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July 2022
NATIONAL FOOD STRATEGY
Food for thought
Show returns
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JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE. Passionate people wanted. We’re looking for land sector pros ready to make a difference. Find out more and apply: plumpton.ac.uk/who-we-are/vacancies There’s never been a more appropriate time to consider a teaching career at Plumpton College. With the significance of change in the industry and ambitious plans for continued development at the college including higher level (HNC/D equivalent) courses, we’re excited about the future. The award-winning college farm provides one of the largest and most diverse educational estates in the country, and is home to a range of commercial mixed enterprises, delivering the very highest standards in education and training. If this wasn’t enough to tempt you, the college is in the final phase of a multi-million-pound investment to further enhance facilities at the farm to ensure students are exposed to the latest cutting edge technologies, including robotics in the dairy and a brand new state-of-the-art high welfare pig unit. Coupled with this, the college’s newly opened destination garden One Garden Brighton and expansion of our offer as a centre of excellence in horticulture education and training provides a great opportunity for industry professionals looking for a career change. The horticulture industry in particular is in a period of significant growth and we are looking for the right candidates to train and inspire the next generation of students in to their career as a horticultural professional. “Becoming a lecturer at Plumpton offered me the chance to give something back, advise young entrants coming into the industry and allowed me to pass on my passion for farming which, I hope, has made a real impact on the students I teach. We will all be dependent on their development as young people and farmers, and to play a part in their journey is a unique opportunity for anyone with agricultural experience looking to enhance the future of the next custodians of the countryside.” Trainee Teacher.
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www.southeastfarmer.net SOUTH EAST FARMER Kelsey Media, The Granary, Downs Court Yalding Hill, Yalding, Maidstone, Kent, ME18 6AL 01959 541444 EDITORIAL Editor: Malcolm Triggs Email: sef.ed@kelsey.co.uk Photography: Martin Apps, Countrywide Photographic PUBLISHER Jamie McGrorty 01303 233883 jamie.mcgrorty@kelsey.co.uk GRAPHIC DESIGN Jo Legg 07306 482166 jo.legg@flair-design.co.uk MANAGEMENT CHIEF EXECUTIVE: Steve Wright CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: Phil Weeden MANAGING DIRECTOR: Kevin McCormick PUBLISHER: Jamie McGrorty RETAIL DIRECTOR: Steve Brown RENEWALS AND PROJECTS MANAGER: Andy Cotton SENIOR SUBSCRIPTION MARKETING MANAGER: Nick McIntosh SUBSCRIPTION MARKETING DIRECTOR: Gill Lambert SUBSCRIPTION MARKETING MANAGER: Kate Chamberlain PRINT PRODUCTION MANAGER: Georgina Harris PRINT PRODUCTION CONTROLLER: Kelly Orriss DISTRIBUTION Distribution in Great Britain Marketforce (UK) Ltd, 3rd Floor, 161 Marsh Wall, London, E14 9AP Tel: 0330 390 6555 PRINTING Precision Colour Print
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26
JU LY 2022
CONTENTS
12
NEWS & REPORTS
04 Positive outlook for wool in 2022. 05 "A high-tech free for all of GM plants and animals on a commercial scale”.
06 National food strategy – food for thought. 08 Poor broadband coverage hampers nursery.
REGULARS
18 MONICA AKEHURST
Monica's other half always says “bury me in the dung heap”.
22 NIGEL AKEHURST VISITS...
Nigel visits Romshed Farm near Sevenoaks in Kent, to meet farmer Fidelity Weston and her son Inigo and learn more about their naturefriendly family farm.
37 SARAH CALCUTT
Cover picture: South of England Show, Supreme Beef: Upperffrydd Power
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FEATURES
12 SHOW RESULTS
Next is now.
26 FRUIT FOCUS RETURNS
48 NICK ADAMES
The show is offering the usual exciting blend of tours and talks, networking opportunities, trade stands and the chance to meet and greet customers old and new.
Vandals are the biggest problem.
49 ADVICE FROM THE VET Preparing for tupping.
Kent Event Centre, Detling, Maidstone, Kent ME14 3JF
50 LEGAL 53 LAND AND FARMS
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23rd November 2022
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NEWS
RAISING A GLASS AT CROP BLESSING A large crowd of thirsty worshippers joined the Rev. Claire Holt at a blessing of the Surreybased Hogs Back Brewery’s hop garden in Tongham. Managing Director Rupert Thompson and 200 guests attended the service, held on Ascension Day (26 May) as the centuries-old tradition dictates. Ms Holt, of St Paul's Church in Tongham, explained the origins: "When the crops were planted, a group of young and old people from
the village, usually led by the priest, would walk round the boundaries of the parish, stopping at each boundary post to pray for the protection of the crops. We haven't done that today, but we have kept the other tradition of raising a glass of ale. "Blessing the Hogs Back hop garden continues a tradition that would certainly have been part of the cycle of hop growing in Farnham for many years." Rupert Thompson added: "Centuries ago, crop blessing was a way of recognising the
interdependence between man and the natural world, and today, we've come full circle, with the environment our single biggest focus after a couple of centuries where we forgot to respect it. “Our mission at Hogs Back is to become an ever more sustainable brewer and we are making plans to invest in measures that we hope will take us to net carbon zero by 2030. Blessing our crops is as much about our present and future as our past."
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> Raising a glass at the hop blessing led by (front) Rev. Claire Holt of St Paul's Church, Tongham and Hogs Back managing director Rupert Thompson An average increase of 135% in the wool payments over the previous year is being hailed as a cause for optimism. British Wool has announced that it will be making payments worth £8.4m to its members for the 2021 clip, which reflects an increase to an overall average of 36.4p/kg. Chief Executive Andrew Hogley said the 135% average increase over the prior year was down to “improved auction prices for wool over the last 12 months alongside a push to reduce operational costs.” He went on: “With the challenges the industry is facing we are really pleased that this year’s payments are an improvement. Although the price is not yet where we would like it to be, it represents a huge recovery since the difficulties of 2020. We continue to work hard to improve returns further for our members. “We are optimistic that the strong demand we have seen over recent months will be sustained, that the recovery in the wool market will continue through 2022 and that this will result in further price improvement for the 2022 wool clip.”
POSITIVE OUTLOOK FOR WOOL IN 2022 Mr Hogley said British Wool’s “unique collective marketing system”, which collects, grades and tests wool on behalf of its farmer members, “ensures a consistent product for buyers and manufacturers while maximising the prices received at auction.” The organisation also continues to look for new markets for British wool. Returns for the 2021 clip will be around 40p/kg for many core grades, around 30p/kg for Blackface wool and around 15p/kg for Welsh and Swaledale. In all cases, this is a significant improvement on 2020 prices, when sales were badly affected by the pandemic. Some speciality types, such as Herdwick (80p/kg) and Bluefaced Leicester (£5.50/kg) will receive significantly higher returns. An additional
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£1/kg is also being paid out on most types of organic certified wool. “We recognise that our members have a choice to deliver wool to us,” said Mr Hogley. “On the whole our returns are competitive relative to the prices offered by our competitors and in many cases significantly higher,” he said. “However, unlike our competitors we don’t make a profit from wool. We sell on our members’ behalf and deduct the cost of marketing and processing. The more wool we have to sell, the lower our costs per kg and the better the returns are for all our members.” The free haulage offer introduced in 2021 will continue this year, with members who take wool to any of British Wool’s drop points not being charged onward carriage.
HIGH-TECH GM
FREE FOR ALL
The battle lines are already being drawn over the future of gene technology following the Government’s announcement in the Queen’s Speech that it would be bringing forward new primary legislation in the form of The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill. While the announcement was immediately welcomed by crop science organisation NIAB, the Soil Association was understandably less impressed about the plan to take certain breeding techniques – where the resulting plants could have occurred naturally through conventional breeding methods – out of the scope of GMO rules. Louise Payton, senior policy officer – farming with the Soil Association, said the bill would mean “a high-tech free for all of GM plants and animals on a commercial scale”. She added: “There is clear opposition to this removal of transparency and safety checks. The overwhelming majority (85%) of respondents to the Government’s own consultation are against this move. When facing the combined climate, nature and health crisis, we need action to tackle the causes of disease and poor resilience in the first place. “These technologies do not do this well and really are the lowest priority on what is a very long list for the Government, and they must not be used as a risky PR front for inaction. “The move is also a direct violation of choice by the Government for farmers and consumers who chose non-GM and in conflict with organic standards which are enshrined in UK law.” NIAB chief executive Professor Mario Caccamo, though, said the announcement marked a further important step towards more science-based and proportionate regulation of the technologies following recent rule changes to free up experimental field trials of gene edited crops. He said it would boost prospects for UK plant science and the development of more sustainable farming systems. “The bill announced today will provide a more straightforward route to market for seeds and crops developed using advanced breeding technologies such as gene editing,” Professor Caccamo said. “It sends a clear signal that Britain is adopting a more pro-innovation approach outside the EU, bringing our rules into line with other countries such as Japan, Canada, Argentina, Brazil and Australia, and opening up much greater potential for inward investment and international research collaboration given the UK’s strengths in genetic science. “Innovation in plant breeding will be the single most important factor in helping global food supplies keep pace with a growing world population in the face of climate change and pressure on finite natural resources of land, water, energy and biodiversity. “The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has brought into sharp relief the precarious balance which exists between global food supply and demand and the need to explore every option to increase food production sustainably.” He said access to new precision breeding techniques would “help accelerate the development of higher-yielding crops more resilient to pests and diseases, environmental conditions and climate change effects and food products with improved nutritional qualities and reduced need for agricultural inputs such as pesticides and synthetic fertilisers.” Louise Payton, meanwhile, conceded: “In terms of GM animals, which has major welfare implications, the Government has at least said it will not proceed until these concerns have been met. This must include responding fully to the results of the public dialogue, to explore views around gene editing in farm animals.”
OP INI ON Cutting through mumbo jumbo
I’m told the Flat Earth Society has members around the globe. Joking apart, it must have been easier in days gone by, when fundamental decisions were at least reasonably straightforward. Your decision as to whether you believed the earth was round or flat may have been influenced by science, philosophy or a bloke in the local ale house, but at least you didn’t have to deal with conspiracy theorists, Twitter and politicians. Today we are beset with information, opinions, dodgy statistics (inevitably created on behalf of a pressure group that already knows the case it wants to make), social media and, worst of all, ‘influencers’. Taking a stand on anything has become a minefield – and woe betide anyone who sides with a viewpoint not favoured by the liberal majority. Cancelled forthwith. BBC Radio Four’s More or Less programme, which makes a great job of cutting through misleading mathematical mumbo jumbo, recently looked at a story in The Guardian that claimed particles scrubbed off vehicle tyres weighed 2,000 times more than those emitted from exhausts, and implied that we should be horrified by this. I won’t bore you with the details (it’s still available online) but suffice to say that the figures aren’t strictly accurate and the tyre particles aren’t particularly dangerous. Another random scare story we can ignore, then. As Sarah Calcutt points out in her column this month, getting the right message over to the public, and persuading people to listen to facts rather than fiction, is a challenge for agriculture and horticulture, too. The dairy industry is a case in point as it fights to persuade people that milk is still the only thing to put on your breakfast cereal or in your morning coffee. Supermarkets now stock vegan alternatives made from the likes of oats, soy, almonds, rice and even cashews (who can afford to drink ‘milk’ made from cashews?) – and statistics attempting to compare the environmental impact of the various options are rarely unbiased and generally confusing. Gene editing, as she points out, could have a huge impact on fruit growing in this country and needs to be embraced, but given the huge and generally misinformed backlash against genetically modified crops, it will take a concerted, believable and well-structured information campaign to get consumers on board. Education, based on demonstrable facts and persuasive arguments, needs to start now and be disseminated as widely as possible so that the industry, the environment and the public can benefit from the opportunities. And with agricultural shows now back and buzzing, a PR presence at the biggest and best of these would surely be a good place to start. MALCOLM TRIGGS - EDITOR
EMAIL YOUR VIEWS, LETTERS OR OPINIONS TO: sef.ed@kelsey.co.uk or write to the address on page 3 ®
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5
NEWS
NATIONAL FOOD STRATEGY
– FOOD FOR THOUGHT
6
A Kent-based think tank has welcomed the UK’s long-awaited food strategy but claimed that the Government has “ignored the importance of rural issues in critical national policies for far too long” and is now playing catch up. A statement from The Rural Policy Group (RPG), which has been campaigning for greater self-sufficiency since it was founded, went on to point out: “The rural economy is a vital part of our economy and impacts health and climate policies, making it essential that it is given more consideration.” The RPG held a national conference at the end of May, focusing on “creating a sustainable farming economy” and bringing together a number of highlevel speakers. The conference called for the UK to be 70% selfsufficient in food production by 2030 to support the rural economy and end the reliance on cheap imports, and argued for a fairer distribution of value throughout the food supply chain. The RPG aims to highlight the key issues of food security, return on investment for farmers and producers and issues around more sustainable agricultural and rural businesses to maximise the contribution farming can make to reducing the nation’s carbon footprint. Following the launch of the Government’s food strategy, which DEFRA said would “back our farmers by helping to increase domestic production, spread jobs and grow the economy”, chairman Mark Lumsdon-Taylor said that while welcome, it was
light on detail. He commented: “While the Government has just announced its food strategy as a blueprint for how it will back farmers, to date there have been no policies. “Health, energy, transport, technology and climate are all big areas of focus for our government, and while that is not wrong, food is a basic need and we need to get it right. It should be a long-term strategy, rather than a reaction to the immediate shortages posed by the war in Ukraine. “Our policies on food are critical to both the health of the nation and our net zero targets. If we don’t focus on food, we risk everything else that we invest in health and climate.” He said the RPG conference had outlined “a broken food supply system with unfair distribution of value in the supply chain that leaves farmers at risk of failure and the country in a position of food insecurity”. Phil Acock, chairman and managing director of Fourayes Farm, told the conference: “All we ever debate is the price of food, but compared to other countries in Europe, our food is not expensive. We don’t value the food that we produce and there is a very real hidden cost in keeping the price of food low, both in terms of quality and the impact that low-quality food can have on our health.” Rachel Nutt, Partner at RPG sponsors MHA Macintyre Hudson, chartered accountants, outlined the challenges being faced by farmers still grappling with Brexit and the Ukraine war. “When the Basic
Payment Scheme ends, nearly half of farms will be loss-making, which will have severe impacts on employment, the countryside and the accessibility of nutritious food as part of the national diet,” she said. “The new Environmental Land Management scheme just doesn’t cut it.” The RPG’s Annual Report, Shaping the Future of the Rural Economy highlights that good food is costly to produce and suggests that the country needs to recognise the value of farming to the economy, the environment and health and recognise its value in the food chain. DEFRA said government plans, which include incentives for industry and investment in research, would support farmers to harness innovative technologies “to boost home-grown fruit and vegetable production and in turn create new job opportunities across the country”. The strategy commits to “broadly maintaining the current level of food that we produce domestically and boosting production in sectors where there are the biggest opportunities – such as horticulture and seafood." The announcement said £270 million would be invested across farming innovation funding programmes until 2029 aimed at unlocking technologies to drive sustainable farming techniques which will help increase productivity and profitability and the sector’s long-term resilience. The Strategy follows last year’s independent review of the food system by Henry Dimbleby, which analysed the challenges facing the food system.
TRACTORS ATTRACT ATTENTION The sight of 60 vintage and current tractors drew an appreciative crowd as they spent a sunny early summer’s day wending their way through the beautiful countryside and apple orchards of Kent. The charity tractor run was the 13th to have been organised by Philip and
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Debbie Broad and family and raised an impressive £2,400 for the Farming Community Network charity. Philip and Debbie welcomed the convoy to Mote Farm, Ivy Hatch at the start of the day, where bacon rolls and hot drinks got things off to a good start. A half way ‘pit stop’ in one of Robert Mitchell’s beautiful flowering orchards gave drivers and passengers a chance to sample some of the grower’s refreshing apple juice before they headed back to Mote Farm for delicious homemade cakes. Villagers young and old came out of their homes to wave and watch the spectacle travel around the roads in convoy.
NEWS A round up of comments on the Government’s response to Henry Dimbleby’s research. NFU President Minette Batters: “The National Food Strategy represents a clear milestone, with the Government recognising the importance of domestic food production, maintaining our productive capacity and growing more food in this country, particularly at a time when the war in Ukraine has focused attention on the importance and fragility of our global food security. “We know the public wants to be eating more local, British food and farmers are ready to play their part in producing high quality and climate-friendly food, all while protecting and enhancing our environment. We now need to see this strategy develop into clear delivery and investment to capitalise on the benefits food and farming delivers for the country, such as our world-leading standards of animal welfare, environmental protection and food safety.”
Organic Farmers & Growers chief executive Roger Kerr: “We were hoping for a robust and clearly defined action plan from the Food Strategy White Paper. What we have instead is yet more rhetoric. Mr Johnson has said he is ‘supporting UK farmers’ but this does not transpire within the white paper. “With 20% of the world’s nitrogen fertiliser and 40% of its potassium unavailable due to western sanctions, the inadequacies of this ‘business as usual’ food strategy must be addressed as a matter of urgency. Sadly, the government lacks the ambition to step away from a flawed food system that’s been embraced over the past 70 years.
Waste charity WRAP’s CEO Marcus Gover: “The way we feed ourselves feeds climate change – causing around 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions. We must change that as we will not fix climate change if we don’t fix our broken food system. “More than 200 large food businesses already measure their food waste as part of the WRAP-IGD Food Waste Reduction Roadmap and are realising both financial and environmental benefits by minimising that wastage. We welcome the proposal to extend this with a consultation on mandatory reporting for larger businesses.”
Annette Woolcock, head of wild food at the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, commenting on news that wild venison had been recommended as a low-carbon alternative to beef: “There is no wonder that the Government has picked up on venison’s superb credentials. A low carbon footprint and low food miles means venison is a superb alternative to the more common options of chicken, beef and lamb. There are approximately two million wild deer in the UK. With no natural predators, their numbers must be carefully managed humanely through deer stalking. Failure to properly manage populations will see deer damage agricultural crops, new tree plantations and ancient woodland.”
David Bowles, Head of Public Affairs at the RSPCA: “There are some positives, with the Government pledging to ensure trade deals protect our welfare standards, ensuring there is a requirement for anyone wishing access to the UK market to demonstrate good health and welfare standards to prevent disease outbreaks and balancing this with issues such as antimicrobial resistance and animal welfare, consulting on ‘method of production’ labelling and encouraging more sustainable dietary choices, but sadly we have seen other key improvement areas either watered down or delayed.” Di Wastenage, chairman, Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers: "While it may seem like a lot of money is being invested into the agri-food sectors, my worry is a lot of money is old money, and in reality, it needs a lot of newer investment to pull it off. "This report rightly highlights the importance of food security and the value placed on British farmers. For far too long, food and our farmers have been undervalued. Now it's time consumers understood the true value of the food they consume." Nick Palmer, Compassion in World Farming UK: “While Compassion in World Farming welcomes many of the elements of the food strategy, we share Henry Dimbleby’s view that Britain needs to be much bolder than is outlined in the White Paper. “Although it includes encouraging words on mandatory labelling, regenerative farming and support for the burgeoning alternative protein industry, it lacks a commitment to meat reduction and the use of government procurement for schools and hospitals, as well as firm reassurance on a minimum set of standards in future trade deals.” Philip Wynn, Chairman, Linking Environment And Farming: “LEAF cautiously welcomes the Government’s National Food Strategy white paper. Its high-level objectives are laudable: including the ambition to strengthen our national resilience to address food security, placing nature at the heart of more productive farming and reconnecting consumers with their food. However, what is lacking is a clear plan of action and a sense of urgency.”
