Stephen Carr: Gin-assisted predictions for 2011
New Year is always an eagerly awaited celebration, provided I get to prime my Aunt Betty with enough of her favourite cocktail (the “Gimlet” – two parts gin to one part lime cordial).
Suitably fuelled, she can be relied upon to grab my palm and make predictions for the year ahead. Last year’s effort included successful prophecies that I would “catch a cold in May” (bought my AN fertiliser too late), “meet a tall dark stranger” (a DEFRA cross-compliance check) and “win a small fortune” (still have all my new crop 2010 oilseed rape unsold, in store, as it broke the £400 per tonne barrier for the first time).
Feeling that such wisdom deserved a wider audience I offer you her hot tips for 2011:
January: Despite revised DEFRA figures showing that UK farm incomes fell 19% in 2009 and a further 13% in 2010, the Oxford Farming Conference sends delegates away with an optimistic spring in their step.
February: Oilseed rape breaks through £500/t and feed wheat £200/t. Specialist arable farmers start to receive hate mail from livestock producers.
March: Natural England announces a 50% increase in the budget for its flagship environmental High Level Stewardship scheme. As has become traditional with such announcements of “increases” in HLS funding, Natural England also declares an extension of the freeze on any farmers actually joining HLS until 1 April, 2015.
April: Despite criticism of its “grandiose plan” for a new £10m headquarters at Stoneleigh in Warwickshire from farming minister Jim Paice, the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board is granted inflation-busting compulsory levy increases in some sectors it “serves”. The AHDB acronym is retained, but it is re-named by hard-pressed farmers: the Altogether Heartless and Decadent Board.
May: The Welsh Assembly Government and the coalition government in England announces “a unique joint initiative” in their approach to culling badgers as part of a strategy to reverse the spread of bTB in cattle. They give up the idea.
June: Thousands of English farmers face continued stress as their cashflow is disrupted by delayed payment of their 2010 SFPs. DEFRA describes the Rural Payments Agency as having “made great strides under its new executive”.
July: The Nocton “super-dairy” finally gets the go-ahead from Lincolnshire planners for a 3,700 cow unit rather than the 8,100 unit originally planned.
August: The NFU praises the Nocton decision as “a new beginning for British dairying”.
September: Tesco announces a 5p per litre cut in its milk contract price for all its dairy farmer suppliers “to reflect new commercial realities”.
October: Increased feed costs add 10p to the cost of producing a dozen eggs and producers complain that the “retail partnership” is not working. Having signed up to retail standards such as more windows, perches in sheds and woodland for birds to range in, they can’t now negotiate a clause that reads “a price for eggs that covers the cost of production”.
November: In the light of the Pack Report, Scotland’s rural affairs secretary, Richard Lochhead, announces a “breakthrough in support for a sustainable farm sector”. He proposes the phasing out of the SFP and the introduction of something called “headage payments” for livestock producers and “area aid” for arable farmers. This new concept in farm support will be known as the Integrated and Administration and Control System (IACS).
December: By now the Gimlets were getting the better of Betty, and she started to mumble something about a “journey across water”. My farm flooded by global warming? British farmers protesting in Brussels about cuts to the CAP budget in 2012? Or perhaps farm gate commodity prices have improved so radically I am simply on a month-long cruise. Wake up, Betty. Wake up!