FARMERFOCUS
FARMERFOCUS
Ian Crawford
Ian Crawford grows packing
potatoes, milling wheat and
beans on 324ha (800 acres)
of rented land from Swiss
Cottage Farm, Carrington,
Cheshire and owns and
runs 2000ha (5000 acres)
of mainly arable land in
Western Australia
HARVEST here in Cheshire is at a standstill. The wettest July in living memory means combines have not ventured out for a fortnight and acres of straw lie sodden in the swath. Again…
The farm machinery sale is over and clearing and tidying buildings is in full swing, a mammoth task which is taking longer than expected. Servicing harvest machinery and trailers is nearly complete and it is just as well that our wheat is some way off being fit.
At a recent wedding we attended, I was astounded at the disgust non-farming folk show the Little Red Tractor emblem. Three different people swooped on me for allowing this icon to continue. They all had thought that it meant Made in Britain, produced by British farmers, grown in British countryside.
But when they found out that this was not the case, they were truly shocked and felt cheated. "British grown" or "British reared" would have been preferable. Consumers would like to buy British but it is increasingly difficult to find this fact on any packaging.
Unassured Baltic grain continues to arrive in the UK, and yet we are told we cannot sell our own produce unless it is assured. What is going on?
A recent trip to our local NFU office, which is within the local cattle market grounds, required a biosecurity sticker for my vehicle and double disinfectant jetting. All attending vendors had to wear waterproof leggings and Wellingtons.
Yet a group of ramblers can walk through 20 or more stock farms in a single afternoon without an ounce of biosecurity bestowed upon them. Very strange, isnt it?
In Australia, drought in eastern states and eastern regions in our own state of Western Australia is making farming difficult.
Fortunately, prices are firming and hay becoming scarcer by the day. We are still delivering into the local export plant and supplying feed lots in the east.
We did not sign a contract for hay this year and fingers crossed it looks like it was the right move. *