National Sheep Association Chief Executive Phil Stocker: “If this review has highlighted one thing it is just how fragile our food systems are here in Britain and around the world. Our environment is similarly fragile, which is where incentives for truly sustainable farming approaches come in. But constantly considering our domestic producers in trade deals is vital in protecting the agricultural sector from future risk and volatility and ensuring a reliable level of food security.”
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NEWS
POOR RURAL BROADBAND HAMPERS FARNHAM NURSERY
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A Farnham plant nursery in one of the most affluent parts of the South East is having to rely on 4G phone connections because of the country’s poor rural broadband coverage. CGJ Mathias and Son (Nurseries) is one of the region’s top performing hedging suppliers but is struggling with day-to-day tasks like updating its online product photographs and carrying out other website maintenance because it can’t access a decent broadband service. “BT Openreach has told us that the ‘good news’ is that fibre is available – but only if we pay close to £30,000 for the privilege, and that’s simply not justifiable,” explained Will Mathias, a partner in the family business that was established in 1963. “Government figures will no doubt suggest we are no longer in a broadband ‘notspot’ as we have been offered a connection, but that’s nonsense, of course. Eligibility is one thing, but it’s not really ‘available’ if it costs £30,000.” The nursery, set up by Will’s grandfather John, is now run by Will, his brother Tom and father Bob. The business is thriving, having undergone major expansion in the past five years to meet an everincreasing demand for British-grown nursery stock. Much of their trade is online via their website at www.hedgesonline.com, but trying to upload photographs, send and receive emails, back up company data and do all the other straightforward business chores that come easily to most concerns is becoming increasingly difficult. “The nursery is 600 metres beyond the last property on that particular telephone line from the junction box, which means the telephone signal is carried on an old copper wire that has to travel 600 metres through a forest, and BT Openreach has no desire to replace it with anything useable as we are the end of the line,” said Will. “If we used that for our internet connection we would get half a megabit per
second download speed.” Instead they rely on 4G connections and are looking forward to upgrading to 5G in time. “It works, but it isn’t good,” said Will. “It’s very unreliable, download speeds are variable and the signal can just drop out completely. If people send us high-res images by email it can just crash the system completely.” The irony of the business’ location is not lost on Will. “We are 50 minutes outside central London in Tilford, one of the most affluent villages in Surrey, but we can’t get decent internet speeds. There is also no way of getting to talk sensibly to anyone at BT Openreach as it’s a monopoly that simply doesn’t care. The reality is that they can charge whatever they like, even though their prices are significantly above what the real cost should be.” The business employs around a dozen people, but expansion is currently hampered by technology. “We are doing well and we want to move forward, but so many of the improvements we want to make would need a 21st century internet connection,” he commented. The nursery’s experience chimes with research by the NFU which suggests a lack of action to improve rural connectivity is holding back UK food production. Its recent digital technology survey reveals that greater broadband and mobile connectivity is needed to meet the needs of modern food and farming businesses, with respondents stressing that rural areas should have access to the same level of digital service and infrastructure as urban areas, including better speed, coverage and reliability. NFU Vice President David Exwood said the survey made disappointing reading. “It shows that very little progress has been made over the past year to increase levels of broadband and mobile access in rural areas despite government promises to level up the country,” he said. “This lack of digital connectivity
puts a huge drain on time and efficiency as we are effectively working with one arm tied behind our backs. “Farming, like every other business, needs access to reliable broadband and mobile connections. They are vital to running modern day food and farming businesses, impacting everything from accessing data and utilising technology to communicating with suppliers and keeping workers safe on farm. “If the Government is serious about levelling up the country, it needs to ramp up efforts now to deliver better digital services to rural areas and bridge the digital divide which in turn allows support rural communities to thrive.” The NFU surveyed 846 farmer and grower members between 9 December 2021 and 13 March 2022. Only 44% of respondents said their phone signal was sufficient for the needs of their business, 83% said they could not get a reliable mobile signal in all outdoor locations on farm and only 38% said their broadband speed was sufficient for their business.
> Tom, Bob and Will Mathias
CELEBRATING 1,200 YEARS OF LOYAL STAFF SERVICE One of Kent’s longest-established family businesses celebrated more than 1,200 years of combined service when it presented awards to employees who had been with the company for 25, 35 and 45 years. Those attending the presentation dinner thrown by Maidstone, Kent-based motor and agricultural dealership group Haynes Bros Ltd, established in 1790, belong to a special group that has long been known affectionately as the ‘Survivors Club’. Started in the 1950s, the club now numbers more than 30 staff, 12 of whom were recognised during the evening for achieving long service milestones. Members of staff who had notched up 25 years’ service received a blue
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enamel 25-year service pin at the dinner, having previously received a solid gold watch at a more personal presentation. Those with 35 years’ service received a special lapel pin and those who had achieved an impressive 45 years received a gold lapel pin and a bottle of champagne.
EXCEPTIONAL SHEARING Southern Shears UK came of age in May when the event was included as part of the National English Sheep Shearing Circuit for the first time. Committee member and event organiser Mary Masters said the breakthrough had raised the profile of the event, which has been running since 2013, “beyond belief” and said the 22 May event had resulted in some “exceptional shearing across all classes”. The contest, held at Copford Farm, Waldron, East Sussex by permission of the Gingell Family, ran alongside two other events also hosted by Southern Shears UK, the South East Regional round of the National Sheep Association (NSA)’s Next Generation shepherd’s competition and the South East area finals of the National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs (NFYFC)’s shearing competition. The main event drew competitors from as far afield as Cornwall, Yorkshire, Wales, Cumbria, Staffordshire, Devon and Somerset as well as Sussex and Oxfordshire, while judges also attended from across the UK. The final of the Open Shearing class was hotly contested, with five shearers – Adam Berry, Stuart Connor, Ilan Jones, Jon Roberts and Matt Smith – all shearing 20 sheep. The winner was Matt Smith from Cornwall who managed to shear his sheep in 17 minutes 20 seconds, while Stuart Connor, from Banbury in Oxfordshire was a close second and Devon’s Jon Roberts placed third. Locals did particularly well in the Women’s Shearing class, with Kent’s Marie Prebble eventually coming out on top over Jolene Cutting from East Sussex in a close-fought final. The Blades Shearing classes were extremely well contested. In the Open Blades, George Mudge narrowly lost out to his son Andrew, both from Devon, in the final. Local shearer Andrew Pannell from West Sussex came first in the Novice Blades as well as winning the Senior Shearing class, while Stuart Piper from Pevensey, East Sussex, was second in the Novice Blades. President Rob Morris said he was proud of the way that Southern Shears UK had developed over the years and thanked Langrish Farmers and K Wheeler & Son for the supply of Romney hoggets in need of shearing. In the NSA’s Next Generation event, Clover Crosse and Tom Evci won through and will represent the South East Region in the final at Malvern in July, while the NFYFC competition saw Alan Jones and Dylan Vetara from Chichester YFC go forward to the national finals at this year’s Great Yorkshire Show. Southern Shears Results: • Novice Class: 1st Laura Bernard • Junior Class: 1st Adam Perkins, 2nd Jo Gibbs • Women’s Class: 1st Marie Prebble, 2nd Jolene Cutting, 3rd Penny Bell • Intermediate Class: 1st George Dallaway, 2nd Adam Perkins, 3rd Tomas Jones • Senior Class: 1st Andrew Pannell, 2nd James Lewis, 3rd Tom Hall • Open Class: 1st Matt Smith, 2nd Stuart Connor, 3rd Jon Roberts • Blades Novice Class: 1st Andrew Pannell, 2nd Stuart Piper • Blades Open Class: 1st Andrew Mudge, 2nd George Mudge, 3rd Michael Churchouse.
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TB FOCUS SHOULD NOT BE ON BADGERS
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Dear sir The RSPCA recognises DEFRA’s willingness to make it easier for trained people to vaccinate badgers, because it may reduce bovine TB in badgers, but if the aim of the policy is to eliminate bTB in cattle, then the focus should be on cattle-based measures, since research shows that the overwhelming majority of bTB comes from cattle infecting cattle. The RSPCA has always maintained that the elimination of bTB in cattle requires more frequent and improved cattle testing, better management of cattle movements and incentives to improve biosecurity in herds. We believe that badger vaccination is an important tool that has a role to play in certain situations as an alternative to culling and to protect badger populations, but we cannot support its use as an exit strategy from the badger cull, which should be ended immediately. The vaccination of cattle will also have an important role to play; we are pleased field trials are ongoing in this area and we urge DEFRA to roll out cattle vaccination as soon as possible. We also urge the Government to complete and publish a full review of the data supporting their current policy. Bovine TB is a devastating disease for farmers because they see their cattle destroyed and their business restricted. However, scientific evidence shows that badgers avoid cattle where possible and indicates that the role they play in spreading bTB is vastly overestimated. We are calling on the Government in England to immediately end culling and fast track its proposed improvements to cattle-based measures, along with cattle and badger vaccination, which will be the best solution for badgers, cattle and farmers. Adam Grogan, Head of Wildlife Department, RSPCA
REALISTIC TRANSITION PERIOD NEEDED Dear Sir, Following the publication of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) restriction dossier on the use and sale of lead ammunition for outdoor recreational shooting, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) will be challenging most of the proposals. Following detailed analysis of the HSE evidence that covers all shooting disciplines, the BASC has produced a series of positions that will be used during the consultation and assessments. We accept that in some settings lead ammunition poses an exposure risk that must be mitigated against. This is why the leading shooting and rural organisations have already committed, in 2020, to a five-year voluntary transition away from lead shot for live quarry shooting, with the ambition that in time all game meat will be lead free. Any restriction on the use of lead in live quarry shooting must be undertaken with realistic transition periods to allow the variety of alternative products required to be produced. We are pushing to ensure that the regulator works closely with ammunition manufacturers to understand and take account of the
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© Telegraph Media Group Limited 2022 technical, economic and supply chain issues which impact upon the transition to non-lead alternatives. Away from live quarry shooting, the evidence presented by the HSE about the risks of lead ammunition to wildlife and the environment is far from conclusive. For this reason, BASC opposes the HSE’s proposed restrictions on clay pigeon shooting, target shooting and airgun shooting. BASC will argue against them in the upcoming public consultation and present alternative proposals which would represent a more proportionate response to evidenced-based risks. BASC will work alongside our partner organisations to ensure shooting is represented with one voice when it comes to interacting with the HSE process. BASC’s positions on the various proposals can be read at www.basc.org.uk/ammunition. It is essential that all users of lead ammunition remain engaged throughout the duration of the HSE process. Dan Reynolds,Director, BASC England
A PLAGUE OF CARAVANNERS AND ROAD RUNNERS Dear Sir, As we head to harvest and plan to move the most valuable crop farmers have seen in a lifetime, it will be essential to check all harvest machinery thoroughly as each harvest window is critical. The new grain cart student will have to know the width and length of his or her unit and how to go backwards blindfolded. We will be blamed for every holdup on small country roads by Mr Tortoise, who, having been told countless times by the nice lady on his sat nav to “make a u-turn if possible” can only reply: “I can’t back this B…thing”, with his sat nag in the passenger seat adding to his stress. Mr Tortoise had polished his 50mm ball, kicked the wheels of his caravan, overloaded it with everything including the kitchen sink and declared it fit to travel. No MOT for caravans and no previous experience necessary. It’s a strange sight rounding a bend on your local narrow ‘passing bay only’
LETTERS road to be confronted with a row of Road Runners, multiple Lycra cleavages resting on razor seats, noses buried into S shaped handlebars; like the Road Runner they are oblivious to anyone, and a bleep bleep only gets you a Lycra lout fist in the air. Like Wile E Coyote, you dream up explosive devices and rockfalls to get past the rolling road blockage of leg-pumping, Lycra-clad flesh, but to no avail. If you hit one, it’s your fault as you are bigger and you therefore logically must be the guilty party. I don’t have a problem with other road users, only the ones who pay nothing and expect everything. Like electric scooter riders, whose legal road status is still in catch-up mode, the cycling fraternity needs to be proactive in setting safety road rules for 2022, not Fred on his old faithful delivering the post. Every cyclist is strongly advised to wear a helmet, so a working dash cam installed in it should be mandatory. Most sensible cyclists wear a high-vis vest, so how about a registration number printed on the back of it rather than the current convenient anonymity? A nominal £25 annual licence then gives cyclists the right to share and contribute to the roads and be identifiable, as is any other responsible, legal road user. David Steed, Manston, Kent
BEAUTY AND VERMIN ARE IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER Dear Sir, I must commend Nick Adames on his tale of rural history, how absurd we humans are and the process of Darwinian natural selection (Gulls v Rooks) within a changing ecosystem. Humans, and farmers in particular, react badly to competition. Rooks were labelled pests because they followed the drill and hoovered up enough seed, along with wireworms, to irritate farmers into culling them. We are just too quick to reach for the gun. If the fox takes our hens, first shoot the fox then perhaps think about the run. If a neglected newborn lamb on a hillside is taken, blame the eagle not the management. If there is a weed in the crop, spray the whole field and starve small birds. Happily, these trigger finger approaches are waning with the rise in regenerative agriculture and nature friendly farming. Pests are just creatures that get in our way! Nick will remember that, in 2019, all general licences were revoked by DEFRA, but the hue and cry that followed from the NFU and farmers resulted in three general licences being rapidly re-introduced; GL 40, 41 & 42 (DEFRA website), of which the last is the only one that applies for crop damage. This one still, sadly, includes rooks but herring gulls are ‘red listed’ and in some peril. Using the licence is, however, open to challenge in the courts. Such is the nature of our democracy, exacerbated by differences of detail in each of the devolved governments. So beware! Beauty and vermin are both in the eye of the beholder. Nick exonerates jackdaws but not magpies, yet both are nest predators. Both do well on modern farms, along with other corvids and pigeons. Their numbers closely correlate with the amount of farm food, like spilt grain and stock nuts, readily available. When my son ran his commercial outdoor pig unit, we were beset by corvids whose numbers dwindled dramatically once the pigs went. Abundance is largely a question of food availability. Rook nest shoots still occur on some local estates, though I doubt rook pie is still made, so the foxes and badgers have a bonanza from dead, wounded and
23rd November 2022 Kent Event Centre, Detling, Maidstone, Kent ME14 3JF
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fallen chicks. More foolishness. On our farm, spared from gulls, we still have an active, healthy rook colony living off leatherjackets and some seed. Nick’s loss is likely to be the result of harassment by the gulls rather than active nest predation. Gulls are great nest predators in seabird colonies but are poor performers in woodland, but the frightened chicks fall to the ground and become easy prey. We have seen similar changes on our farm. Kites have recently taken up residence, while our buzzards and ravens have declined, though combined numbers remain steady. Competition for finite resources levels the playing field. Rising numbers of house sparrows displaced our tree sparrows, again demonstrating the fluidity of complex ecosystems. If any species reaches pest proportions locally, the first thing to ask is what are we doing to cause the situation. We are the principal problem. All the planet’s current ills can be debited to us, our numbers, our consumption and our behaviour. I was saddened that Nick spoiled a valid discussion and a good tale by stooping to unwarranted ad hominem comments about Chris Packham (and conservationists generally). Packham’s views are certainly different from Adames’ but are nonetheless valid, evidence-based, mature, scientific and worthy of notice. I would vouch his knowledge of ecology is also vastly greater than Nick’s, mine, and of almost all farmers I know. Mike Kettlewell, Chipping Norton, Oxon
TAKE A MORE MEASURED VIEW ON FOOD STRATEGY Dear sir, Your readers will no doubt be aware of the publication of the Government’s Food Strategy for England and the criticism it immediately attracted, mainly from those who felt some of the proposals from Henry Dimbleby aimed at promoting healthier eating and environmental improvements had been rejected or watered down. I feel, though, that the sector needs to take a more measured view. Although the loss of some proposals is to be regretted, critics would do well to recognise that the Government had to take account of recent events. The strategy sensibly prioritises domestic food production. As Russia strangles the world’s grain supply, this was undoubtedly the correct approach. As the strategy states: “Successful domestic production is what gives us national resilience in an uncertain world.” While this focus may have seen environmental priorities taking more of a back seat than expected, Russia’s continued invasion of Ukraine and blockade of the Black Sea have forced the Government’s hand. The strategy still sets out a vision to maintain the current level of domestic food production while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the environmental impacts of the food system, in line with net zero commitments and biodiversity targets. This ambition shows the government is still trying to bring together the twin goals of food-security and environmental sustainability. It has become a more difficult balance to achieve recently but not an impossible one. Another hugely positive aim of the strategy is to place sustainable food production at the heart of education and learning. This has been far too long in coming. We pay less for our food than previous generations but we appreciate it less. This needs to change. Mark Lumsdon-Taylor, Partner, MHA
2022
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SHOW RESULTS
WELCOME BACK! Thousands of visitors flocked to the everpopular South of England Show to welcome back livestock and equine competitions after a three-year break caused by the pandemic. The South of England Showground at Ardingly, West Sussex, welcomed nearly 400 livestock competition classes, more than 70 different equestrian displays and competitions including international showjumping, heavy horses and the always thrilling inter hunt relay. There were performances from a military brass band and the chance to visit an Army village. Organised by the South of England Agricultural Society (SEAS), the South of England Show was established to celebrate, and educate the public about, all things agricultural. One of the key events in the UK calendar each year, it is attended by agricultural and equestrian professionals and
WINNER OF THE BURKE TROPHY (DAIRY): J & M HOWIE WITH THE AYRSHIRES RIDLEY HILL MARKER GRACE AND DOUGLAS DIANE 8
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enthusiasts and enjoyed by thousands of people from all over the region. Trade stands, a live music stage, a ‘grape and grain walk’ with local vineyards and microbreweries, a medieval re-enactment zone and a funfair added to the attractions. The 2022 garden design competition, which was judged at the show, was won by Brinsbury College with its ingenious ‘bedroom’ themed garden, while dozens of children entered the ‘growing in containers’ competition. The NFU played its part, setting up its discovery barn for younger visitors in the show’s discover the countryside zone and hosting its annual panel session with support from SEAS. That event, entitled: How will we feed Britain sustainably? was chaired by Claire Eckley, farmer and Kent NFU Chair and brought together David
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RESULTS & REVIEWS and service in supporting village and community halls. For three decades Alan has been chairman of Ringmer Village Hall, which has a food bank and library. Over the years he has led its extension project, helped other halls with a range of issues and post-Covid support as well as introducing the idea of a village hall ‘buddy scheme’ to provide mentoring for neighbouring halls. The Woodpecker trophy was awarded to Mark and Richard Chandler, of Moor Farm near Petworth, following a nomination by the Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG). The Chandlers were praised for their dedication to conservation, as well as for their efforts organising farm walks and training sessions. The Sussex Young Farmer of the Year award was given to Brooke Kelly, who was awarded the CLA Rose Bowl on behalf of Sussex Young Farmers’ Club. Earlier in the day MP Andrew Griffith had been the keynote speaker at a ‘levelling up’-themed breakfast. The MP for Arundel and South Downs, recently named as the director of Number 10’s policy unit, shared his thoughts on the Government’s levelling up programme and how it will impact rural communities and businesses across Sussex and beyond. Mr Griffith said: “Despite global headwinds, the rural economy is making a great contribution and our British food producers and processors have never been more important. I am grateful to the Country Land and Business Association for inviting me to speak to their members at the show so that I could share the tangible steps being taken to support our rural economy.”
