In the News - from our (far) East correspondent

In the News - from our (far) East correspondent

May 2020

John Hemmant was in the news when his vineyard, Chet and Waveney Valley Vineyard, was ravaged by late frosts. Our correspondent remembers a Paul Hemmant who was at Shuttleworth 72/73 and is fairly sure they are part of the same family!

Richard Hirst (HND 80/83) was hoping that farm-based attractions and the ‘outdoor economy’ could help the hospitality sector recover from Covid 19. The challenge was to make the attractions at Hirsty’s Family Fun Park near Hemsby, safe for staff and visitors, for example making the Maize Maze paths 2m wide. The farm shop at Ormesby had really taken off in the previous 8 weeks with people preferring to avoid the supermarkets and buy local, as well as the shop making deliveries to people who were self-isolating.

June 2020

Rain-starved cereal crops were the issue for Kit Papworth (HND 89/92). May 2020 was East Anglia’s driest May on record with Met Office records showing the region received just 4.2 mm of rain; the lowest total since records began in 1862. Although there was some rain at the beginning of June it did not come quickly enough to save some drought-stricken crops.

August 2020

Kit Papworth was back in the news talking about weather extremes. He described his harvest as ‘without doubt the lowest yielding and shortest harvest I have been involved with’. Where it was possible to irrigate in the spring, yields were 2 tonnes per hectare better than those without water. As the fourth out of five years that the company had not needed to use its grain dryer, this is possibly another indication of how farming businesses need to respond to climate change e.g. investing in reservoirs.

September 2020

After the lack of rain in May there was now a report about the exceptionally wet start to the autumn, with 90mm of rain recorded at North Walsham, Fakenham and Dereham in 48 hours over the last weekend in September. Thomas Love (NDA 71/73) had lifted a third of his potato crop but was worried about the rest. The forecast was awful but he was hoping for some dry weather towards the end of October.

There was also a piece in the EDP which gave details of the work British Sugar was doing alongside the Cantley sugar factory. They had been remodelling marshland to create vital feeding grounds for threatened wading birds. If our correspondent is correct, he recognised British Sugar’s agriculture business manager, Richard Cogman as HND 83/86. Richard was describing their work with the RSPB and their support for wildlife and biodiversity around the factory sites.

November 2020

The November 21ts edition of the EDP highlighted Norfolk’s first commercial Sheep’s Cheese maker. Jane Murray HND 83/85 is selling her business and wants to make sure that her cheese making recipes keep going in the county. Jane tells her own story: “Who would have thought that the dreaded livestock project would have led to this?

Back in the days when the boy:girl ratio was 17:1 the prospect of making a presentation to the heckling & jeering mob was definitely not something to relish, but with some guidance from Richard Hinxman, we four HND girls talked about sheep dairying for what seemed an eternity, but was probably only 20 minutes! Fast forward 15 years & I was not only milking my own flock of 60 Frieslands, but about to embark on a cheese making venture. That was 20 years ago & I have had a wonderful journey. I no longer milk sheep but still make cheese...at the moment!

I have decided that the time is good to retire (although I was told that cheese makers never “retire” they just get busy with something else) & am hoping to sell my business in the near future.

As I said at the beginning ...”who would have thought...?”