The Pawsey family descended on Oxford for the Oxford Real Farming Conference.

We are so lucky to have two great conferences, both Real and Original, at the beginning of the year to get the grey matter primed for the months ahead.

My notebook is creaking with new to-dos and ideas for projects. I completely lucked out on the first day at the first session with the indomitable Jenny Phelps talking about integrated local delivery.

She is a genius and the saviour of farming.

See also: Why stem rust could be back in wheat crops and what to do about it

About the author

John Pawsey

Arable Farmer Focus writer John Pawsey is an organic farmer at Shimpling Park in Suffolk. He started converting the 650ha of arable cropping in 1999, and also contract farms an additional 915ha organically, growing wheat, barley, oats, beans and spelt.

Read more articles by John Pawsey

Oh, and I think I was “cancelled”.

I went to one session where we were asked if white males of a certain age could refrain from asking a question if we felt that anyone else in the room who we hadn’t met before and who didn’t fit that description might ask the question we were thinking of asking.

Identifying as a white male of a certain age, I didn’t ask the question I had thought of asking due to my weakness in telepathic skills, but I don’t suppose anybody missed out on the question I didn’t ask. Confused? I was. 

I know we haven’t had as much rain as most of you, but 95mm since my last submission has at last got our drains running and our ponds filled.

We have recorded rainfall for the Environment Agency since the 1960s and, over that time, we have averaged 638mm annually.

Last year’s 486mm sees us 152mm short on the year, so we’ve still got some catching up to do.

Sheep aside, activity on the farm has been pretty quiet, with our arable team taking most of December as holiday or for training.

January is filled with full-on machinery maintenance in preparation for spring work, and we have a pretty long list of repairs after the dry autumn.

Recent arc and mig welding courses for younger members of staff are coming into their own.