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Fine weather, large crowds, impressive livestock, a great range of trade stands and DLE NG HANyear’s some superb arena events madeOUthis R Heathfield Show one to remember. Finally released from the confines of lockdown, around 19,000 people attended the show at Little C H A M Pattractions ION Tottingworth Farm, Broad Oak, to enjoy that included a Hurricane fly-by and an impressive display by the broke FMX freestyle motocross team. The main ring also hosted some great young riders competing in the Cranwell Wealth Solutions Shetland Pony Grand National and a display by riders and hounds from the East Sussex & Romney PREME DAIR Y the Southdown & Eridge SU Marsh Foxhounds, Foxhounds and Ashford Valley, all of which soon intermingled in happy chaos. The Heathfield Silver Band and the ever-popular C H A M PIO N Sheep Show also attracted good crowds, while a CHAMPcraft range of country displays and trade stands IO IRY DA proved popular with visitors. A splendid turnout of vintage tractors and other farm machinery was another big draw, both at their static location and when they paraded in the main ring towards the end of the day. Show secretary Nicola Magill said the show had been a huge success, with great feedback from visitors throughout the day and since. Exhibitors included a large number of agricultural machinery dealerships, land agents, contractors and producers, all taking the opportunity to meet up with friends and customers old and new. Y
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The livestock entries also impressed, with sheep and pig numbers up and a high standard on PREME GOBest AT display. in show results were: SU Supreme Beef Champion: Tottingworth Mary 1st – Tottingworth Farm Ltd Supreme Dairy Champion: C H A M PIO N Douglas’s Corakazam – Miss M Howie Supreme Pig Championship Wakeham-Dawson & Harmer Supreme Sheep Championships E Sargent South East Farmer publisher Jamie McGrorty presented prizes to three top stands at the show. Boxes of English wine generously provided by the magazine’s sister publication Vineyard Magazine were handed over to Katrina Waters from John Bourne and Co Ltd, winner of the prize for Best Agricultural Stand under 12m, with Chris Davis from Agrifactors Southern Ltd, judged the best of the larger displays. Steve Moody, from Frogheath Landscapes, went home with two boxes after winning the awards for the Best Non-agricultural Stand and the Best Sussex-based Stand. “Having exhibited at the Chelsea Flower Show I thought it would be good to attend a local event and support the 75th anniversary of the Heathfield Show,” he commented. A fifth award, designed to recognise exhibitors demonstrating a commitment to the environment and sustainability, was presented to the Happy Dog, Happy Planet stand.
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FROM THE FRONT LINE
IN CONJUNCTION WITH
OPPORTUNITIES
We run a mixed family farming enterprise near Alresford with the combinable crops managed by our farming neighbours on a share farming agreement. Over the past seven years since I returned to the farm, ruminant livestock have been re-introduced to the system and steadily expanded. The Mule flock now stands at 750, with performance recorded Charollais rams being put to the ewes for a mid-March lambing. I also buy milk calves in from local dairy farms and rear them to sell on as stores at around 18 months old. There are generally around 100 cattle on farm at any one time. A sister business is the vineyard and winery. Though the farm and wine production enterprises are now run as two entirely separate businesses, there are some synergies between them. We share some items of machinery, such as the JCB telehandler and New Holland main tractor as well as a workshop. My father and brother work at the winery, allowing me the freedom to pursue opportunities on the more conventional farming side. There are certainly opportunities out there for the grazier. Where I live in mid-Hampshire there are many people who own large houses with 20 to 50 acres of grass attached which they want managed and kept tidy. As one of my landlords said: “If the children can see some lambs, so much the better.” Additionally a number of local arable-only farms do not wish to keep any stock of their own but appreciate areas of grass being grazed down and kept manageable. If nothing else it saves a pass with the topper! With the increasing interest in cover cropping and regenerative farming, I can only see opportunities growing for shepherds. The key is to communicate well with the client farmers and landowners so that both parties achieve the goals they would like to see. One of the parts I enjoy most about the business of farming is training young people. We are lucky to have Sparsholt Agricultural College nearby, as well as a large and active Young Farmers’ Club. Between them there appears to be a steady stream of young people keen to work in agriculture. The benefit of being a mixed farm is that every day is different; they might be on the tractor one day, then working with sheep the next morning and cattle in the afternoon. Lambing is when the vet students come into their own; though I do occasionally question why they want to be a vet. Sometimes it appears to be schools pushing a pupil down that route because they are bright and like animals. As livestock farmers we know that being a farm vet involves science, a bit of mechanics, occasionally some butchery and a big dose of diplomacy. It’s not really about cuddling cute animals. A couple of years ago I was voted in as the Hampshire representative on the NFU South East Livestock Board and subsequently became chairman. The board is comprised of livestock farmers of all types from across the South East and we meet
FOR THE GRAZIER
New correspondent Ben Robinson introduces himself.
quarterly. My election coincided almost perfectly with the first Covid-19 lockdown so it took a little longer to get to know people than I would have hoped. Though we continued to have regular online meetings, Zoom wasn’t quite the same. I am glad that we are now back to meeting in person. As chairman I also attend meetings of the National NFU Livestock Board. It is fascinating to see the work done on behalf of farmers by NFU staff. Lobbying is a constant conversation between us, government and a myriad of stakeholders, some of whom are not entirely supportive of productive agriculture! I always welcome views from NFU SE livestock farming members – please do get in touch if there is an issue that you would like to discuss.
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FINANCE
CALM, PROFESSIONAL VOICE
Technology is a wonderful thing, but when storm force winds are tearing the roof off the barn and torrential rain is exploiting the holes left by missing tiles, all you really want is a friendly voice on the end of the phone. While online communication channels have their place, customers of NFU Mutual Ashford, Tenterden & Whitfield continue to enjoy the reassurance provided by a calm, professional voice offering help and support in an emergency. Doug Jackson, senior partner of the three colleagues who head up the agency, explained the philosophy. “The fact that we are available on the telephone or in person is something our customers value greatly and is at the forefront of the service we offer. We pride ourselves on the fact that we are just a phone call away, or on the doorstep of, the clients we serve,” he said. And while direct and easy access to account managers goes hand-in-hand with a more locally focused insurer, the Ashford, Tenterden & Whitfield agency’s place within the wider NFU Mutual Group means it also benefits from the scale of the long-established, UK-wide, composite insurer. That combination of over a century of experience and fleet-of-foot local office was well demonstrated in the days following Storm Eunice, when hundreds of farmers and householders were phoning in to report damage to their buildings.
Rather than putting clients through to a specific claims team, every member of staff in the offices in Ashford, Tenterden and Whitfield simply stopped what they were doing and answered the calls. “It was all hands to the pump,” recalled George Ashby, partner (farming). “Our priority at that time was dealing with the influx of claims. Many of our customers were picking up the pieces after the devastation caused by the storm – so everyone in all three offices was tasked with taking calls.” NFU Mutual Ashford, Tenterden & Whitfield is headed up by Doug, George and fellow partner Darren Smith. Doug and George worked alongside the previous incumbent at what was the Ashford and Tenterden offices and were then joined by Darren, who was made a partner after having worked for the business since 2006. Jackson, Ashby and Smith took on the Whitfield office in 2018 to create the agency as it is today, and the trio are determined to deliver the best possible service across their area of Kent and East Sussex. With the central admin team conveniently based at the Invicta Business Centre, on the same site as Ashford Market, the business is investing heavily in improving both the Tenterden office, which is just off the High Street, and the newly renovated Whitfield site, on the White Cliffs Business Park. Customers are encouraged to visit the offices, and since all the records are held centrally, a Whitfield customer who happens to be visiting Ashford Market
> From left to right: George Ashby, Jane Summerfield, Darren Smith, Doug Jackson, Claire Coles, Stuart Doughty and Charlie James
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TO CONTACT THE NEW NFU MUTUAL ASHFORD, TENTERDEN AND WHITFIELD TEAM USE THE NUMBERS BELOW: ASHFORD: 01233 500822 | TENTERDEN: 01580 766174 | WHITFIELD: 01304 825225 D P Jackson, G R Ashby & D M Smith is an appointed representative of The National Farmers Union Mutual Insurance Society Limited (No. 111982).
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PROMOTIONAL FEATURE on a Tuesday can easily pop in to the Ashford office to discuss any aspect of their policy or talk about any of the other NFU Mutual offerings. NFU Mutual offers a wide range of products, including general insurance, life, pensions, and investments. These products and services are delivered through a network of NFU Mutual agency offices, as well as through direct sales and service centres. With over 295 local businesses located in rural towns and villages throughout the UK, NFU Mutual has become part of the fabric of rural life and remains committed to serving the needs of members nationwide. NFU Mutual is owned by and run for its members, which allows it to reward general insurance customers for renewing their policies by offering a mutual bonus in the form of a saving on the renewal premium. The organisation also has a strong community focus and supports a number of rural and farming initiatives. While the Ashford, Tenterden and Whitfield team has a focus on farming customers – with partner George Ashby heading up a specialist team in that area of the business – the business also offers home and car insurance and is increasingly providing insurance to larger commercial customers, particularly in fields such as food and drink, hospitality, viticulture and retail. Darren Smith looks after corporate and commercial customers and explained: “Because our farming and business customers appreciate the service they receive and have come to trust NFU Mutual, they often come to us to insure their homes and cars as well.” That satisfaction with the insurer is borne out in the statistics, too. As a leading insurer, NFU Mutual boasts an exceptional retention rate, with 95.5% of policies renewing each year (based on three years to April 2022). “There are some family farming businesses that have insured with NFU Mutual for the past 100 years or more,” added Darren. Both George and Doug are also Group Secretaries and together look after the NFU members across their Kent and Sussex area. Darren heads up the Tenterden office, where he has built up many local contacts, having worked across all areas of the agency before being made a partner. Supporting the three partners is a strong team of insurance executives who ensure that all businesses are offered a yearly review to ensure their policies are suitable and cover their potential risks, from the age-old fire and theft cover to the more recent and ever-present threat of cybercrime. Each office also has a dedicated claims team to support customers when they most need help and advice. Alongside the significant investment in the offices at Whitfield and Tenterden to create modern, welcoming surroundings for customers, the business has invested in people, with 50% more staff serving local farmers, business and private customers, and the number of insurance executives doubled from four to eight. There is now a 50-strong team serving customers across the area. The partners have a broad range of experience, both within the industry and in other areas. George comes from a solid farming background but has also served in the Household Cavalry and spent time with Lloyds of London, while Doug worked as a farm business consultant with a major, multi-national firm. The team regularly meets customers old and new at ploughing matches, trade shows and other agricultural events. NFU Mutual has strong links with the community and supports a number of local charities, and the Ashford, Tenterden and Whitfield agency is no exception. Having distributed charity funds on behalf of NFU Mutual to three local charities – Dandelion Time, Family Food Bank and Warming up the Homeless – the team continues to run other fundraising events for the charities. Last year the three partners were joined by Phil Wheeler, a farming client and member, to complete Trailwalker, a 100-kilometre trek along the South Downs, in just 27 hours, raising more than £5,000 for Oxfam and the Gurkha Welfare Trust in the process. “In our community work, as well as in the service we provide to our insurance clients, we do our utmost to make sure the Ashford, Tenterden and Whitfield agency is the best it can be,” concluded Doug Jackson.
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INTRODUCING THE FARMING TEAM STUART DOUGHTY, SENIOR INSURANCE EXECUTIVE
Worked for various departments within NFU Mutual since 1977 and now specialises in reviewing farming and commercial clients' insurance cover.
CLAIRE COLES, INSURANCE EXECUTIVE
Joined the business in 2019 as an insurance executive with a background in project management, advising clients on how we can best protect them. Claire follows in her grandfather’s footsteps; John Coles was a former Tenterden agent and Group Secretary.
JODIE DANE, PRIVATE CLIENT EXECUTIVE
Worked for the agency since 2010 in several aspects of the business. Jodie has been a claims handler and was once an agent herself in another area of the country.
BEN GARDINER, INSURANCE EXECUTIVE
Joined the agency in 2017 after working predominantly in the hospitality industry. Fully licensed in all NFU Mutual products, Ben also specialises in the National Intermediary Service (NIS) to help clients with more niche insurance needs.
DAN ISARD, INSURANCE EXECUTIVE
Worked as an agent in another agency for the past 10 years, gaining considerable expertise. Dan has worked on all aspects of farming and commercial insurance cover and has more than 25 years’ experience in the financial services sector.
JANE SUMMERFIELD, INSURANCE EXECUTIVE
Joined the Ashford customer service team in 2012 as a dedicated account handler helping customers with personal, business and farm insurance and now responsible for visiting existing customers to review their portfolios.
CHARLIE JAMES, FARMING AND COMMERCIAL INSURANCE SPECIALIST
Charlie joined the Ashford, Tenterden and Whitfield Agency in 2018 as a member of the new business team. Having attended the Royal Agricultural University, he has close family links to agriculture and specialises in farm, commercial and personal insurances. W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T | J U LY 2 0 2 2
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MONICA AKEHURST AT THE KITCHEN TABLE
BURY ME IN THE DUNG HEAP
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I’ve been checking stock accompanied by my grandsons, who are presently obsessed with dragons, so their integration into today’s livestock care was a necessary inclusion. Programmes have moved on from the Flower Pot Men. For my children it was Postman Pat and his black and white cat. Today we’ve enjoyed some imaginative dragon hunting which involved changes which made the sheep suspicious, but the cattle were fascinated. We got the job done, and the boys learnt that as farmers there’s a commitment to looking after stock. We also incorporated some bird spotting, including a yellowhammer and admiration of the swallow’s flight. I was happy to have heard the cuckoo this year in early May, not April. I’m sure Postman Pat made a good job of delivering parcels as well as letters. Surely that’s more environmentally friendly and safer than all these courier vans rushing through our country lanes. With the cost of fuel rocketing, it’s likely the couriers will be less keen to do rural deliveries. There are already reports of care workers saying that they cannot afford to do countryside visits, which is concerning for rural communities. Our postman mostly delivers mail which ends up in recycling. I don’t want it cluttering up my tidy farmhouse. Incidentally, Mollie (collie pup) has a fetish for toilet paper, which she likes to convert to confetti sized pieces and distribute around the house. Mollie knows I like making confetti from rose petals and is starting up a rival business.
Occasionally we get some exciting mail and I received one such letter while lambing. The envelope was smart, so initially I thought perhaps it might be an invitation to a hotel where they tell you all about making investments and buying expensive funeral arrangements; ‘buy before you die’ type options. They are barking up the wrong tree with us because all our investments are farmrelated, and other half always says “bury me in the dung heap”. Instead, I was delighted when Hazel and I were invited to attend the East Sussex Women of the Year Lunch, which was held in the American Express Community Stadium, Brighton. There were 250 women from all walks of life. For me it was an excuse to get dressed up and enjoy an uplifting experience. The guest speaker was HH Judge Christine Laing QC, whose life story illustrated what can be achieved with determination and belief in yourself. This event certainly fulfilled its aims of recognising, celebrating and inspiring through women’s achievements. It also raised money for this year’s charitable cause: ‘promoting physical activities for well-being.’ It’s reassuring to know that good news stories still exist. We also received post that was less pleasing, namely a letter informing us that our farm would be inspected by the Environment Agency. It’s part of modern life and I acknowledge they have a job to do, but for me it brings worry. I find it hard to look at the farm as just a business, because it’s our
> The flock arriving on pastures new
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life’s work, an extension of our home and family. I don’t want to cause harm to our environment; why would I? The practical side of farming takes up a lot of time, and keeping pace with bureaucracy has its challenges. It’s stressful wondering if you’ve crossed the t's and dotted the i's to an inspector’s satisfaction. All was well, and the inspector had a good grasp of the problems that farmers face. I’m not sure I can say the same about Boris’ government; they simply don’t inspire much confidence. The recently released food strategy white paper has objectives that are supposed to deliver “a prosperous agri-food and seafood sector that ensures a secure food supply”. Plus “a sustainable, nature positive, affordable food system that provides choice and access to high quality products that support healthier and homegrown diets for all”. Fine words; it’s a step forward that our government now acknowledges the importance of home-grown food. But prosperous and affordable might not be quite so easy to achieve with production costs spiraling. A profit margin is essential for any business to survive, and farmers are no exception. No one wants to see food poverty. Some savings could be made by reducing food wastage and a more coherent supply of labour for harvesting would help. Requests for higher wages and rising inflation are already here. My faith in politicians has evaporated, so I hope someone out there has the answer. The lorry driver who delivered the steelwork
for our livestock building told us that his fuel costs rose £20,000 in one month. The cost of that steel rose by 25% in one week. Wealden bin men are striking, wanting a better wage; they will not be the only workers wanting more. If current wages are not covering living costs you can hardly blame them. Future uncertainty will bring challenges. We will need to adapt, but I’m confident farmers will continue to produce food the best way they can. Hopefully our consumers will take more of an interest in how food is produced and appreciate our role in caring for the land. Heathfield Show gives a good opportunity to connect with urban dwellers and for them to learn more about life in the countryside. For us it was refreshing to be able to get out and about again, meet, greet and catch up with other local farmers and traders. We didn't find the farmers’ market area, and I wonder if local produce couldn’t be given a more prominent position, perhaps nearer to the eating areas. It’s always good to view the show stock and appreciate the work that goes into producing them. We weren’t quite so ecstatic about the hour and a half queue to get into the parking fields, but I’m glad the show was well attended. I knew we should have moved the sheep electric fence after the show and not before. Silaging done and haymaking in full swing, the sun is shining. Grass growth has been good. The cattle look happy. Some lambs are showing early signs of scald in their feet which will need attention. The rhythm of farm life is strangely comforting when you consider what turmoil the world is in.
> Mollie mayhem TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883
> Unloading the lorry requires skilful driving
> Some letters bring unexpected delights
> Steelwork for new livestock building
> Platinum Jubilee dessert, yummy
19 > Cooling down after moving flock
> Brie working
W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T | J U LY 2 0 2 2
MACHINERY DEALER
NEXT IS NOW 20
The new kid on the block for supplying and servicing Bobcat’s impressive range of farm-friendly machines and attachments is Versatile Equipment Ltd. Doosan Bobcat EMEA has given Versatile Equipment sole responsibility in London and the South East for sales and service of the company’s market-leading skid-steer and compact track loaders, miniexcavators, telehandlers, compact wheel loaders, light compaction machinery and attachments. Versatile Equipment, which has been trading since 2003, is now the authorised Bobcat dealer for Kent, Surrey, Essex and East and West Sussex as well as Greater London. Customers old and new are promised a warm welcome at the company’s expanded headquarters on the Hornet Business Estate in Borough Green, featuring a revamped customer reception and dedicated showroom, together with parts, service, warehouse, administration and sales departments. Lee Chater, Sales and Marketing Director, said that as well as expanding the headquarters, the company had recruited new sales and customer support staff. “We made similar improvements at our hydraulic repair company, HPS in East Grinstead, to provide an increased service for local customers in this part of our new territory,” he explained. “Eighteen months on from our appointment at the beginning of 2021 we are enjoying the relationship with Bobcat, helping to significantly increase the company’s share of the construction, rental, landscaping, agriculture, waste management and other markets in London and the South East.”
