

  Next stop was the control of drainage water to create sediment beds, therefore holding back soil particulates from main water  courses. A member of our group questioned the need for licencing and the thorny problem of chemical being accumulated possibly. Then went on to say that the EA had created the need for paper activity on his part, this was nicely dealt with by the EA man present who could  not understand why his ditch cleaning had been handled in this way. This is all very well and brings me to one of the bug bears I have. Why do I meet lots of nice people who "can do" with in organizations, but the organization as a whole fails in their ability to communicate? This is because government agencies do not do customer management.  Anyone within the organization can do anything as long as internal process/procedure is followed.

  Next we moved onto the Biodiversity stop. Not much to say about this, other than I am seeking to find people who are interested in nature and wildlife not the politics of biodiversity.

  Next was soils and Nitrogen. Good stop with Professor Goulding. Highlighted the need for soil maps and soil testing. Also at this stop we discussed the way trace elements are increasingly becoming a limiting factor. I remeber also some called Graham Harvey coming into converstion, I think this guy is a Sunday times colour supplement commenator on food production. He therefore talks to an audience who know there is a food shortage went the local Waitrose runs out of New potatoes for Christmas.

  Next was a session from soilessentials. Satnav for farming. Went over my head. I always find the blinding with science a difficult one and so turn off.

  Next stop was wind turbines. The real boardroom moment came when he said; 'we are not double glazing salesmen.' well as Mandy Rice-Davies said; 'He said it.'

  To end we had a quick session on communication and care farming. A good little session to present different ideas in completion of our circuit.

  All in all an excellent day that many more could have benefited from  attending

Sitting through the BBC2 programme last night there was a quite extensive piece on Badgers. Bete noir of farmers.

Here we have primetime TV devoting much air time to badgers, focusing on an old boy who has spent 50 years with this badger set, hand feeding them no less. Does this programme educate those with in this debate? Not really it is only focusing on the cuddly "Wind-in -the Willows"  side, not the linked to agriculture. I would very much like to springwatch link to agriculture more. The alternative BBC1 countryfile programme will never be any more that lifestyle "countryliving", for mass audience with the communication problems of the transmission to many people.

How can we resolve this conflict of high emotions around the badger, farming and TB? I don't have the answer.

Is the farm sector of society in touch with the people on this issue. I expect it will be intellectualized through the prism of denial and anger by farming. When what is requires is negotiation and barganing not conflict. Why has this thorny problem become what it has? An impasse between two communities? I have learnt much from the TB blog, but there is too much information there for me to assimilate. Regrettably also I do not understand it, and I am in farming. The whole thing is wrought in so much bitterness and anger and I do tend to avoid it. What i would love is for someone to de-personalize the discussion and point out to me why this or that has to be done. Is this worth going to war over? and if so who will win? I suspect nature will.

If we consider this problem from a pure ecosystem view is the role of disease and shock to this agroecosystem leading to population collapse? We know that it is the power of an ecosystem to meet the stress imposed from outside that determines it stability. In this system we have people, cattle and wildlife. What I know are the methods to  deal with this. This covers over the social problems for those involved, and how they make a living. Is this different to those being lobbed out of jobs in this present period of economic destruction. What Government has failed to put in place are support systems for those caught up in this especially an programme of education.

What I am very interested in is the way in which Wales is going about this. I found the editorial by Jane King in this week's FW interesting in that we have a population of 17,000 farmers (this is the same as in The East of England). These farmer's in wales, have much common territory with grazing and use of stock. I believe that we need to see power transferred out of London to Counties. London is destroying agricultural wealth and knowledge. It takes £3.4bn from Brussels and disseminates it out to farmers by which time there is only £1.7bn left to pay out, this is without the fines.

There was a dark age of agricultural knowledge that existed from the fall of the Roman administration until the development of the printing press. However this was really only a long dawn with more centuries passing until the likes of Arthur Young and later Humphrey Davy set us on the present path, with perhaps the foundation of RAC about 160 years ago as the start of our agricultural education system.

The question I ask myself often is why some farmers maintain such a perverse view towards learning and education. Not all farmers are in this situation. There is however an insufficient and active support from the industry that is needed to maintain our education and research system in place in this country.

Why is this? Is it because farmers are declining in numbers, getting older, is it because when you have a farm there is not the need to update, as unless you go out of business no one is going to take your farm away. You can become a part-time farmer and bring in an income off the farm as 90% of farm households do. So there is no need for education.

When a more articulate and educated elite challenge the conservative conventions of farming today, they are ridiculed and maligned as stupid. This is because it contravenes the farmer concept of commonsense, who needs education anyway?

We had a lecturer from Nigeria visit and he could not understand our attitude to education here, the kids and businesses where hungry for new knowledge in Nigeria, the kids walking 10 or 20 miles to school.

In going out to seek new knowledge I ask not what I get for going, but go to see what I can get. Often it is learning from the presenters especially farmers who are happy to talk about their farm, there are many situations that could be improved through. The farmer presenter needs to put themselves into the shoes of the audience. As a farmer how would you tell a 7 year old child what your profession is?

Surely a certificate of professionalism, like an accountant or similar is how can we demonstrate professionalism. We have FACTS,  BASIS, NRoSo, assurance schemes, and more. Why does the industry not want to pull this together into a more coherent communication with the outside world. Imagine going to a vet or machinery workshop with out certificates of professional competence. The railing against education is in my view because the industry does not want to "out" the cowboys.

Generally, to me, the pages and forum appear to be more lifestyle orientated than business management debate. The forum sure attracts lots of folk looking in each day, though the debate is articulated by a more dedicated group of users there being 96,729 posts on 35,651 threads by 6,531 users. We have then very broadly 3 posts to a thread and each user putting up about 14 posts. These averages though disguise much, as many threads have no interest or response some on the other hand have many posts. The biggest surprise to me is the lower level of activity on the next generation threads and posts. I would have expected more activity here.

This web forum is fun, fit and fulfilling and adds to our modern agriculture through promotion of co-learning.

We attended the schools fair at the Suffolk Show ground on a magnificent sunny St.George's day. Even the farmers were happy, it requires in excess of 100 to steward the event.

The task is to present modern agriculture to children of about 8 years to 10 years old. They were enthusiastic, enquiring and excellent to present too. You realize how much jargon there is in modern agriculture when explaining, as I was sheep production (What is a ewe?).

This event is excellent as it has teachers and parents accompanying the children, so the event presents to a group of over 5,000 people.

There are many stalls to visit with each person setting out their stall on meat, sausages, peas, potatoes, tractors, hunting and rural pursuits to name some. The idea is to be inter active and provide information about modern agriculture. It certainly does this, this being the 9th year of the event, though the first time I have been involved.

As I drove home I just started to mull over what goes wrong.

Why does this energy and enthusiasm get drummed out of our kids in their education?

Why has education become political and not the fabulous human resource that it should be. Education is our greatest resource.

These guys just wanted to learn I can tell you.

On 23rd April 2009, there is the annual get together for 3,500 school children to attend an event that show cases agriculture. This event pretty much ties up all the available coaches for transporting the said children into Trinity Park at Ipswich. This event is farmers in Suffolk taking agriculture out to schools and their teachers, on what is sure to be an excellent day. I will report back with pictures later.