Will’s World: How will farming look in 2054?
I had quite a shock recently when I realised it’s 30 years ago this summer that I left school.
I wasn’t quite 16, had a truly hideous early-90s haircut and lamentable fashion sense, and knew with absolute certainty that I wanted to follow in the footsteps of multiple generations of my family by entering the glamorous and stimulating world of agriculture.
See also: Celebrating 90 Years of Farmers Weekly: A journey through the decades
Looking back, I don’t think it entered my head that I ever would, could, or should, do anything else – it all just felt pre-ordained.
At family occasions throughout my life, the discussion had predominantly been about farming.
My friends were all from farming families and we spent most of our time together nerding out over tractors or cows (this was pre-YFC days, before we discovered girls and beer – £1.50 a pint back then, by the way), and just about everyone else I knew was in farming in one way or another.
First job
What else would I possibly have done? And the fact that the old man was offering to pay me the princely sum of £30/week only further made up my mind – I’d be a farmer, and a rich one to boot.
It hasn’t quite turned out like that yet, of course, but I live in hope.
In 1994 John Major was the prime minster, the Channel Tunnel was opened for use, Sunday trading was legalised, the first National Lottery draw took place, and a “smartphone” was what Hyacinth Bucket used in Keeping Up Appearances.
Closer to home, the major event happening in the farming world was the deregulation of the Milk Marketing Board, and I well remember the worry and uncertainty it caused in the community.
There were 35,000 dairy farms in the country back then; now there are only 7,500. So perhaps the concern was justified, although the seemingly unstoppable rise of supermarket power and greed is certainly far more to blame for that.
Yes, the past three decades have seen plenty of changes – some bad, some good, and some indifferent – but how will it all look in 2054?
The biggest threat to us all is climate change, but as I’m ever the optimist, I have to believe the human race will have got its act together long before then, and we’ll be taking much greater care of the planet and, I hope, each other.
Tech takeover
Technological advances and artificial intelligence will probably have changed many aspects of our lives beyond all recognition, and robotic workers and driverless tractors and cars will be standard.
But considering the almost daily trouble I have just getting a printer or a washing machine to work, let alone the eye-watering cost of machinery repairs, I’m sceptical about this.
Whatever happens, I’ll be 75 by then, probably with two new hips and knees, very few of my own teeth, hearing aids that I’ll seldom switch on and a cantankerous nature, so I won’t care.
Hopefully, the present Mrs Evans will still be putting up with my nonsense, and we’ll have a few grandchildren that I can lead astray and feed copious amounts of sweets to before handing them back to my numerous daughters just before bedtime.
Revenge has always been a dish best served cold.
But the biggest and most important question, the one that keeps me awake at night worrying, is just how much a pint will cost by then. I dread to think.