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As well as selling and servicing the entire Bobcat range of machines and attachments, Versatile Equipment offers a full selection of Bobcat accessories and parts to support both new and existing customers. The company also holds a stock of new and second-hand Bobcat machines.
NEXT IS NOW
Under its new Next is Now initiative, Bobcat has entered the European wheel loader market for compact wheel loaders and small articulated loaders, as well as launching new generation R-Series compact loaders and R2-Series five and six tonne mini-excavators. The company has also added a full range of new light compaction machinery, developed in collaboration with the Ammann Group. Also new is an expanded line of new generation agricultural specification telehandlers, all Stage V compliant and with lifting heights from six to eight metres and capacities of 2.6 to 4.3 tonnes. Bobcat began producing telehandlers in 2000, impressing the market with its fully hydrostatic drive systems and compact box frame chassis designs. Doosan took over the brand in 2007 and has since introduced agriculturespecific features in its telehandler range. All the smaller telescopic loaders are available in agricultural configurations, while four option levels offer increasing operator comfort and productivity. Lee Chater explained that while compact for their size, Bobcat models offered better lifting performances than equivalent competitor models. He added: “A huge focus for Bobcat has always been operator comfort. Cab designs have historically been spacious but now the comfort and feel of the workspace has been significantly improved.
FEATURED COMPANY: VERSATILE EQUIPMENT LTD
“All round visibility is greater, helped by radically redesigned engine covers, larger windows, electronically adjustable mirrors and LED lighting.” With ease of use also important, vital information is fed back to the operator via the 5-inch or optional 7-inch display screen. Newly appointed agricultural business manager Dave Sawicki, a former area sales manager with Bobcat of London and a man with almost 20 years’ experience in the industry, is keen to use the telehandler range as the lead-in to Bobcat’s other offerings. “I love visiting customers at their work sites, getting to know them and the way they work,” he said. “It helps me spot and discuss opportunities for the customer to maximise the productivity of the machine they’re considering buying, or already own. "The telehandler range improvements have been incredible over the past few years and I look forward to turning more farmers and folk in agricultural industries onto the Bobcat range of equipment. Many know Bobcat as the name that is synonymous with skidsteer loaders and excavators, but there’s still a lot more brand awareness work to do when it comes to the telescopic loaders. “Along with the small articulating loaders, a huge range of attachments and great warranty terms, I’m sure we can satisfy all enquiries. It has already been a great experience to dedicate my time solely to farm customers. “Having fantastic finance packages available, too, with flexible payment schemes, will help customer confidence in these times.” The Bobcat range offers 12 skid-steer loaders, including the new R-Series S66 and S76 models, along with a selection of seven compact track loaders, including the latest R-Series T66 and T76 models. The Bobcat mini-excavator range comprises 17 models, with operating weights from 1.0 to 8.8 tonnes, with recent additions being the exciting R2-Series E50z, E55z and E60 models. The newest release is the E88, Bobcat’s largest compact excavator, now built at the same factory as its smaller siblings rather than being a Doosanbuilt unit. Newly launched, the small articulating loader range consists of the L23 and L28 models, which offer a unique solution for customers who work in tight sites, boasting a nimble, ground-friendly design but delivering serious performance alongside a high level of comfort and ease of use. For heavier applications, Bobcat offers compact wheeled loaders L75 and L85.
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SPECIALIST RENTAL FLEET
Versatile Equipment also runs one of the UK’s largest state-of-the-art rental fleets of compact loaders and attachments and has a team of experts to offer customers advice on the best machinery to hire for their project. Lee Chater explained: “Not only do we offer one of the UK’s largest rental fleets of compact loaders, but we also have a huge fleet of attachments to increase the versatility of the machines. “We can cater for a wide range of needs, whether you need to rent a skid-steer or compact track loader with just a bucket or with a selection of attachments to undertake numerous tasks. All machines in our hire fleet are under three years old, fully certified and have a thorough pre-delivery inspection.”
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W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T | J U LY 2 0 2 2
NIGEL AKEHURST VISITS: ROMSHED FARM
TRACKING AND FIELD This month Nigel Akehurst visits Romshed Farm, in the small village of Underriver near Sevenoaks in Kent, to meet farmer Fidelity Weston and her son Inigo and learn more about their nature-friendly family farm.
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Arriving at Romshed farm down a long treelined lane in the picturesque Kent countryside, I park up in the traditional farmyard and find my way to the old farmhouse. Fidelity and her son Inigo greet me at the door and invite me in. We start chatting about a group of their cows that are wearing the world’s first GPS collars. Developed by a Norwegian technology company called Nofence, these collars promise to revolutionise the way livestock farmers graze animals on pasture. As the company name suggests, the GPS collars negate the need to have physical fences and allow the farmer to create virtual fences via an App on their smartphone that ultimately controls where animals can graze. Fidelity opens her Nofence App and shows me a list of the cows currently grazing a field just off a small country lane in the nearby village of Plaxtol. “There are no fences,” she said, confirming that
without the collars the cows could go anywhere. She brings up a map on the App that shows the virtual fence boundary in the field where the cows are grazing and explained: “You can set the grazing area by drawing on the map. There’s a boundary of about five meters. As they approach, it plays a tune and then “zap”, they get a shock. Over time they learn to turn their head away.” Another section in the App shows the number of animals that have heard the tune and the number of shocks. This data provides a fascinating insight into the character of the cows and allows her to see which are leaders and followers. Interestingly, some of the cows have never received a shock, she said. The technology is proving useful, but she can’t see it replacing physical fencing soon. “I wouldn’t be 100% confident to rely on it next to a main road, especially with the risk of dogs chasing
> Fidelity Weston and her son Inigo
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animals,” she explained. The other limiting factor is cost. At present the collars are £250 apiece and the software to run them is another £50 a year (per collar), making it unviable back on the home farm, she said. However, for grazing small parcels of outlying land the technology works well and she can cover some of her costs by charging landowners £20 an acre to graze their land. This invariably works out cheaper than getting a local contractor to top the grass, as well as being beneficial for biodiversity, she explained. “I’m on a mission to get all these little areas grazed and not topped. It makes such a difference to wildlife,” she said. “A recent customer described how the field feels more alive. The cattle had only been in there a couple of weeks, eaten it down and it starts growing again. It’s so natural. You get your tufty bits for voles
and then you get your barn owls. You wouldn’t get that with a topper,” she continued.
ROMSHED FARM
Our conversation turns to the home farm. Fidelity and her husband Martin bought the farm in 1984. When they arrived there was barely a fence left standing and all the gates had been removed and sold by the tenant. “There had been no investment in the farm as the tenant didn’t get on with his landlord,” she explained. “The hedges were so overgrown you couldn’t drive down the farm lane without scratching your car, which set the tone for a wilder farming,” she said. They started out with 400 breeding ewes, lambing inside - “all very conventional,” she added. “As I had more children it became a bigger headache,” she continued. They cut back on numbers and entered into an ‘amazing’ arrangement with another farm to be their set-aside. “We stopped managing a couple of fields and the change was incredible,” she said. When that came to an end, the Government was giving incentives to go organic. With lots of weeds and lapwings nesting in the fields they couldn’t bear the idea of spraying, so decided to bite the bullet
and convert to organic. Thankfully it wasn’t a big change, having previously only used nitrogen fertiliser on their hay ground and a bit of spray for the docks (which at one time they believed were bad things to have). “We stopped putting nitrogen on the fields and suddenly we had all these different species coming through. It was a big learning exercise,” said Fidelity. >>
FARM FACTS
• 200 acres owned and another 70 acres of grazing land locally • Soil Association organic • Pasture for Life • 22 Hereford cows and followers. Finish all cattle on farm at between 26 months and 30 months and aim for a deadweight of between 320kg and 350kg • 160 Lleyn and Romney Ewes. 1.4 lambing percentage • Part-time stockman • Trialing Nofence collars on small mob of cattle to graze local parcels of land • Programme of tree planting and meadow restoration on the farm • Installed mains electric fencing on the farm in 2019 and have been moving their cattle at least once every three to four days • Higher Level Countryside Stewardship • Direct sales of lamb and beef boxes from the farm via a mailing list • Also sell beef to PFL butchers at a premium (£5.50 p/kilo deadweight) • The set of traditional farmyard buildings and house is currently being used to film the ITV series The Larkins, a remake of the H E Bates novel The Darling Buds of May
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W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T | J U LY 2 0 2 2
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NIGEL AKEHURST VISITS: ROMSHED FARM << Ever since then they have tried to maximise opportunities for wildlife and increased biodiversity – “producing food in harmony with nature,” she said.
FARM TOUR
We head out for a walk, crossing one of their fields with a diverse mix of long grasses. Fidelity points out a few of the different species and explained how they have been restoring their lost wildflower-rich meadows. “Across the UK we’ve lost 97% of our wildflower meadows. Our own meadows aren’t great, as we’re on heavy clay, but they are still valuable,” she said. “The sound of the insects you get in the summer that you don’t get in our neighbours’ fields as they are all heavily nitrogen-ed,” she continued. The wildflower meadows are just one part of a diverse habitat of long grass, old mixed hedges and small copses which provide wildlife corridors for insects, small mammals and birds.
ROTATIONAL AND MOB GRAZING
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Soil health is another key focus on the farm and Fidelity and Inigo are experimenting with different ways of grazing their livestock to encourage deeper rooting plants, enabling the soil to hold more carbon and improve its water-holding capacity. They regularly move the sheep and cattle from field to field, which helps to spread the wildflowers and native grasses, resulting in a cacophony of insect noise in the hay meadows during the summer months. Permanent electric fences were installed across
the farm in 2019 to facilitate rotational grazing. It’s a system that allows Fidelity and her part-time stockman Darren Major to easily divide up their fields into smaller paddocks. They use Kiwitech electric fencing posts and a drag water trough. Typically, they move their cows every three to four days but are now planning to get some batt latches (automatic electric release gates) to trial moving the cows every day or multiple times a day. In theory the cows should eat a third, trample a third and leave a third for photosynthesis, said Fidelity, though she recently learned that the grass can be eaten down hard as long as there is a long rest period. Currently they don’t integrate sheep and cattle. The flock of 160 Lleyn ewes and lambs goes up on the hill to a neighbouring block of 50 acres that they rent; they move them every 10 days or so. “We’re moving the farm towards a more pastoral, wild sort of farm. I know Inigo would like us to get rid of the sheep (“not fully,” he interjected),” said Fidelity. “Sheep are more work,” Inigo said. “I would shift more towards the cattle and have fewer sheep. I suppose with the mob grazing it’s an efficiency thing. Why not just have a big herd and just move it every day? “We’ve got quite small fields, so if you get the herd big enough you might not even need to worry about partitioning them,” he added. He also points to research that suggests cows are better at accelerating deeper rooted plants, though he admits there is a risk that you get a less complex grazing structure.
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When considering efficiency, Fidelity concedes: “The truth is moving two or three strands of wire is a lot more work compared to one and that’s a good reason for not having them.” Since moving to mob grazing they’ve noticed an improvement in the productivity of their sward and fewer buttercups, which suggests an improvement in their soil as buttercups love compacted, acidic soils.
NATIVE BREEDS
We arrive at a field with a group of pretty cows and young calves. Fidelity said they had bought their first suckler cows back in 2000. It was a toss-up between the local Sussex breed and Herefords, she explained. They wanted a breed that would fatten on grass and be easy to handle. After speaking to a number of farmers, they opted for the latter and have built a herd of 22 cows, with plans to increase to 30 in the next couple of years. “They are very easy calving,” she said, adding that she particularly liked their "scooped up noses”. The animals spend most of the year out on pasture and are bale grazed in the winter, with the cows coming into the barn for only the wettest months. All their animals are 100% pasture fed and finished. Steers are finished at between 26 and 30 months and sold direct, either to butchers or direct in boxes to a local customer base. They aim for finished deadweight of between 320kg and 350kg but have fallen short in the past, she said. As a result, they are phasing out some of their smaller traditional cows in favour of the slightly larger, ‘improved’ Hereford but keeping the ability to be
> Mob grazing
100% grass-fed by choosing bull replacements very carefully. All heifers are either kept or sold as breeding stock to other farms. They don’t worm any of the cattle and carry out regular fecal egg counts for sheep and cattle, as well as sending off samples to the lab to test for liver fluke. They do still have to worm the lambs occasionally, she said, though a lot less since moving to rotational grazing. This year they’ve only wormed once, which was for Coccidiosis. Lambs are mainly sold direct in half lamb boxes and to local butchers. Their 160-strong flock of ewes is mainly Lleyn: “They are a commercial breed and bred to be very low input. We haven’t had great lambing percentages at around 1.4, but we get very few losses,” she added. In the future they plan to move over to Romneys, having been impressed with some tegs they purchased from local sheep farmer Marie Prebble. “I like buying from people we know,” she said.
ON FARM SUBSIDIES AND THE PHASING OUT OF BPS
“Roughly 25% of our income is either BPS or environmental grants,” said Fidelity. “I completely agree with the concept of having to do something for your subsidy. The BPS in my view is not morally tenable. Some farmers would say it’s buffering you for when everything in a year goes wrong. I don’t agree with that.” She argues that the payments would be better spent on trying to support conventional farmers to change their mindsets about how they address problems and ensuring the right financial incentives are there to do that. “Encouraging farmers to change is, for very understandable reasons, easier said than done,” she said. Fidelity said there is still huge uncertainty over the Government’s future farming policy, and as much as she would like to think it might support the change she believes is needed, she doesn’t trust the Government to make the right decisions: “Will they
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really put their money where their mouth is and help support us through the mindset change? They probably won’t,” she lamented.
OTHER ROLES AND HER THOUGHTS ON THE FUTURE OF FARMING
As well as farming, Fidelity is involved in Pasture for Life. This is a membership organisation of mainly farmers who are keen to improve their use of, and the value of, pasture, with a strong ethos of sharing knowledge and advice on all grazing and ruminant livestock issues. They separately operate, through Organic Farmers and Growers, a farm certification scheme called Pasture for Life and a consumer brand that promotes the unique quality of produce raised exclusively on pasture. A former chair, Fidelity is still one of the driving forces behind the scheme and continues to support Executive Director Jimmy Woodrow. Pasture for Life has secured funding through the Funding for Protected Landscapes (FIPL) scheme for the South East to establish a farmer mentoring programme. This will include training up farmers to become mentors and recruiting people who would like to become mentees, as well as running a series of farmer-to-farmer open days, workshops, farm walks and other activities, so farmers can learn more about how to manage their grazing to maximise its value to the business. Getting to grips with electric fencing systems is often key to achieving best results, so there will be a focus on how livestock farmers can move to rotational and mob grazing systems. See www.pastureforlife.org for details. As part of Fidelity’s work she meets lots of other farmers. I ask what her thoughts are on the future of farming? “I’d like to be optimistic. Meeting so many farmers through PFL, we come across many likeminded people and it really seems the way to go. Everybody enjoys their life - they all feel like they are making a living. Accounts suggest that is the case and it’s all very positive and people are up for trying new things and putting nature centre stage.
“You then go to a meeting of more conventional farmers and you can see what a massive job it is to change people’s mindsets. Making change is so hard, I understand that, and when businesses are precarious it adds to the difficulty. “If you’re struggling to make a living and people are asking you to change, it is taking a risk. We’re lucky we can afford to take risks, as Martin, my husband, has another income,” she said. “Making that change is enormous. We also see that at PFL - a lot of the younger generation want to do things, but their parents are not very happy about it. “Wouldn’t it be nice if the Government said: ‘Now is the time to do it. We’re going to support you over the next five years. Let’s get it going now before we all go bust with the price of fuel and fertiliser?' There really is another way and many farmers are already doing it.”
WILDFLOWER RESTORATION PROJECT
Before heading back to the farmyard, Fidelity and Inigo take me to see a former 4.5-hectare arable field which is now in Higher Tier Countryside Stewardship Scheme meadow restoration conversion. They divided the field into three sections, trying different establishment techniques. “We got a grant to put in an amazing wildflower meadow mix; we ploughed and put in 1.5 hectares in the far side. We green hayed the middle section using hay from our species rich meadow, getting the cows to eat it off. Lastly we bale grazed the same hay over the winter.” The results have been fascinating; both the green hayed and bale grazed sections are full of wild flowers. Fidelity is thrilled, pointing out the bright carpet of pink grass vetchlings, one of her favourite flowers. Interestingly the ploughed section is covered in mayweed. Fidelity doesn’t seem too worried and thinks it will come right, suggesting I come back in a few years to see for myself.
W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T | J U LY 2 0 2 2
25
PREVIEW
FRUIT FOCUS
RETURNS
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Fruit Focus returns to NIAB EMR at East Malling on 13 July, offering the usual exciting blend of tours and talks, networking opportunities, trade stands and the chance to meet and greet customers old and new. After a challenging few years for events, the Fruit Focus team is pleased to be returning to its tried and tested format and is promising an extended event site. Visitors who pre-register can take advantage of everything on offer free of charge, while onsite registration costs £10. The day’s highlights include NFU-led fruit forums, NIAB EMR research tours and a chance to learn about the new Growing Kent & Medway Sustainability Hub as well as live demonstrations and the usual range of trade stands. The event is also eligible for BASIS & NRoSO Knowledge Trail points. The Growing Kent & Medway Sustainability Hub, a new feature at Fruit Focus 2022, will add a new networking and information-gathering opportunity to the show. The hub will reflect Growing Kent & Medway’s mission to help the food and drink industry continue to thrive by giving businesses of all sizes the opportunity to use the hub as an informal meeting space where they can connect with other businesses and research specialists. There will also be talks on sustainable innovation throughout the day. NIAB EMR will be running research tours throughout the day, including visits to the WET (water efficient technology) Centre, established at East Malling in 2016 with the aim of demonstrating water use efficiency and modern growing systems in strawberry and soft fruit production. Funded by technology companies including Netafim, Delta-T, Cocogreen, Stoller, Yara, Berry Gardens and Hutchinsons, the centre has evolved to investigate rainwater harvesting and re-use, substrate mixes and bag colour, crop microclimate, venting systems, nitrogen demand models and predictive models to improve crop forecasting. Also on offer is a centre tour that will highlight the work of East Malling’s plum demonstration centre, now funded directly by the principal UK commercial plum growers and marketing groups. Delegates will be able to view the trees of the new early plum variety P7-38, which is being launched at Fruit Focus, and see the plum variety trial which is in its first full cropping season.
