Farmer Focus: Harvest is in the lap of the gods
John Pawsey © Phil Weedon For combinable crop farmers July is the month when we are bystanders as our senescent crops ready themselves for harvest. Our work is done, fortunes are in the lap of the gods.
It is also the month of agricultural shows and farming gatherings; a time to catch up, compare notes and tempt fate with August predictions.
See also: Harvest 2025: Early wheat yields ‘better than expected’
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New to me this year was the Royal Norfolk Show.
Our native Suffolk Show is always in the summer half-term, and so filled with families, whereas the Norfolk event is in term time, so children come on a school outing with their class ready to learn.
The science, technology, engineering and mathematics section was especially impressive, hosting 15,000 young minds over the show’s two days.
Being a huge music fan, it was heartening to see that most of the musical offering was provided by local young musicians.
Then there was Groundswell, the Lannock Farm gathering put on by the irrepressible Cherry family. It is something that we genuinely look forward to every year and it never disappoints.
And so to August predictions. My holiday reading was a self-published book by a relative of mine, James Alston.
It is about his recollections of growing up on a farm in Stirlingshire at the turn of the last century, and his subsequent move to Norfolk as a tenant in 1923.
Written in 1966, having been through two agricultural depressions, he suggests that farmers in the 1960s could not weather poor prices and bad harvests for more than two years due to the cost of modern farming.
When they were more self-sufficient between the wars, he points out, farmers could batten down the hatches and survive for up to 12 years.
As I write, some pretty patchy yields are being posted on social media platforms.
Our two previous Augusts have not delivered an impressive financial return, so here’s hoping that James has it wrong. If is to be a poor harvest, we can weather three.
