Farmer Focus Livestock: Garrett’s last stand

Murray Garrett farms 126ha (312 acres) at Waytown Farm. He runs 100 spring-calving pedigree South Devon cows and a flock of commercial sheep

All good things must come to an end so I am told and, unfortunately, after some seven years as a Farmer Focus contributor, apparently my time is well and truly up – so no more cynical and sarcastic whingeing from me I am afraid.

I cannot depart these pages, however, without offering my sincere thanks to all those utility providers, tractor manufacturers and abattoirs – you know who you are – who have provided me with such a wealth of material over the years.

Greatest appreciation, of course, must go to the plethora of politicians and government bureaucrats who have regularly annoyed my placid demeanor and set my “creative” juices flowing – yes, I shall miss having the chance to put down in print exactly what I think of them. No longer able, as I sit seething on the other end of a telephone line from some DEFRA numpty, to utter those immortal lines to myself “I feel a Farmers Weekly article coming on”.

A case in point – the wet weather has had a dramatic effect on Waytown as evidenced by our new farm maps from the RPA. Some fields have shrunk while others have swelled and new field boundaries appear to have sprouted from nowhere.

“We’ve not had our original digital maps that long – how can aerial measurements change that much?” I asked the helpline. “Sir could always have his fields remeasured at his own expense, by a suitably qualified professional with a measuring wheel,” I was told.

Now forgive my simple grasp of matters cartographic, but wasn’t that done by the original Ordnance Survey teams decades ago? But this pales into insignificance next to DEFRA’s latest money-wasting scheme – recolouring their website to the tune of £180,000 to “make it less agricultural”.

Words really do fail me – it must be time to go.