WHEN
WHERE
Wednesday 13 July 2022, 9am to 6pm Car parks open at 7am. Gates open at 8am, when caterers open for breakfast. Stands and features open at 9am
NIAB EMR, New Road, East Malling, Kent ME19 6BJ
Ticket-Alt
TICKETS
Tickets are free of charge if pre-registered and cost £10 if purchased on the day. Please pre-register at www.fruitfocus.co.uk
The research vineyard tour will look at NIAB EMR’s work in testing and demonstrating training systems, researching rootstocks and varieties, mechanical weed control, fertigation and frost mitigation systems. Visitors will also be able to see the new winery supported by Growing Kent & Medway funding and learn about recent research into weed control and a new project looking at crop covers and soil health. The entomology research tour will learn about new developments in capsid control using a pheromone ‘push-pull’ approach in soft fruit crops, resulting in a new commercial product which has been demonstrated to reduce capsid numbers and damage in crops.
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Cooting Road • Aylesham Industrial Estate • Canterbury • Kent CT3 3EP • T: 01304 842280 • sales@agricareuk.com • www.agricareuk.com Southern Farmers Qtr Page April 22.indd 5
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GAME-CHANGING
WETTING AGENT Hortifeeds are excited to be exhibiting at Fruit Focus again and look forward to welcoming existing and new customers to the stand to discuss their extensive range of fertilisers and biostimulants. The Hortifeeds team is also delighted to be welcoming Laura Bishop from Plant Impact to the stand. Laura will be giving a presentation in the fruit forum on CaTTM Technology used in their calcium mobility product AmētrosTM. She will be available for questions at the Hortifeeds stand during the rest of the day. We are also excited to be launching the game-changing new wetting agent HortiHydrate Bio, which provides excellent surfactant performance using sustainable ingredients. Standard synthetic wetting agents are produced from the oil industry, making them unsustainable. Although yucca extracts are used as more environmentally friendly wetting agents, the efficacy of these products is routinely much lower than the synthetic alternatives. HortiHydrate Bio has been formulated by leading surfactant experts from a unique blend of sustainable ingredients. This environmentally friendly product boasts equivalent performance to standard synthetic surfactants, representing a vast improvement over products that are currently available. HortiHydrate Bio is approved for use in organic growing systems by The Soil Association. We believe it is: “Better for plants, better for the planet!”
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www.hortifeeds.co.uk
Your specialist tractor and machinery dealership
QUALITY CROP NUTRITION ICL is a global leader in soft fruit nutrition and has over 30 years’ experience in the soft fruit industry. Everything they do is focused on making crops grow better. They offer expert advice and innovative solutions including controlled release nutrition, water conservation agents and water-solubles for drip irrigation.
CONTROLLED RELEASE FERTILISERS
Controlled release fertilisers provide efficient crop nutrition that closely matches the growth requirements of the plant, using temperatureactivated technology and leading to less leaching during rainfall or irrigation. Talk to ICL about Agroblen, the controlled release NPK fertiliser that is ideal for application in soft and top fruit.
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AGROLUTION SPECIAL – THE ALL-IN-ONE FERTILISER SOLUTION
Agrolution Special is widely known for its high magnesium and calcium analyses and is made from the purest ingredients with chelated trace elements.
H2FLO – MAKE EVERY DROP COUNT Water efficiency is an increasing challenge in many fruit crops. ICL’s water conservation agent makes every drop count.
NOVA – FULL RANGE OF STRAIGHTS
Nova water-soluble straights are of unrivaled quality and are highly soluble. Nova PeKacid can prevent clogging in driplines and is ideal for systems when recycling water.
Discuss your nutritional programme with ICL expert Andy Judd
NEW AND USED TRACTORS, MACHINERY AND EQUIPMENT FOR FRUIT, HOP AND VINE GROWERS. PLUS SPARE PARTS, SERVICE, REPAIR AND AFTER SALES CARE. SEE YOU AT FRUIT FOCUS ON STAND 112.
Avon Works, Cranbrook, Kent, TN17 2PT·01580 712200 · sales@npseymour.co.uk· www.npseymour.co.uk
TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883
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Full range of Venturi sprayers for exceptional coverage
Engage are leading the way in Fruit Nutrition and Crop Enhancement.
Flail Mowers and Stone Crushers for every situation
13 JULY 2 2
Come and see us on Stand 512 and find out why. Vari-Width Rotary Mowers and Vineyard Cultivators
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Only the best will do - call 07974 566060 www.arboragri.co.uk
e info@engage-agro.com t +(0) 1257 226590 engageagroeurope.com
VISIT US ON STAND 820 AT FRUIT FOCUS
Fertigation Specialists
UK’s leading supplier of biological crop protection Fargro is respected as the UK’s leading supplier of biological crop protection and integrated pest management (IPM) products for horticulture. We understand IPM and are focused on offering the best controls to suit your business. Our experts have been leading the way in providing the most effective modern methods against protecting pests and disease in a sustainable way
ICL are experts in water soluble nutrition.
• Quality – reliable & consistent purity • Knowledge – on-farm expert advice • Innovation – global leaders in R&D • Choice – a solution for every need Get in touch: E plantnutrition@icl-group.com T +44 (0) 844 8094470
Visit us at Fruit Focus: Stand 224 J U LY 2 0 2 2 | W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T
with minimal environmental impact.
We offer █
Customer specific IPM programmes
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Full product technical support
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Agronomy advice
01903 256 856
technical@fargro.co.uk
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BAYER SET TO
LAUNCH NEW INSECTICIDE AND FUNGICIDE FOR FRUIT CROPS
Bayer is pushing ahead with plans to launch a new fungicide for use in apple and pear orchards while continuing to gather the data needed to support authorisation of a new insecticide for use in a range of fruit crops. The new fungicide contains fluopyram and fosetyl-aluminium, the latter being a form of potassium phosphonate that has been shown to extend protection via a pro-biotic trigger of the plant’s immune system. The product is already approved in Europe, where it has become the basis for control of apple scab (Venturia inaequalis) and pear scab (Venturia pirina) as well as showing activity on powdery mildew. Bayer will be making an application for market authorisation in 2022. The new insecticide contains flupyradifurone (Group 4D), a new mode of action with no known cross resistance. Target pests include aphids. Crops applied for include apples, beans and peas, potatoes and carrots.
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www.cropscience.bayer.co.uk
> The Fischer Tornado: Excellent quality at a very realistic price
BEST MACHINERY FOR
FRUIT INDUSTRY ArborAgri are proud to distribute what can be described as “market leading machinery for the fruit industry”. Their main suppliers are all specialists in their field and their designs have stood the test of time. CIMA have been at the forefront of sprayer technology for years with their Venturi low volume sprayers. Their pioneering design offers exceptional coverage using less water, as well as being very operator friendly. Recent introductions include the DOSA anti drift system and the EPA 2 GPS and application/speed control.
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Seppi have been the “go to” brand for all mulching mowers and stone crushers from 20hp to 500hp for years. Exceptional strength and durability, together with replaceable wear plates, allow the machines to have a long and productive life. Fischer are a highly regarded manufacturer of rotary mower and under canopy equipment. There is a mower for everyone in their range. Quality is paramount. The recent introduction of their Tornado nylon cord, in row mower opens a massive market for under canopy maintenance where chemicals are no longer allowed or used.
Call Andrew on 07974 566060 | www.arboragri.co.uk
DIFFERENT SOLUTIONS FOR
SOILLESS CULTIVATION Projar is a company with almost 40 years of professional experience which specialises in solutions for soilless cultivation of soft fruits, vegetables, fruit trees, cannabis and ornamentals. The company has its own factories in Almeria, Sri Lanka and India, where it obtains raw material with all the quality controls. Their experience in logistics allows them to get to the customer's home/ workplace, always being close to them. In their product catalogue they highlight the different solutions for soilless cultivation. Firstly, Grow Bags, a coir fibre base in different compositions and with the possibility of adapting
TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883
the design according to needs, adding holes for planting, drainage, etc. Easyplanters are individual growing bags with various compositions of coir fibre which are easy to use, optimise space and protect the crop from pathogens. Also we have coir blocks to personalise the mixture and create unique products. Projar also makes made-to-measure substrates depending on the type of crop, with mixtures of coir fibre, different peats, perlite and other elements. On the other hand, our offer of pots, trays and other agro-inputs is extensive, allowing customised designs for different crops. Finally, Projar offers a specialised consultancy service,
AGRO+, to accompany the grower and help him or her in the installation and monitoring of the crop and results.
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www.projarinternational.com
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WE FOCUS ON SWD... Part of North Kent College
…SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO. Season-long, chemical-free control. Coming in 2023.
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Kent’s only rural and land based college.
APPLY NOW FOR A SEPTEMBER START
Register at bigsis.tech
Inspiring Green Technology
EXPERTS IN SOILLESS TECHNOLOGY FOR SOFT FRUITS
ONE SUPPLIER, ALL THE SOLUTIONS
www.projarinternational.com
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SEASON-LONG, CHEMICAL-FREE
SWD CONTROL
A novel control option for spotted-wing drosophila (SWD) offers up to 91% reduction in target pest numbers, with English berry and cherry growers set to be the first in the world to use it when it launches in 2023. British agritech start-up BigSis is inviting Fruit Focus attendees to register their interest in its chemical-free solution, which uses factoryreared sterile male insects to prevent SWD populations from ever reaching economically significant levels in the crop. “Sterile insect technique (SIT) is well-established,” said BigSis founder Glen Slade, “but it’s been too expensive and impractical to use at field scale. Our non-GM, automated rearing has slashed the cost by around 90%, putting season-long, chemical-free SWD control within the reach of every fruit grower.
“Successful field trials with Berry Gardens and NIAB-EMR have proved its efficacy. As we scale up production, we will launch over a limited number of hectares in 2023.” BigSis will offer its season-long SWD control service directly and through accredited partners. Customers receive regular releases of sterile male insects into their crops, providing more effective and sustainable control than chemicals without imposing additional demands on farm labour.
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Growers can register their interest at www.bigsis.tech
MUST-HAVE TRACTORS With labour shortages being a constant battle for UK growers, Kirkland UK has researched and sourced incredible machinery solutions for this ongoing issue. On show will be the Air-jet Berry Harvester, which is ideal for blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and blackcurrants. This innovative machine harvests soft fruits by air pulsations, allowing harvesting without damaging plants or berries.
Philip Mann at Bedstone Growers shares his thought on the Air-jet: "It has far surpassed our expectations and harvest quality of the fruit is very similar compared to hand pick. We estimate it has replaced 35 hand picking members of staff and we only require four operatives for the harvester, one driver, two changing crates and one taking fruit back to the cold store.” Launching at Fruit Focus will be the new Mach
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TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883
4 Tony and Tony 8900 V. Built with ultra-compact hybrid hydrostatic mechanical transmission and a minimum width of just 100cm, these are the musthave tractors for fruit growers. The Kirkland team will also be available to discuss the UK’s first ever driverless sprayer. Launching late this summer, the AgBot can save up to 80% on labour costs and a third saving on fuel compared with a tractor.
Contact Kirkland on 01622 843013 or email info@kirklanduk.com
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JOIN US AT FOR OUR LATEST MACHINES
Join us at
AIR-JET BERRY HARVESTER +HARVESTS UP TO 1000KG P/HR + REPLACES UP TO 200 PICKERS A DAY. ANTONIO CARRARO MACH TONY & TONY V
Extensive range of ferrlisers and biosrmulants Oprmising nutriron for your crops NEW! Environmentally friendly weeng agent, HorrHydrate Bio
+ ULTRA-COMPACT HYBRID
HYDROSTATIC MECHANICAL TRANSMISSION +MINIMUM WIDTH 100 CM
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STAND 504 12:00-12:30 NFU Fruit Forum Benefits of the unique CaTTM Technology urlised in Amētros
info@kirklanduk.com | 01622 843013 | kirklanduk.com | ME17 3NW
“British Strawberries, so berry good for you!”
You can probably tell friend from foe but can your insecticide?
– Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill
Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) ___
s are more than just big and ® Driscoll’s Zara Strawberrie em. boosting your immune syst sweet, they’re also great for
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Biologicals By Bayer – the power of nature, empowered By science | cropscience.bayer.co.uk/flipper
FLiPPER contains fatty acids C7-C20. FLiPPER is a registered Trade Mark of Alpha BioPesticides Limited. Use plant protection products safely. Always read the label and product information before use. Pay attention to the risk indications and follow the safety precautions on the label. For further information, including contact details, visit www.cropscience.bayer.co.uk or call 0808 1969522. © Bayer CropScience Limited 2022.
Pick them fresh at all major UK supermarkets ARK2103 BG Jess Ennis-Hill A5 ad.indd 1
Leafhopper (Nilaparvata lugens)
16/06/2021 14:44
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HUGE RANGE OF COURSES Whether you are joining from school or looking to change career, Hadlow College offers a huge range of courses covering agriculture (livestock, arable, fruit and vegetables), horticulture (glasshouse production, fruit and vegetables, viticulture, greenkeeping and ornamental production), gardening, agricultural engineering, aquaculture and fisheries management, equestrian studies, animal management, land and wildlife management and floristry. The college has a proud heritage within the rural sector and its main aim is to make all students feel welcome and secure in what is a fantastic learning environment as they gain the skills they require for a successful land-based career. The college has excellent resources, including a working beef farm (as well as links with local dairy farms), sheep unit, arable crops, glasshouses, fruit production, Broadview Gardens and Garden Centre, animal collection, fisheries (lakes and hatchery) and stables both at the Hadlow main site and at Greenwich Equestrian Skills and Riding Centre.
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Greenwich Equestrian Centre also boasts an equine therapy centre which is one of the few available in the South East. All full-time courses and apprenticeships include a significant amount of
Adverse weather events such as heat, cold, drought and excess rainfall have become more frequent and result in significant fruit yield losses caused by the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). This harmful accumulation of ROS is referred to as oxidative stress, causing a decline in growth, development and productivity. Oxidative stress during reproductive growth is proven to reduce fruit-set and is one of the key reasons why crops do not achieve their genetic potential. BioAtlantis has a proven, completely natural, solution to oxidative stress in SuperFifty Prime, which primes the fruit crop ahead of the increasing number of extreme weather events caused by climate change.
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work experience that is carried out in a work place to develop the skills and knowledge related to the sector and provide excellent opportunities for the industry to raise the profile of the sector.
REDUCING ABIOTIC
STRESS IN FRUIT CROPS In fruit production, the flower development, pollination and fertilisation stages are highly sensitive to the stress induced by extreme weather events. Applying SuperFifty Prime prior to abiotic stress events will reduce ROS induced damage and improve fruit set and crop performance. Even in well-managed fruit production systems, crops typically only achieve 70% to 75% of their maximum genetic growth potential. Treatment with SuperFifty Prime increases yield by an average of 14%. This translates to an increased Return On Sustainable Investment (ROSI) for the crop grower of 3:1.
www.bioatlantis.com
WATERUK LTD Irrigation Supplies and Design
Your trusted Irrigation and Horticultural products supplier
REGISTER TODAY AT WWW.FRUITFOCUS.CO.UK TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883
Specialising in Turnkey Irrigation projects utilising only the latest and best water saving techniques and products on the market Wateruk Ltd supply a host of products including: • Water Storage Tanks • Pumps and variable speed drives • Fertigation Rigs • Filtration • Drip Irrigation • Fleece • SWD netting • Ground Cover • Drainage sheet • Algae control • Rig and Pump maintenance services • Installation services • Including all ancillary parts and fittings
Please contact Charles Tager to discuss your requirements or to arrange a site visit
• Mobile: 07964526919 • Email: charles@waterukltd.com • www.waterukltd.com
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PREVIEW
NFU FRUIT FORUMS
09:10
Benefits and possibilities of mechanical application to manual application of biological control organisms in strawberry crops Detailed view into different application techniques of biological control organisms into strawberry crops, with focus on the financial aspects and labour intensity. • Jasper Hubert, Senior Consultant and Pollination Coordinator – Koppert Biological Systems
09:30
Developing a new precision dosing orchard sprayer Find out about a new orchard sprayer that has been developed to vary the dose and volume of the spray applied based on tree size. • Charles Whitfield - NIAB EMR
09:45
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Launch of a new plum variety from Malling Fruits Learn about a new early plum variety that is being named and launched by Malling Fruits. • Will Roberts, Business Development Manager – NIAB EMR
10:00
NFU Fruit Forum: Addressing the cost inflation challenge With sharply rising costs across all sectors, what have businesses done to mitigate the impacts and how will future production be affected? Hear from a panel of speakers discussing the impacts for horticultural businesses and the drive to deliver cost savings and efficiency. • Martin Emmett, Chair – NFU Horticulture and Potatoes Board • John Giles, Divisional Director of Agri-Food – Promar International • Chris Newenham, Joint Managing Director – Wilkin and Sons
NIAB EMR RESEARCH TOURS WET Centre Entomology Research Plum Demonstration WET Centre Research Vineyard WET Centre Entomology Research
11:00
Accessing labour through 2022 and beyond Despite securing a commitment to a three year Seasonal Worker Scheme, growers have faced the most difficult season yet. Labour shortages have reached their highest levels and decisions to release the extra 10,000 visas for horticulture have been painfully slow. Hear about the ongoing activities to secure a more stable, long term solution, and what businesses can do to ensure the tight labour market doesn’t exacerbate worker exploitation risks. • Martin Emmett, Chair – NFU Horticulture and Potatoes Board • Simon Bowyer, CEO – Concordia UK • Lee Abbey, NFU Horticulture and Potatoes Chief Adviser • Paul Willgoss, Owner and Consultant at PW Food & Farming Ltd, Co-chair of Modern Slavery Intelligence Network
12:00
Improving localised calcium mobility, improving marketable yield and shelf-life Plants principally take up calcium with water in the transpiration stream and it is moved via the xylem. As a result, plant tissues with high transpiration rates, such as leaves, receive more calcium. Conversely, those with low transpiration rates, such as fruit, can suffer from sub-optimal levels of calcium, despite ample availability in the soil and adjacent plant leaves. This session will discuss ways to increase localised calcium mobility and optimise calcium availability in fruit, improving quality, marketable yield and shelf life. • Laura Bishop, Market Applications Specialist – Plant Impact (part of Croda Europe Ltd)
12:20
Reducing water and fertiliser use with biostimulants in fruit crops – the Bio4Safe Project Find out about NIAB research to understand if commercial biostimulants can increase yields of fruit under reduced water and mineral fertiliser regimes. Dr Matevz Papp-Rupar, Science Project Leader – NIAB EMR
10:00 10:30 11:00 12:00 12:00 14:00 14:30
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Spotted wing drosophila – developing sterile insect technique as a control method Discover a new technique for controlling spotted wing drosophila which will soon become a commercial reality. Sebastien Hemer - NIAB EMR
12:40
Re-using coir substrate – the Horti-Blue C project Learn about NIAB research to recycle green waste and re-use coir substrates for soft fruit crops. • Dr Matevz Papp-Rupar, Science Project Leader – NIAB EMR
13:00
Simple season extension to full winter production Strawberry growers in the UK are offering yearround cropping through the use of LED lighting. This presentation demonstrates how LED lighting can be used in a number of different scenarios, from simple season extension through to full winter production. Based on recent projects in the Netherlands, this session will cover the benefits to growers, how the technology is maturing, the latest in spectrum development and typical yield values. • Nathanael Dannenberg, Commercial Director Horticulture – Signify
13:20
A presentation from Bayer
13:40
Host plant defence and its place in a crop protection programme Growers are facing increasing pressures from chemical restrictions such as achieving a set number of residues or dealing with harvest intervals. This session will focus on the use of the plant defence elicitor, Romeo, in a disease management programme. Areas of focus will include the biology of host plant defence inducers, how to integrate plant defence elicitors in to your IPM programme and key factors to take into account during and after application. • Ant Surrage, Technical Development Specialist – Fargro
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REGISTER TODAY AT WWW.FRUITFOCUS.CO.UK 14:00
From British Summer Fruits to British Berry Growers The UK berry growing industry and the work of its industry body British Summer Fruits has been a great success story for decades, growing demand far above the overall fruit category growth and satisfying that demand with near 100% home grown supply. Our growers now face unprecedented challenges that threaten their and the industry's very existence. Nick Marston will talk about what the repurposed industry body is doing to address this massive challenge and ensure the industry's long-term sustainability. • Nicholas Marston, Chairman - British Berry Growers
14:20
Autonomous robots in strawberry production
14:40
Biorational crop management
15:00
Addressing labour shortages with automation People are fundamental to the operation of modern soft fruit farms. They are a precious resource and valued. The problem is that fruit growers can’t recruit enough people to meet their needs. This session will tackle this problem with a discussion of smart autonomous robots intended to make the human workforce more productive. • Ed Herbert, Founder & COO - Dogtooth
15:20
Growing all year round
MECHANICAL IN-ROW
WEEDING SOLUTION
The UK’s leading specialist tractor and machinery dealership, NP Seymour, will be showcasing the latest mechanical in-row weeding solution for orchards. Visitors to the show will be able to see the new Perfect Terra Ranger, which is thought to be the first mechanical orchard weeder capable of working under the tree and in the row, at speeds of up to 15 km/h. The Terra Ranger is specifically designed for orchards and combines a finger weeder with two counter-cutting tillers to remove unwanted vegetation on both sides of the alley. Claire Seymour, director at NP Seymour said: “We are very much looking forward to seeing you
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www.npseymour.co.uk
PROTECTING AGAINST PESTS AND DISEASES
Fargro is respected as the UK’s leading supplier of biological crop protection and integrated pest management (IPM) products for horticulture. They understand IPM and are focused on offering the best controls to suit your requirements. A healthy growing business must maximise its yield. For many years Fargro experts have been leading the way in providing the most effective modern methods of protecting against pests and diseases in a sustainable way with minimal environmental impact. They pride themselves on being able to offer tailored customer specific IPM programmes, full product technical support and
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all at Fruit Focus. We are hoping to carry out some orchard trials with Perfect’s new Terra Ranger in a Kent orchard after the show and are eager to see first-hand the results it produces.” The Kent-based dealership will also be displaying a range of machines suitable for top and soft fruit growers including a new Gen3 Fendt 210 F Vario, a Clemens SB Orchard, a Fischer GL4 mower, and the KWH variable rate orchard sprayer which will also be featured in the Innovate UK PODS demonstration at the show.
