Farm Focus

Rosemary’s FARMING Diary

As you will see from the picture overleaf…we go into 2021 with much the same difficulties which we encountered in 2020 with ground conditions becoming worse by the day, flooding in some areas caused by the relentless rainfall and snow. As you can see from the picture we have had to put in extra ditches to help clear the lying water from the fields.

All the sugar beet remaining in the ground was lifted the first week in January, our haulier cleared the last load of sugar beet and delivered to the factory on Friday 22 January. No records this year, but acceptable returns considering the varied weather the crops have had to tolerate in 2020. Sugar beet responds to water, but also needs the sun (all in the critical growing season which we didn’t get in 2020). The cereal crops are starting to green up and move forward although as the winter has been reasonably ‘open’ until this week all autumn sowings were growing well. We have been pleased with the growth our oil seed rape crop made this year, so far so good, we were able to sow it earlier than usual and the crop got a way to a good start with some rainfall soon after sowing which made a significant difference. We now have the pigeons making themselves a nuisance – they can and will do a lot of damage if no deterrent is used. We are told nationally the area planted with oil seed rape is down approximately 18% so we could well be importing oil seed rape into the country this year, obviously the better the yield that can be achieved from our own crop grown here in this country, the better it is for us and the environment with lower air miles.

Commodity prices of cereals and oil seed rape have increased over the last two months which has been very welcome. This will to a certain extent help towards the lower yield most of us experienced last harvest, again mainly due to poor weather conditions - This is farming. Farming is a gamble, it is the weather that always holds the ace of spades, followed closely by the politicians and then of course we are still awaiting the outcome of Brexit, no clear guidance has been made available, just snippets of information. Farmers need assurance to help plan the way

Farmers and growers will rise to the challenge for a cleaner environment as they have done in the past when instructed to produce more food in World War 2, when every acre was cleared, ploughed and sown to feed the nation.

forward for at least the next decade and beyond, every farm is different in it’s identity, some have very old traditional buildings which in some cases can work reasonably well with being adapted to meet the farm’s needs, old farm buildings unless you can adapt them can be very labour intensive to work with, then you have the location of the farm, soil types, old pasture which has to be grazed or you can have more fertile soil which lends itself to arable production, having said this, farmers are being encouraged to adapt the way they farm to help the environment which some have already made a start on. Over the years on our own farm, I can go back thirty plus years, starting with hedge laying where we had a qualified instructor teaching some of the younger generation how to lay a stock proof hedge, dry stone walling was another course, which we participated in – all very interesting and keeping some of the old traditions alive, we didn’t get any funding from what I remember, but at least it allowed us to look after a stock proof hedge and of course the same goes for the dry stone walling. These two items are part of our landscape and heritage, also the habitat they encourage. In some way’s farmers are ahead of the environmentalists, who almost blame farmers for the way the environment has declined. I think everyone has had a part to play in this, more people travelling abroad comes to mind, aircraft and factory pollution and so on, you could go on forever. I am sure we all need to do what we can, whether it is as an individual or as businesses. Farmers and growers will rise to the challenge for a cleaner environment as they have done in the past when instructed to produce more food in World War 2, when every acre was cleared, ploughed and sown to feed the nation. We, as farmers and growers await further clarification as to exactly what is wanted and how the Government will fund this, because without proper funding this will not happen on the scale that is proposed. On a lighter note, the snowdrops, aconites, primroses and yellow jasmines to name a few plants and shrubs are all out in bloom in the garden; the birds are singing and our resident cock pheasant is back, tapping on the French doors for his breakfast, along with all the smaller birds – it’s nice to have nature close by in these dreary days - spring is only around the corner and looking forward to some new planting in the garden. The Garden Centre will be opening up again on 6 March where I’m sure we will not be disappointed with the quality and beautiful display of plants and shrubs they will have for sale.