A time for biofuels, beet and exams
There were two particular highlights for me over the Christmas period. The first was watching my Labrador charging around the house for two hours with the sheer excitement of a new Poundland dog toy. The second was trying to open a bottle of port on Boxing Day with a supermarket security clamp still attached. How that particular family member managed to walk out of the store without the alarm going off is still a mystery.
To those of you who might be questioning the reputability of my family, I have a receipt that confirms the bottle had been paid. The clamp hidden inside the box must have been forgotten at the checkout. Nevertheless, it did make opening the bottle a challenge and it is a good job we didn’t give it to anyone as a present.
The cancellation of the “Brass Monkey” sailing regatta on Boxing Day due to ice meant I spent another morning wrestling – this time with sugar beet covers in the snow. The whole heap has thankfully now gone off to Wissington and, short of having the final week’s returns, it seems the yield has been excellent, given what the crop looked like.
I may have only been away from Sutton Bonington for a matter of days, but it feels like a lot longer. There is some major building work occurring on campus at the moment, and in my mind at least it seems to have progressed markedly.
Two buildings are nearing completion. One is to be shared by Agricultural and Vet School staff as both departments grow, while the other will house a biofuels research centre. The latter holds great interest for me, as one of its main areas of research will be in developing methods of biodigesting agricultural waste products such as straw into fuels such as ethanol.
The idea is that producing energy from waste does not take land from food production – one of the main moral barriers of most biofuel systems. In reality though, extracting useful forms of energy from cellulose-rich plant matter is actually very difficult, and it is this process that the £25m centre will be investigating.
In such a shortage, livestock producers may gasp at me referring to straw as a waste product, though I think in some areas of the country this is justified. I can assure you that South Lincolnshire’s straw market is by no means as buoyant as that of Devon and Cornwall, and like most farmers in our area, we incorporate most of our straw in a normal year.
It seems stupid to me that we waste what could be a valuable resource, even negating its P and K value. Fossil fuels are becoming increasingly expensive and certainly won’t last forever – we need to invest now to embrace an alternative in the future.
More immediately, the bane of my life at the moment is exams. By the time you read this, they’ll be well under-way and the pressure is really on because, unlike the first year, the marks from these modules count towards my final degree. However, because the subject areas are actually quite interesting, revision seems a lot more enjoyable than normal, even if it is much harder and in larger quantities.
One of my modules, Agricultural Economics, is very much concerned with the effects of subsidies on market forces, and I will be watching with interest how the plans of ministers set out at the Oxford Farming Conference will change our industry. Like most people, I can’t see the CAP dinosaur carrying on in its current form after 2013, though the availability of future subsidies will inevitably affect the profitability of European agriculture to some degree at least.
With an eye to securing our own future, the Neaverson family bought some land for £500,000/acre before Christmas. Admittedly, it was only 1sq ft and cost £15 on the internet, but the principle remains. The real value though is that owning land on some posh estate brings with it a title, and my uncle – who received it as a present – will now only be referred to as “Lord of the Manor”.
I would dearly love to visit his plot, and perhaps stand on one leg while reflecting that he could bequeath the vast area underfoot to a family member. Unfortunately though, development of said square foot is strictly prohibited.
19-year-old Michael Neaverson is a second-year Crop Science student at the University of Nottingham, where he is also president of the University Agricultural Society. Michael is from a farming family in South Lincolnshire and is involved in all aspects of the 600-acre business – wheat, barley, sugar beet, cress seed and marrowfats.
COLMN