agronomy advice. Growing businesses need support. Whether that means quick delivery of the highest quality and most reliable products, materials and equipment, helping you to protect your crop from pests and diseases or access to flexible financial solutions, Fargro can support you. With more than 75 years’ experience of supporting growers, they have developed deep knowledge and expertise. The product offering includes exclusive biofungicides such as Taegro and Romeo. Fargro’s range of solutions encompasses three main areas of concern for businesses in the horticulture sector: crop health, sustainability and productivity.
Contact the technical team on 01903 256856 | www.fargro.co.uk W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T | J U LY 2 0 2 2
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LEGAL
STAMP DUTY CHANGES
AHEAD FOR MULTIPLE AND 36
MIXED-USE PURCHASES Property buyers looking to pay reduced rates of stamp duty when buying multiple residential properties or claiming mixed residential and non-residential use can expect a tightening of the rules following a consultation by HMRC. Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) is payable in England on residential property transactions where the market value is more than £125,000, with a tiered scale related to the purchase price and different rules if you’re a first time buyer or
ALEXANDER BAK
Director Commercial Property Specialist T: 01622 698020 E: alexanderbak@wmlaw.uk www.whitehead-monckton.co.uk
buying an additional home or a buy-to-let, through a company or when living overseas. Non-residential property transactions are subject to different rates, which are presently lower than residential rates. The consultation by HMRC has put the spotlight on how tax is calculated in two key areas: transactions using the Multiple Dwelling Relief (MDR) rules and those involving mixed-use purchases of both residential and non-residential property. Under the present rules, MDR can be claimed when at least two dwellings are purchased in a single transaction or as part of a series of linked transactions between the same vendor and purchaser. This allows the rate of SDLT to be calculated based on the average value of each dwelling, calculated individually and added together, rather than on their combined value. For example, rather than calculating stamp duty on a single transaction of three properties at a total cost of £1.5 million, the tax could be calculated on three individual properties valued at £500,000 each. This can enable significant savings as stamp duty rates are tiered according to property value. Savings can also be made when claiming for mixed-use purchases, which are subject to SDLT at lower non-residential rates, even where the amount of non-residential land in the purchase is very small. As HMRC highlights, mixed-property purchases can range from a country house with some land let for grazing through fast food shops
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with flats above, pubs and B&Bs, to large-scale city centre developments comprising ground floor retail outlets with floors of flats above. Because mixed-property purchases are classed as non-residential, as well as benefiting from the lower non-residential rate of SDLT, purchasers can avoid the surcharges due when an individual already owns residential property or is currently living overseas. Also, mixed-property purchases can be combined with MDR while still qualifying as being non-residential, unlike multiple dwelling claims involving only residential property, which would be calculated to include any surcharges payable by existing residential property owners or non-UK residents. Purchases of six or more dwellings in a single transaction are taxed as purchases of non-residential property. For the purposes of SDLT, there is a definition of what is meant by a ‘dwelling’, and in deciding if it qualifies HMRC will use a number of indicators, such as whether there is a separate council tax bill and energy supply, or a lockable front door, as well as the facilities needed to live independently, such as a toilet or washing facilities. Change is undoubtedly coming, and there may be a motivation to move on with any purchases where you may be able to claim these reliefs. However, this is a complicated area and it’s worth getting specialist professional advice on the topic.
FOCUS ON FRUIT SARAH CALCUTT
GENE EDITING: HOW DO WE GET
THE PUBLIC ON OUR SIDE?
Ok, so as someone who has spent too many of plant protection chemistry by growing more here SARAH CALCUTT hours wielding a pair of Felcos and a small and being more food secure? Executive Chair, pruning saw trying to control canker in a Who do you think should be responsible for National Fruit Show Gala orchard, and has the resulting repetitive creating trust in the application of gene editing to strain injury to prove it, the gene editing news plant breeding in the UK? Is it the firms involved, has been nothing short of amazing, frankly. the propagators who sell to growers? The research As farmers, we know that there are certain bodies funded by government (because this one diseases for which we never quite get control, some things that, once hasn’t got a Monsanto label…)? Is it the Government that should spread the they get a grip, signal the end of financial viability for a crop and for word (and will that help)? which the required chemistry is becoming all too scarce. Should we be transparent to create trust, or should this be down to labelling? But how do we tell the public? How do we support those who need to manage Do we create a Gala+, new and improved, still nutritious, still hydrating, still this story and educational work without feeding the fervent anti-chemistry, good for lowering your cholesterol levels but now without a dreadful disease anti-science and anti-establishment lobby that thinks producing food should that ruins orchards and stops growers delivering what the consumer says they be a charitable act and not a business? How do we prevent this turning into the want – fresh, nutritious food, grown to a high standard in environmentally monumental nightmare that the anti-GMO campaign has delivered, halting a friendly and sustainable ways? lot of progress in a scientific breakthrough that reduces the use of the chemistry So I’m throwing the questions out there. There is a consultation happening they distrust so much? on this right now. If you have a view, I would be pleased to connect you with Should we be looking to treat this like a brand development project? If you the research team. For what it is worth, we need this science yesterday, but want to bring a product to market, you consult with experts in branding, you our greatest challenge is those that believe we are going to damage the conduct market research into people’s perceptions, gauge the mood of the environment and the human population irretrievably by its implementation. consumer, test messages and imagery and refine your product launch. Should we be using the medium of popular media? Should we be telling the story of how this editing (not modification, nothing fishy about these genes) is going to remove chemistry from the environment? Should we be open about the costs of medicating our crops, about the realities of how we bring them their fantastic fresh product and the pressures of producing it so close to home? Perhaps we should focus on the quality story; the reduction of waste by the removal of the gene that delivers vulnerability to scab? A greater proportion of the crop, every year, (not sprayed every time the mills period alarm goes off ) would make it into someone’s diet and it will not have shipped from thousands of miles away. Isn’t this, perhaps, one of our greatest arguments – not importing environmental damage, water, dubious employment practices and regulation
Better people Best placed
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SEED
FERTILISER
GRAIN
STORAGE
T: 01264 321 595 www.openfield.co.uk
ELVED PHILLIPS ARABLE NOTES
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Some years ago Openfield developed a direct link with the Slavuta Malting Company in Ukraine, supplying malting barley from the South of England. The journey for the many shipments of malting barley was long and hazardous. It started at Southampton; from there the sea journey was via the North Sea, Denmark and Sweden, into the Baltic Sea to be discharged at the Lithuanian port of Klaipėda. Then it was loaded onto trains and went overland to the Ukraine via Belarus. Slavuta is 180 miles West of Kyiv, closer to the Black Sea than the Baltic. It was a difficult journey then; now it would be impossible. Talking to our friends at Slavuta I’m pleased to say that while they had to close for a month at the start of the war, they are now safe, being on the western side of Ukraine, and are back in full malt production. Other international maltsters and brewers in Ukraine have not been so lucky and are closed for the foreseeable future. What this does confirm is that rail links between Ukraine and the Baltic ports of Gdańsk in Poland and Klaipėda in Lithuania are open. They may not be able to travel via Belarus, but they certainly can via Bulgaria, Romania and Poland. This gives them access to export markets that don’t depend upon Russia for anything. My much vaunted £50 war premium did come out; in fact £54 was eventually lost from the high point in November wheat futures. Was this a result of a ceasefire? No, it was simply rumours of Russia opening up “corridors” to allow the export of Ukraine’s land-locked twenty million tonnes of wheat. After some recovery of this correction, again Russian talks with Turkey, allegedly to allow Russian navel ships to escort grain shipments via the Bosporus, caused the market to fall. All this on rumour alone! You can only imagine what type
SLAVUTA BACK IN FULL
MALT PRODUCTION of reaction you would have if there really were a therm, deportation (or not) to Rwanda and useless ceasefire of any sort. England losing four nil to Hungary. That said, the The northern hemisphere harvest comes algorithms employed by the big hedge funds to inexorably closer. As I said last month, I don’t implement futures strategy never sleep! If they pick believe there are any real weather issues anywhere up an overnight “tit bit” about the war on Reuters that we have not seen before. July is a key month for that may be interpreted as bullish or bearish, buying the world’s maize crop, but just now expectations or selling instructions will be automatically executed are optimistic, meaning maize is cheaper in the without reference to any human trader. It’s little world than barley and wheat. Both UK ethanol wonder we have volatility! It used to be that you plants are talking about continuing to use maize could only get the market wrong if you were at your instead of wheat. trading desk while the futures markets were open. The winter barley harvest has already begun in Not anymore. Now the algorithms can get it wrong France, the Balkans and the Ukraine. We will start for you while you’re sleeping. in the middle of July, as the much needed sunshine When the harvest starts, price will be a secondary is changing the colour of our winter barley. Sorry to issue to execution. If, as I hope, the front end of the spoil the bullish fun, but we have seen the top of this barn is overflowing, more will need to be sold and new crop market. Of course, we won’t go back to the moved. In Ukraine the USDA is forecasting a 5.5 new crop market low of last October, but even from million tonne increase in maize production. Farmers today’s levels you could see another are looking at silo bags to store the £20 evaporate from the wheat price. upcoming harvest, so they won’t be ELVED As for sanctions, so far Russia has not PHILLIPS concerned about price, just execution. stopped selling and exporting wheat; Likewise, the eager world buyers will Openfield recently it sold 300,000 tonnes to be finding ways to access their crops. Egypt. Like many others, when the chips are down War or not, surplus will find its way to the market. they will buy from the cheapest seller, especially if It’s rumoured a recent survey suggested the UK their people are hungry. could have a bigger wheat crop of 15 million tonnes, In my view, if there were a weather market in 1 million up on last year. If true, we would have an the rest of the world it’s over for now anyway. exportable surplus but it would have to be sold at The war is only just making the fourth item on the export price parity and, guess what, that would be daily news, behind 40-year high interest rates and whatever Russia decides to sell its 40 million tonne inflation, energy increasing from 50p to £2 per surplus at; there’s a thought to conjure with!
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prod and
STEPHEN CARR
Offe in so serv your
I’M GROWING SPRING BEANS FOR ONLY THE
SECOND TIME
It is part of my family’s farming folklore that my great-grandfather once joked that he was “going to make beans cheap” by planting a big acreage of them one spring in the late 1890s when the price for the crop was high. Sadly, his prediction of disaster came true and he ended up selling the crop at very low prices when he and many other farmers – similarly tempted to grow them – flooded the market with beans the following autumn. I’m growing spring beans this year for only the second time in my farming career, tempted not just by high prices but also by not needing to buy AN at £1,000 per tonne. The first attempt to grow them, nearly 30 years ago, was such an unmitigated disaster that it has taken me all this time to pluck up the courage to give it another go. That early ham-fisted effort involved using a Massey 30-disc drill to sow the beans straight into ploughed ground but, despite setting the drill to ‘maximum depth’, my local rook population soon delighted in showing me that this was not nearly deep enough. From the day the beans were sown, right through the early stages of germination, they dug up the beans with glee, leaving large parts of the field almost bare of crop. Remembering that nightmare like it was yesterday, this time I invited a contractor to sow the beans with an Arnold Schwarzenegger of drills called a ‘Claydon’. This bright yellow monster had so many tyres, spring tines and discs that I actually felt sorry for any rook that might try to dig up a bean after that beast had finished burying it. And so it proved. After an initial investigation of the freshly sown fields, and trying their luck with some distinctly half-hearted excavations, they retired to their rookery cawing their grumbles. (According to a Europe-wide survey by Birdlife International, the rook population is in such rapid decline that it is now considered ‘vulnerable’, despite being a bird species of least concern as recently as 2015. Nuisance as these birds can be to arable farmers at certain times of year, I would miss these noisy, fractious, intelligent avians terribly if they were to disappear from my farm). If the successful establishment of a spring bean crop is a first for me, so is the fact that I didn’t plough the land before sowing the crop. This first tentative step into min-till rather late in my arable farming career has shown me the attractions of not ploughing. Speed, lower carbon emissions, reduced cultivation costs and better soil moisture conservation are all obvious shortterm benefits. I can also see that improved soil structure and increased organic content must also be advantages. That said, despite the beans not being sown until late March, there has been a worrying late germination of blackgrass, which I have only been partially successful in suppressing with a herbicide. So I very much doubt whether I’ll have the courage not to plough this autumn and bury the offending seed out of sight. At the time of writing, spot bean prices are still hovering around a very encouraging £330 per tonne, so I have plenty of financial incentive to keep an eagle eye out for any potential fungal or insect pest threat to the crop. Fingers crossed then STEPHEN that there are not too many other farmers out there with similarly CARR promising looking crops about to Arable farmer make beans cheap again.
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AGRONOMY The new functionality can record all the information needed to comply with either level of the SFI soils standard requirements, including: • Soil structure/VESS (Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure) test scores • Soil management plan with suggested management actions • Soil analysis results (either from in-house tests or agronomist-led services such as healthy soils) • Erosion risk map (wind and water erosion risk) • Cropping map
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OMNIA - THE PERFECT PLATFORM FOR MANAGING THE SFI SOILS STANDARD
Hutchinsons has added new functionality to its Omnia digital farming platform to help farmers meet the requirements of both the highly anticipated arable and horticultural soils standard and grasslands standard. The scheme aims to improve soil health, structure, organic matter and biology on arable land and grassland to meet the first part of the Government’s Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), one of three schemes that will eventually replace the Basic Payment Scheme. Healthy soils expert for Hutchinsons, Rebecca Firth, explains how Omnia provides a management platform to help users maximise the SFI soil standard requirements in a functional, easy way to improve soil health and gain an SFI soils standard payment. The application window for the first two tiers of the SFI soils standard (introductory and intermediate levels) is due to open at the end of June, so the changes to Omnia, built around a central soil management plan, come at an ideal time for growers. This improved accessibility includes an updated and simplified iPhone app that allows users to upload VESS tests, worm counts, other soil assessments, pictures and notes to the Omnia platform while still in the field, with the ability to geotag information and pictures using the device’s in-built GPS. Information is immediately available on the web-based platform, where users can log on to carry out more detailed mapping and analysis of the data. The Omnia soil management plan also allows farmers to easily generate a pdf report summarising all the information required to comply with the SFI soils standard. Users can select what they want to show in the report and generate
REBECCA FIRTH
T: 07970 312298 E: Rebecca.firth@farmacy.plc.uk Canterbury: 01227 830064 www.hlhltd.co.uk
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individual reports for different blocks of land if required, all at the click of a button. The Omnia team continues to develop the system to ensure it remains up-todate as scheme requirements change, and further updates are already planned to accommodate the wider release of other SFI measures in the future, such as the advanced standard due in 2024.
GOING ABOVE AND BEYOND
While the Omnia soil management plan provides an ideal way of recording all the information needed to demonstrate compliance with the SFI scheme, Rebecca Firth urges growers not to regard it simply as a “tick-box” exercise. “Look beyond doing the bare minimum necessary to qualify for a payment and instead use the SFI soils scheme as a catalyst for much wider-ranging changes that could deliver far more significant benefits to soil health and productivity across your farm business. “The payments available within the SFI soils standard are much lower than originally proposed, so the real benefits are likely to come from longer-term improvements to soil health. “That may involve changes to cultivation practices, altering fertiliser and nutrition strategies, altering crop rotation or bringing in cover crops, manures or other sources of organic matter. “It’s about building a more regenerative approach across many different aspects of soil management. Healthier soils are better at cycling nutrients and have higher nutrient use efficiency, improved drainage and workability and greater resilience to weather extremes. This all helps growers use inputs more efficiently, potentially reducing costs while maximising yields. “The SFI is about getting farmers onto the soil health ‘ladder’, but really it is just the starting point from which to build from. Growers can use the Omnia soil management plan themselves or as part of a healthy soils service."
