Archive Article: 2000/02/18

18 February 2000

Jim Bullock

Jim Bullock farms 283ha

(700 acres) in partnership

with his parents and brother

at Mill Farm, Guarlford,

Malvern, Worcs. Two-thirds

is rented or contract farmed,

the rest owned. Cropping is

winter wheat, winter oilseed

rape and winter beans

ALL crops are starting to grow, especially the winter beans which have doubled in size in the past fortnight. Oilseed rape is growing quite rapidly, too, hopefully faster than the pigeons are devouring it. That will be our first target for nitrogen plus some sulphur. Despite the pigeon grazing most of it is too thick so nitrogen timing is going to be critical. Last year thinner crops out-yielded thicker ones by about 15%.

Our only spring crop to drill is 26ha (65 acres) of Quattro beans. Spring crops are usually a disaster here, drilled too late and subsequently running out of moisture. But I hope using the no-till system we will be able to get onto the land in the next week or so and drill the crop without losing valuable moisture.

Filling in the IACS form is more worrying than the spring fieldwork this year. Re-measuring the distance from the cropped area to the field boundary is going to be tricky. If one makes adjustments there is still the possibility that penalties could be retrospectively imposed. The 2m rule destroys just about every conservation benefit that can be gained from a hedgerow and penalises those whom have made the greatest effort to preserve and sympathetically maintain their hedges.

I was interested to read that only 60% of the organic milk produced in Denmark is sold into the organic market and for only half the original premium. (Business, Jan 28) When all our new organic converts get on stream no doubt we will see the same here.

Personally, I believe funds should be made available to convert to Non-Inversion Tillage. This could be funded from what is being clawed back from our IACS payments. NIT is far more beneficial to the environment than organic farming – it reduces soil erosion, nitrate leaching and carbon emissions, as well as maintaining wildlife habitats. These benefits are denied to the organic farmer as he has to plough and use fallow to control weeds.

The 2m ruling on field margins is raising IACS and conservation concerns for Worcs grower Jim Bullock.