ORGANISED CHAOS ANITA HEAD
ANITA HEAD Farmer
This month I had the pleasure of meeting Alla Stratan and her niece Diana Machytidze, two women who have come over to this country from war-torn Ukraine. They arrived in the middle of the night after leaving Odessa, travelling across Europe on six trains and finally arriving in Barham four days later. Unfortunately, they found out that you can’t be a refugee in Brussels after 5pm on a Sunday evening, finding themselves stranded as the replacement bus service delayed their onward journey and the Belgian refugee service does not operate after 5pm on a Sunday (this sounds the same as the UK). It was a traumatic journey for them both, and yet on their arrival they were full of grit and determination to find employment and pay their own way. They met the wonderful host family they had contacted via Facebook before leaving Odessa and who helped them apply for visas. Katrina and Roland Brown and their daughters welcomed them
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HORRIFYING AND
HEART WRENCHING with open arms and have made them feel so at home. Katrina and Roland helped them to safety, though the promised money from the Government has not yet materialised. They then took them to visit a fruit farm in Bridge, near Canterbury, on Wednesday morning and by Friday they had had an induction day including health and safety policies; they started work on Monday. I can only admire Alla and Diana and the determination they show. Google Translate has played a large part in writing this article as my Russian is non-existent. On day one they heard that the ‘top pickers’ could earn up to £330 per day, so they were determined to be part of the ‘top pickers’ group’, which they soon joined. The aim is to send some money back home to Alla’s son Artur in Eastern Ukraine, where the rouble is now in full circulation. Artur is attempting to start his own business in challenging times. He must now abide by Russian
law. The Luhansk region has been captured by the Russians and is claiming to be an independent territory, but it is still not official and none of the Western countries are recognising this. At present Alla and Diana have employment picking strawberries and then apples, followed, they hope, by working in town during the run up to Christmas and the January sales. Diana has completed a degree in international business management in Odessa and hopes to use this in the future. The continuous worry over those they have left behind is unbelievable. Diana’s parents are located in the Mykoliev region in the city of Yuzhnoukrainsk. Nearby is a nuclear power plant (larger than Chernobyl) where sirens sound every hour as the area of Mykoliev has been regained by Ukraine but is continually bombarded from the sea. Living near the power station commands a sense of security as it would appear that the Russians are reluctant to bomb it. It was one of the most exhilarating hours of my life. Listening to their life stories and how they have escaped is horrifying and heart wrenching. I can almost taste the rancid taste of continuous bombing thanks to their description of the situation. We sometimes complain bitterly about everyday life, but listening to these people makes me realise how fortunate we really are. Living in large open spaces is a blessing in disguise. Meanwhile, here in the UK the costs are spiralling and the price of diesel is rising on a daily basis. Where will it end? The weather has so far been generous to us while we have been silage making. Fingers crossed that it continues into harvest. The crops are looking well at the moment, although I believe that the straw could be fairly short this year. By the time you read this the combine harvester will be serviced and ready to go and so will the boys! Let us hope the price of wheat stays firm. I must say a huge congratulations to Fergus on completing his degree with flying colours; it has been a rollercoaster three years and the end seemed to be forever in coming. For all those who are graduating after such unprecedented world conditions: the future is bright and the world is your oyster. Monty has completed all his GCSE exams and now we face the nail-biting wait for the results. Fingers crossed he’ll achieve all that he deserves and move straight onto his A Levels.
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BOVINE TB
BADGER VACCINATION
UNDERWAY With the badger vaccination season opening on 1 May, the VESBA (Vaccinating East Sussex Badgers) project is in full swing, with over 160 badgers having been vaccinated against bovine TB already. Having spent the early part of the year surveying farms to look for signs of badger activity, vaccination operations such as pre-baiting began in April, with the first humane cage traps being set ‘live’ in early May. “We have been extremely pleased with the success rate so far this year,” explained Nick Pile, the Project Director from Cliffe Farm Vets. “This is a
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testament to the hard work and dedication of our team on the ground, who are doing a fantastic job. “In May, a further four members of the local farming community successfully completed the training course, enabling them to be licensed to vaccinate badgers,” Nick continued. “This means we now have seven lay vaccinators within the team. A number of others are also trained to set the cage traps, so we are confident we will be able to maintain this momentum for the duration of the vaccination season, which ends on 30 November each year. “We have already faced a number of challenges – traps can’t be set if extreme weather conditions are forecast, and so far we have had significant rainfall in May and a very hot spell of weather in June. Thunderstorms can also affect badger behaviour – just one more thing the team have had to contend with.” May has been a busy month for the project’s management team, too, with DEFRA introducing a new class licence for badger vaccination. This move was welcomed by Dr Lindsay Heasman from Hurst Animal Health, who oversees the VESBA project: “Last year, we had to apply to Natural England for an individual licence for the project, which involved submitting lots of information and maps, but the new class licence is much simpler. “All the people undertaking vaccination operations still need to have passed an approved training course, but the administrative burden has been reduced massively. In addition, we are now able to use a mobile app to record all our badger vaccination activity, which has significantly reduced the amount of paperwork that needs to be completed.” Bovine TB continues to have a significant impact on cattle keepers, not only in East Sussex but across the whole of the South East. “Unfortunately, we are seeing new cases pop up, even though the area is predominantly classed as a low risk area,” Lindsay continued. “The new class licence will make it easier for farmers or landowners to look at badger vaccination as a viable option when considering how best to reduce the risk and impact of a TB breakdown on their own farm. Having worked with many farmers who were either under TB restriction or going through the anxiety of a TB test, I understand the stress that is involved. “Sometimes, knowing there is a plan in place if the worst were to happen, or being able to discuss options when a herd is under restriction, can help alleviate some of this stress. The TB Advisory Service is now able to offer a free, on-farm advice visit conducted by your own vet for all cattle keepers – even in the low risk area, so it is definitely worth speaking to your practice. The advice visits are also available to anyone keeping susceptible livestock – even
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sheep, pigs and alpacas. Even if you have had a visit previously, you should still be eligible.” It isn’t too late to get involved in the VESBA project. If you are a farmer or landowner in or adjacent to the target area (see map left) and are interested in finding out more, please email Laura.Anderson@cliffevets.co.uk. If you are a livestock keeper and would like to receive a free farm visit to discuss your TB situation, please contact your local vet or the TB Advisory Service: www.tbas.org.uk
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Competitive rates and excellent service Please contact Nick on 01273 473232 farmenquiries@cliffevets.co.uk www.cliffefarm.co.uk W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T | J U LY 2 0 2 2
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AT COLCHESTER MARKET
OLD SEASON LAMBS
REMAIN SOUGHT AFTER
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Another month of tremendous cattle prices in the finished cattle ring, with numbers tight and more required to satisfy demand. There is still concern about the cost of feed and the effect of that on the ultimate returns to beef finishers. Local wholesalers and butchers are competing well every week for quality stock. Best cattle continue to trade between 250p/kg and 280p/kg liveweight and, as stated, more could be sold to advantage. The cull cow trade continued on its buoyant way at prices never seen before at this time of year, a seemingly unsatisfiable demand. With numbers tightening as the month went on, as would be expected at this time of year, trade got dearer. Store cattle are still very dear but required for the breeders. Let us hope the trade continues throughout the next period and, looking at the numbers on the ground, there is no reason why it shouldn’t. Sheep trade for the new spring lambs started at good levels compared with last year. Generally, quality early on was difficult to obtain, thanks to a cold spring, but as this report was being written quality was improving and there is a noticeable increase in trade for the new season lambs as the old season lamb numbers reduced substantially. The season has started well, let’s hope it continues that way. Old season lambs remain sought after. As always at this time of year, many sheep are showing split teeth, but these remain at a high level of value due to the general lack of mutton available. The cull ewe trade is at the highest levels ever seen; again it seems to be a demand that is unsatisfiable and many flock keepers are selling questionable
westpoint farm vets
100% Farm Vets Supporting British Livestock Agriculture Since 2000
GRAHAM ELLIS FRICS FAAV FLAA
For and on behalf of Stanfords T: 01206 842156 E: info@stanfords-colchester.co.uk www.stanfords-colchester.co.uk ewes which will hopefully be replaced in the autumn. The downside of the livestock industry is still the pig and poultry industries. Unbelievably, pig price rises stalled during the period, with desperate stories coming out of Europe with pig prices again falling. It is fair to say that all pigs being sold at the present time are being sold at a loss and it is not sustainable. With the exceptionally high price of feed inputs, including wheat, barley and soya, there is little joy on the horizon. We also have to report that the cull sow trade reduced, again due to European influences, which is a serious concern as people try to reduce their breeding herd. We do need some bright lights very soon, otherwise there will not be a pig industry in this country. Arable crops continue to look well, with gratefully received rain at the beginning of the period and the cool weather enabling crops to mature slowly, so hopefully harvest will be good. It is also good to see the agricultural shows back in full production with the local shows in Essex and Suffolk. The Young Farmers, South Suffolk and Hadleigh Farmers’ Club shows were all tremendously well supported. The Tendring Show will be held on Saturday 9 July, with classes for cattle and sheep, and it is hoped many people will be welcomed to the local showground at Lawford near Manningtree, Essex.
REINHOLD CLAAS
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J U LY 2 0 2 2 | W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T
AT ASHFORD MARKET
BUSIEST MONTHS OF THE YEAR Since I last contributed to these pages, we have had a busy three months at Ashford Market, with March, April and May being the busiest months of the year so far in both the sheep and the cattle pens. This spring has been a period of many records, with prices at times soaring to levels that we have never seen before. We have seen cull ewes well in excess of £200/head, new season lambs over £170/head, finished cattle in excess of £2,000/head and stores over £1,500/head on many occasions. In recent years we have seen considerably more people leaving livestock farming than entering it, due to dwindling profits and aging farming populations, and quite frankly there are easier ways for the next generation to earn a weekly wage. This exodus from livestock farming and ultimately meat production has coincided with a period of change in eating habits during recent lockdowns. These new trends have stayed on with many consumers, who have re-evaluated their cooking habits at home and are now eating more meat, but there isn’t enough to go around at many times of the year, which has driven prices skywards. This is a relief for many of our customers who finish stock on purchased concentrate feeds, as prices for these inputs have risen by roughly 30% to 40% at the time of writing, with many of these enterprises reconsidering their systems to reflect these cost increases. These increases undoubtedly do hurt, but we must all realise that those who produce these feeds are also facing bigger production costs as their input prices are going up, too. Will it come back down in time? Who knows, but predicting trends is something I have found incredibly difficult in recent times and I certainly won’t be making any predictions in writing here.
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JOHN ROSSITER
Reporting on the market at Ashford T: 01233 502222 www.hobbsparker.co.uk Our advice in the current farming landscape is a constant, and it is to stick to the systems you know and can do best with the resources that you have available to you. Changing these by lambing later, or by not feeding lambs, for example, will ultimately create over supply at times of the year and under supply at others. This creates volatile trading conditions, with few producers benefitting from the peaks and many impacted by the dips.
HEADCORN MACHINERY SALE REPORT
Saturday 21 May saw the first Headcorn Machinery Sale we have been able to hold in three years. It attracted a tremendous turn out and more than 500 buyers registered for the sale on the day, with almost 300 different buyers making a purchase. The ones who didn’t manage to purchase still thoroughly enjoyed watching the overflying Spitfires all day!
DATE FOR THE DIARY – FARM DISPERSAL SALE
Hobbs Parker will be holding a farm dispersal sale at Cockerhurst Farm, Near Shoreham, Sevenoaks on 16 July. The sale will include seven tractors and telehandlers, general machinery, trailers, a selection of butchery equipment and the usual sundries. Catalogues will be available soon via the website.
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ALAN WEST SHEEP TOPICS ALAN WEST Sheep farmer
I am quite sure that not all sheep keepers will agree, but to me it’s good to see agricultural shows firmly back on the farming calendar. Show societies have struggled during Covid19. The impact of lockdown has removed many of their sources of income, leaving some in a precarious position; the support of both showgoers and the wider industry will be key to their survival for some. It will be a huge shame to see any lost. Sadly many farmers judge shows simply as a day out for “townies”, (often a derogatory term), but it is essential to remember that agricultural shows have
AGRICULTURAL
SHOWS AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC
always been about the sharing of knowledge and, most importantly, communication. Our shows have a long and glorious history, for some stretching back more than two centuries, returning to a time in the late 18th century when
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the likes of Bakewell, Townsend, Tull, Ernle and many others were driving British agriculture forward. Innovative landowners and farmers, spurred on by the advancement of the enclosures of common lands, questioned traditional practices and set about trialing and developing new crops, techniques and systems of husbandry to increase domestic food production. It was also a period when many landowners and farmers held a contrary view, steadfastly trapped in a medieval mindset, engaged in long-established practices and, typical of farmers, regarding new ideas and techniques with a great deal of suspicion. In an attempt to remove a major obstacle to improvement and progress within the industry, some enterprising landowners established “farmers’ meets”, precursors of our shows, hoping that by demonstrating new techniques and providing opportunities for discussion and the sharing of ideas and knowledge, they could help break down some of the prejudice. One such enterprising landowner was Coke of Holkham (of Norfolk four course rotation fame), who became an object of some ridicule for adopting new ideas on his estate; to remedy this situation and increase understanding he began, in 1778, hosting a few local farmers at his home. The events were at shearing time and were referred to as Holkham’s Sheep-shearings (one of Coke's innovations was the introduction to the estate of Southdown sheep). They proved so popular that the then annual event was by 1818 a week long and attracted many hundreds of visitors, including many famous people not just from all over the UK but from overseas as well. Further sheep-shearings soon ensued as other land owners took up the idea, the Duke of Bedford and Lord Egremont introducing their own at Woburn and Petworth, but all the events were true to the original ideals, gatherings for disseminating knowledge, ideas and new practices and equipment; it was the seeds sown by these Sheep-shearings that led in 1839 to the advent of the Royal Show. It was not, however, simply about the great and the good. The Royal Show was probably
VET DIARY
THE DECLINE IN ANTIBIOTIC
USE IN DAIRY COWS Year on year we are seeing a significant decline in dry cow antibiotic sales at the practice. This is a good news story for all parties concerned, even the veterinary businesses which sell the products. We get genuine satisfaction from seeing a reduction of disease incidence on farms, especially if it is in response to veterinary advice being listened to and acted on. The practice of blanket antibiotic treatment of all cows at drying off has been dropped and the selective treatment with antibiotics of only dry cows with a history of mastitis (if they have not been culled) or a high cell count history has been widely adopted in the South East. However there have been concerns about following this advice. Questions raised include: • Would cows with a very low cell count be vulnerable to infection during the dry period without antibiotic cover? • Is it possible on farm to insert a teat sealant without introducing some contaminant bacteria? • Will my bulk cell count increase (and milk price decrease) if I use fewer dry cow antibiotics? These are genuine concerns, and some have had an off-putting bad case of
BILL PEPPER
MRCVS BVSc CertCHP, Cliffe Veterinary Group T: 01273 473232 E: bill.pepper@cliffevets.co.uk www.cliffefarm.co.uk
the most famous but was not the first, an accolade which goes to the rather more humble Salford Agricultural Society, which held its first Lancashire Show in 1768; a show which, rather than simply being a gathering of farmers, was the first to have the secondary aim of demonstrating farming to the general public – which brings us back to modern agricultural shows. Modern shows may no longer simply be venues for farmers to meet and do business, but they do provide an environment in which “townies” can learn a little about farming and farmers; we must remember that those townies are not just show visitors. A vital source of revenue for show societies, they are also our customers and a show presents us with an opportunity to interact and communicate directly with our customers, a valuable chance to broaden, in some small way, their understanding of our sheep industry. After more than 30 years showing sheep, I am keenly aware of two things. Firstly the public
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mastitis when using teat sealants alone, without antibiotics, on their farm. I’ve seen the outcome myself. However, when this is investigated an explanation can normally be found which often revolves around hygiene.
A FEW DOS AND DON’TS TO FOLLOW WHEN DRYING OFF DAIRY COWS WITHOUT ANTIBIOTICS
• Do the job properly. A proper clean and not rushed technique with attention to detail, in a clean environment, is essential. • Don’t be too rigid on cell count thresholds/cut off points. There are always exceptions to the rule. • Do attempt to reduce the yield of a high-yielding cow before drying off by nutrition • Don’t overstock the dry cow paddock or dry cow yard • Do continue to maintain good hygiene in the dry cow environment. The sealants are not 100% effective and can be overwhelmed by heavy loads of infection on the teat skin. • Do monitor the levels of new infections picked up from the environment in the dry period as a measure of the effectiveness of your current protocols and fine tune accordingly. This can be done by analysing milk records. In the past vets helped farmers select which antibiotic tube to use at drying off (there is now a very limited choice anyway). Now we help farmers select which cows to treat with antibiotics so that it’s not unusual for our clients to be drying off 75% or more of their cows without any antibiotic at all and without compromising mastitis levels on farm. This is one encouraging small step to preserving the effectiveness of antibiotics in cattle at least, and maybe for human use as well...
is remarkably ignorant of just what is involved with sheep production and, secondly, many of them have a strong desire to understand more; and we can help. Their knowledge of what is a sheep is frequently poor; to many, if it’s not white and fluff y, particularly if it’s horned, it must be a goat. They have no concept of the range of breeds that we keep or why, and no appreciation of how technical and at times challenging sheep production is. Their understanding of a shepherd is even less developed; by shepherd I mean all involved with day-to-day sheep management. I don’t like the term shepherdess; the implication is that they are something different, not quite a shepherd. I’m not being PC, that is simply not me, but, be they male, female or other, they all deserve the accolade of shepherd, an honourable and historic profession that pre-dates farmers. I suspect that many members of the public also have a distorted mental image of a shepherd as a somewhat simple character, quite possibly
wearing a floppy hat, even a smock, with a disproportionately long crook clasped in one hand and a lamb tucked under the other arm, maybe sucking on a straw. Mental images of shepherdesses are probably even worse; most will be based on rather vague, romanticised memories of nursery rhyme characters. People simply have no understanding of what we all do on a daily basis; just think of your own skills set - veterinarian, mechanic, obstetrician, nutritionist, plumber, shearer, manager, environmentalist, the list goes on and on. We should be proud of what we all do. Aren’t you and your sheep worthy of sharing some of that knowledge with the general public? We have an audience that actively seeks knowledge and understanding. The most often heard phrase is: “This may sound like a silly question“; but there is no such thing as a silly question. Knowledge and communication is key to understanding, and as an industry we could certainly do with a little more understanding and support.
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NICK ADAMES WEST SUSSEX DIARY
VANDALS ARE BIGGEST PROBLEM
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The maize is finally well away after a difficult start. Being nurtured on nitrogen at around £650 a ton, we don’t want failures! All we really need now is a mix of warm sun and regular periods of night rain. What was it called, a typical English summer? Generally speaking, there isn’t too much to go wrong on the farm since sadly there are no livestock to occupy us. Not that they gave us a lot of headaches through the summer months, but there were inevitably day-to-day problems. Most would be solved by ourselves, and as long as the grass was ready for its first cut about 10 May and grew on well for another good cut in late June/early July, then producing enough grazing until early October, when the clamp was topped up with maize ready to feed them through the next six months, all was well. There were occasionally years when the plan didn’t quite work, but all in all we were pretty lucky. The biggest problem we have had for the past three years has actually been nothing to do with farming but instead with vandals. For some reason they have increasingly taken to smashing up our old dairy complex on the home farm. I think the biggest attraction has been the lack of cattle, so they seem to think the farm buildings have been abandoned and left for their ‘pleasure and creativity’. More accurately, braindead destruction. With significantly more damage this spring, and despite installing CCTV, I eventually came to the conclusion there was little point in claiming more insurance money and repairing something over and over which attracted these louts, when we could remove the largely redundant building and take the fun away from them. It also removed the possibility of one of the poor little dears crashing through its old asbestos roof
onto the concrete floor, some 12 to 14 feet below. They had already ‘softened up’ the roof sheets for such an event by smashing anything hard they could find through the roof while they played on it. To warn them of the risks, the police provided us with numerous warning notices alerting them to the dangers, but they seemed to delight in tearing them down. One wondered why, but I presume they hadn’t learned to read. After all they were only somewhere between 12 and 14 years old. However, none died and the old barn, having served my cattle well for almost 50 years, has now gone, along with its rather too accessible roof. The milking parlour, too, with its long-redundant four-by-four herringbone, suffered the same fate, totally destroyed by the same fools, although it seems to be losing its attraction recently as there is now little left to destroy. I think the CCTV system has spread the word, and with some of the offenders brought to book the ‘risk reward ratio’ has rather balanced the situation in our favour. But it is a pretty sad reflection on the lack of reason and responsibility of some families (or should I say parents?), each breeding probably two or three, second generation, feral offspring who, with even less still to offer, will probably never be able to contribute anything to society. Of course, as they grow into adults they will fill the courts and prisons for years to come. It makes me despair, particularly when you are lucky enough to have lived, as many of us have, in lovely peaceful rural surroundings and worked in a great industry and seen what many recognise, in the second half of the 20th century, to have been the best, most peaceful period in our history. Mind you, the atrocities we have been seeing recently in Ukraine have rather changed that. As one grows older, perspectives
change, ambitions alter and one’s future and opportunities are more limited. Along with many farmers I anguish over how we will be able to leave our businesses fit for the next hundred years. It’s a big problem. Whether one has children or not, I see one of the biggest issues as how to help preserve our old rural settlements without them being swamped by the brick boxes that pop up on a daily basis on our ever-shrinking greenbelt neighbourhoods. I know there are many views; some perhaps don’t care as much as others, but having lived and farmed, as a family, within five miles of the home farm since the mid 1600s, it actually matters to me what happens to our little hamlet. So I am working on a scheme that could protect it from further development for many years to come. Early days, and lots to work out, but those of you who have been as lucky as my family will probably understand what motivates me. In the meantime we still have a great group of friends who expect to find the bowling green playing true and fast every Tuesday, I have lawns to mow, ditches and ponds to dig and keep tidy and some acres still to oversee. The let land is not too much of a problem these days, and of course the sitka, Norway spruce, Scots pine and native hardwoods in Scotland continue to grow ‘off their own bat’ with very little input, as long as the winds don’t flatten them, which luckily we seem to have avoided so far. It is such a pleasure to be able to drive or walk round those hills and marvel at the growth. Most ‘leaders’ this past year have put on almost two and a half feet, or whatever that is in today’s money.
NICK ADAMES Former dairy farmer > The old herd on its way to seek shade in the ash-lined meadows in happier times
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ADVICE FROM THE VET
PREPARING FOR TUPPING It may seem like you have only finished lambing, but it is important to plan ahead so that your tups are in fine working order to get your ewes in lamb, writes Dr Megan Harman BSc BVetMed MRCVS, Veterinary Surgeon. Beginning preparations six to 10 weeks before tupping gives you enough time before mating for any conditions to be treated or replacements to be sourced. You might ask why so long? A tup working today is using sperm produced roughly six weeks ago. If he had been unwell at that time, it would likely have had negative effects on the quality of sperm produced, and negative effects on fertility means fewer ewes in lamb. Some examples that are known to affect ram fertility are stress, infections, lameness, high temperatures, poor nutrition poor and body condition. Ideally a pre-breeding examination should be carried out 10 weeks before mating, paying particular attention to the five Ts: 1. Teeth – they need these to maintain feed intake during a busy tupping time 2. Toes – important to have no lameness as they will need to walk around fields to find ewes to mate (a lame ram is a useless ram) 3. Testicles – these need to be a good size, even, smooth and free of lumps and bumps (see Figure 2- measuring testicle circumference) 4. Tone – body condition score (BCS)- he will likely lose weight in the next six weeks 5. Treat – reminder to give vaccine boosters, worming treatment, trace element boluses, footbath etc By extrapolating from bulls, if you carry out these basic checks you should detect around 50% of sub-fertile animals. The other 50% will have no detectable physical abnormality and their sub-fertility will only be detectable on semen evaluation. Semen evaluation must be carried out by a vet and a sample is obtained using electro-ejaculation. This is a simple, safe and relatively stress-free procedure. Once a sample is obtained, a detailed examination is carried out under a microscope, looking at things such as the sperms’ ability to move, the numbers > Measuring the scrotal circumference of a ram
TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883
> Information on assessing your rams provided by ahdb
BETTERRETURNS
Ram MOT Assess your rams
Don’t wait until scanning to find out if the ram has worked! Ensure you do a ram MOT 10 weeks before tupping, this should give you time to correct any problems.
Toes
Remember...
Teeth
Poor fertility is a consequence of testicular degeneration – soft testicles and poor-quality semen.
Check locomotion, legs and feet Check for under or overshot jaw, gaps and molar abscesses
Testicles Measure and check firmness (like a flexed bicep) with no lumps or bumps
Tone Aim for body condition between 3.5–4.0 (spine well covered)
Treat Check vaccinations are up-to-date (clostridia, pasteurella), parasites, lameness, shearing?
Consult your vet for a thorough examination
Testicular degeneration often occurs during hot weather in summer. The scrotum is rich in sweat glands that cool the testicles when exposed to the breeze. However, when sheep are hot, they lie down to transfer heat away from their bodies through their abdomen, but while lying on their testicles they can ‘cook’ them. Ensure rams are shorn, not overfat and have plenty of shade and water to help avoid this.
Rams need to be fed a high-protein diet 10 weeks before tupping. If body condition is low, or testicle tone or size is poor, 500g (1lb) of 18% CP feed per day can improve semen quality and quantity. Check magnesium and calcium levels to avoid urinary calculi.
Purchase rams well in advance of the breeding season. This allows them to acclimatise to your system, making sure they are fit and ready to work. It will take three weeks for their rumen to adjust to a new diet. © Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board 2018. All rights reserved.
of live and dead sperm and any defects that would render them unable to produce viable lambs. If you are buying in new rams, a thorough MOT should be completed before purchase (see above). Allowing enough time for the rams to acclimatise to their new environment, there should be a quarantine period of at least three weeks; consider screening for iceberg diseases such as Border disease, CLA, Johnes and MV. Speak to your local vet for testing information and don’t forget to include rams in your clostridial vaccination programme! Don’t forget the ewes. They also need an MOT prior to tupping. Ideally, they will need six to eight weeks from weaning to tupping to put condition back on and recover from infections such as mastitis or lameness before they are fit for the next breeding season. Check the udder for hard lumps, abscesses or damaged teats and administer any vaccinations against abortions as these should be given at least four weeks prior to tupping. Closer to tupping you will need to be moving the rams into paddocks closer to the ewes so that they can start seeing and smelling one another. The ‘ram effect’ is a very powerful way to encourage the ewes to start cycling regularly as they come into season. This is when some farmers use teaser rams; these are vasectomised rams that maintain all male characteristics but are unable to get ewes in lamb. Using teaser rams helps to tighten the lambing period and encourage ewes to come into season one to two weeks earlier than normal. It can also help stimulate maiden ewes to start cycling prior to tupping. Ideally you would be selecting shearlings that are fit and healthy with good feet, a high libido and health status to match the flock. A teaser ram will need to be
prepared at least six weeks before tupping to ensure he is not fertile before being introduced to the ewes! The procedure is performed under sedation; please ask your vet for more information. Teasers are sometimes used alongside progesterone sponges through ewe synchronisation. This can promote a much tighter lambing period by serving the ewes at the very start of their season. Sheep are seasonal breeders and so oestrus begins when daylight hours start to decrease in the autumn. Oestrus can be induced ‘out of season’ by using progestogen impregnated sponges. Sponges are inserted and then removed 12 to 16 days later, along with an injection of PMSG. When the sponges are removed, the sheep come into oestrus at the same time within a few days of sponge removal, leading to a compact lambing that can ease flock management. Both the progestogen sponges and PMSG are prescription-only medicines so make sure you speak to your vet in advance to order them.
If you would like to discuss anything covered in this article contact your local Westpoint practice
ANDY RICHMOND
Westpoint Horsham T: 01306 628086
JACK BALKHAM
Westpoint Ashford T: 01306 628208
EMILY PHIPPS
Westpoint Sevenoaks T: 01959 564383 E: info@westpointfarmvets.co.uk www.westpointfarmvets.co.uk
W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T | J U LY 2 0 2 2
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Legal services for farmers & rural businesses Call us today or visit our website:
01227 763939 furleypage.co.uk
WHAT DOES THE ENVIRONMENTAL
LAND MANAGEMENT SCHEME
MEAN FOR LANDOWNERS? Ben Sharples, partner in the agricultural team at UK law firm Michelmores explains. By 2028 the farm subsidy known as the Basic Payment Scheme will be phased out. The new Environmental Land Management scheme (ELMS) set out under the Agriculture Act 2020 will reward farmers and land managers for producing public goods. The closing of existing agri-environment schemes marks the introduction of a new approach to farming regulation and enforcement. So, what opportunities does this present for landowners?
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Supporting the rural community for over 230 years
Biodiversity net gain (BNG) sits within the Environment Act 2021 and requires that all development schemes in England must deliver a mandatory minimum 10% biodiversity net gain, which must be maintained for a period of at least 30 years. ELMS, BNG and private off-set schemes need to be able to operate together. This will allow land managers to stack environmental benefits, for example gaining government funding for the public goods delivered on their land through ELMS and supplementing this with private investment for outcomes such as carbon sequestration on the same land. It is unclear how private sector contracts between developers and landowners will sit with ELMS and whether or not landowners will be able to benefit from both, and we await clear guidance from the Government on how this will work. There could be a long-term opportunity for landowners and farmers to add a new revenue stream for any farm business or landed estate and take advantage of developers offsetting their BNG requirements. This could, in certain circumstances, see some landowners receiving a higher income from BNG agreements than from traditional farming. With land needing to be set aside for BNG for a minimum of 30 years, the effect on capital value is unclear. Any negative effects will need to be compensated by the offset contracts between landowners and developers. There also needs to be equivalent tax relief for land used for conservation and environmental purposes and tax planning for future generations should be a consideration for landowners. ELMS will be vital in delivering the UK’s biodiversity objectives, but to ensure the necessary high uptake among land managers it will need to be made clear how farmers can benefit from private off-set schemes and ensure land managers are paid enough to incentivise the necessary land management.
If your business needs help with: • Contracts and transactions • Diversification • Property purchase and lease negotiation • Equine law • Employment If you would like help with: • Family law and divorce • Residential conveyancing • Tax planning and trusts • Wills and estate administration
Contact us today Canterbury 01227 643250 Maidstone 01622 698000 Tenterden 01580 765722 enquiries@whitehead-monckton.co.uk www.whitehead-monckton.co.uk
J U LY 2 0 2 2 | W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T
Much of the UK’s biodiversity is on privately managed land, including the large majority of land that is used for farming and agriculture. This means that the Government and conservation organisations alone will not be able to achieve environmental objectives for biodiversity, such as the protection of 30% of UK land by 2030. They will need to work with land managers to meet the sector’s goals for biodiversity and ELMS will be a vital policy mechanism for achieving this. Through the scheme, farmers and other land managers may enter into agreements to be paid for delivering public goods, such as clean and plentiful water, thriving plants and wildlife, beauty, heritage and engagement with the environment.
BIODIVERSITY NET GAIN
We have a real commitment to the rural sector, providing responsive and accessible legal advice to farmers, producers and their suppliers.
Whitehead Monckton Limited (no. 08366029), registered in England & Wales. Registered office 5 Eclipse Park, Sittingbourne Road, Maidstone, Kent, ME14 3EN Authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under no. 608279.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL LAND MANAGEMENT SCHEME
SEF1220
LEGAL
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO CONSIDER?
LOCAL COUNCIL POWERS TO
DEAL WITH ‘UNTIDY SITES’ Local planning authorities have a range of powers to deal with breaches of planning control. Within their arsenal is the ability to serve what is known as a ‘maintenance notice’ requiring landowners and occupiers to clean up untidy sites. In these circumstances the local council, usually the area’s district or borough council, can serve a notice under Section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 if they are satisfied that the amenity of a part of their area, or of an adjoining area, is adversely affected by the condition of land. The notice can require the owner and/or the occupier of the land to take steps to remedy the condition of the land. If you are served with a section 215 notice, there is a right of appeal to the Magistrates’ Court, but it is crucial to note that this must be exercised before the date upon which the notice takes effect, which is specified in the notice. This should not be less than 28 days after the service of the notice. An appeal can be brought on a number of grounds. Firstly, that the condition of the land to which the notice relates does not adversely affect amenity. There is no clear definition of what constitutes an adverse effect on amenity. It is a matter of fact and degree to be determined by the council, or the magistrates on appeal, so it is not possible to definitively list the circumstances in which this power
can be used. Some of the more common situations are where prominent buildings have deteriorated to the point where they become an eyesore, and rural sites which have become a threat to amenity through dilapidated structures or the accumulation of waste. Section 215 notices cannot be used to deal with matters of pure aesthetics or taste. The classic example is where houses are painted with a colour scheme which is not to everyone’s taste. The second potential ground for appealing is that the condition of the land is attributable to, and such as results in the ordinary course of events from, the carrying on of operations or a use of land which is not in contravention of planning control. This can be particularly useful for farmers and other rural land owners as, in broad terms, it means that a site is not considered to be in breach if its condition arises from normal agricultural activities. But this is not a free pass and there may come a
LEE MAY
Partner, Brachers LLP T: 01227 949547 E: LeeMay@brachers.co.uk www.brachers.co.uk
point where the condition of the land is not as a result of the ‘ordinary course of events’. The threshold can be hard to define and will be assessed on a case-bycase basis. Other grounds of appeal are that the requirements of the notice exceed what is necessary for preventing the condition of the land from adversely affecting the amenity of the area or any adjoining area and that the period specified in the notice as the period within which any steps required by the notice are to be taken falls short of what should reasonably be allowed. The key message is that if you are served with a section 215 notice you should get advice early and check the deadline for appealing. Once that date has passed your options are very limited and you may have lost the ability to challenge the notice completely. The notice and envelope should be marked with the words: Important - this communication affects your property. It is important to note that failure to carry out the steps required within the time period specified in the notice is a criminal offence and can lead to a fine of up to £1,000. The council also has the right to carry out the works themselves where there has been default and recover the costs from the owner.
Legal services that deliver long-term solutions to support the future of farming Maidstone 01622 690691 Canterbury 01227 949510
TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883
www.brachers.co.uk hello@brachers.co.uk
W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T | J U LY 2 0 2 2
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Modern Estate Management
Ensure a successful future where traditional values work alongside a 21st century management approach. Contact our experts for advice.
LAND AND FARMS SPONSORED BY BATCHELLER MONKHOUSE
BENENDEN LIVESTOCK FARM BENENDEN | KENT
GUIDE PRICE: £1.5 MILLION
BTF Partnership has launched Forest Farm for sale near Benenden in Kent. The farm has approximately 81.94 acres of pasture land with a farmhouse and annex, cattery for 40 animals and over 30,000 sq ft of livestock buildings. The farm has a guide price of £1.5 million. Forest Farm is located in the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on a quiet country lane and was previously part of a larger dairy and livestock unit. The farmhouse, which is subject to an agricultural occupancy condition (AOC), is a brick finished Scanda-Hus design in an elevated position overlooking the farm. There are three bedrooms on the ground floor and on the first floor there is a two-bedroom annex which is also subject to an AOC or can be used for holiday let accommodation. The farm buildings and yard consist of:
APPROXIMATELY 81.94 ACRES
• A cattery with 32 purpose-built, timberframed cat pens laid out in a U-shape around a central courtyard with other adjoining buildings including an office and store • The former dairy and bottle store • A cubicle house which measures 15m x 50m approximately, with 120 cubicles • A covered cattle yard and former parlour measuring 20m x35m • A straw barn measuring 14m x 20m and open on three sides • A lean-to yard barn with a further cattle yard • Atcost barn – a four-bay building enclosed on three sides • Silage clamp consisting of a two-sided concrete clamp capable of storing up to 1,500
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tonnes of grass or maize silage • A Dutch Barn located to the south of the farmhouse and accessed over a short track. The Grade III land extends to just over 80 acres with around half in permanent pasture and the rest in a second-year ley. There are currently no agri-environment schemes in place but Basic Payment entitlements are included in the sale. Richard Thomas, Director at BTF Partnership commented: “This is a super opportunity for someone looking for a livestock unit with diversified income available from the cattery. The farm is in a popular rural position in the High Weald AONB and could also benefit from the introduction of natural capital schemes to generate long-term income for the future.”
Further details can be found at www.btfpartnership.co.uk
P O T
TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883
K C I P
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Benenden, Cranbrook, Kent An opportunity to purchase a Wealden stock farm extending to approximately 81.94 acres including a farmhouse with first floor annex, cattery, over 30,000ft² of livestock buildings and pasture land.
Staplehurst, Kent A 3/4-bed detached family home subject to AOC Situated outside of the AONB. Includes agricultural building (630m²) & pasture land In all approx. 27 acres Guide Price: £1,100,000
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Permanent pasture extending to 36.44 acres Woodland shaws of about 3.42 acres In all approximately 81.94 acres Guide Price: £1,500,000
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A detached 3-bedroom farmhouse and self-contained annex, both subject to AOCs Significant range of livestock buildings Established cattery with office & store 38.77 acres of arable land, now in second year ley
Edenbridge, Kent A rural farmyard site with buildings Recommended for 6 converted residential units Site area approx. 2.13 acres Guide Price: On Application
www.btfpartnership.co.uk E heathfield@btfpartnership.co.uk E challock@btfpartnership.co.uk
T 01435 864455 T 01233 740077
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Hurst Green, East Sussex A ring-fenced parcel of arable land in Countryside Stewardship but capable of reverting to other cropping Situated in the High Weald AONB In all approx. 83.63 acres Guide Price: OIEO £750,000
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Development site with permission for 5 self-build dwellings Planning Ref: MC/21/2065 - Medway Council For sale as individual self-build plots Guide Prices: On Application
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High Halstow, Kent
Hodsoll Street, Sevenoaks, Kent An opportunity to purchase a hidden gem in the middle of the countryside with a significant income stream from residential and commercial lettings along with livery tenants.
Hurst Green, East Sussex A modern detached 5-bed farmhouse in walled
garden location A ring-fenced parcel of arable land in Countryside Stewardship High Specification Gym & Games Room Situated the High Weald AONB Buildings Range ofinAgricultural & Commercial In approx. 83.63 acres Store, Wash, Tack & Staff 40all Loose Boxes including Rooms Guide Price: OIEO £750,000
Two Outdoor and one Indoor Sand School Grazing Land extending to approximately 53.97 acres In all approximately 57.61 acres Guide Price: OIEO £3,995,000
www.btfpartnership.co.uk E heathfield@btfpartnership.co.uk E challock@btfpartnership.co.uk
T 01435 864455 T 01233 740077
LAND AND FARMS
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Finns have launched to the market a Grade I/II/III ring-fenced residential farm on the edge of Eastry in the county of Kent. This includes a Grade II listed five-bedroom farmhouse in need of renovation, along with a two-bedroom farm bungalow. Part of the farm lies in the Heronden Conservation Area. The property has a guide price of £4.4 million and is to be sold as a whole or in lots. Heronden Farm is a unique opportunity for someone to purchase a productive arable farm in a secluded valley location with unspoilt views from both the farmhouse and bungalow. There is a range of traditional farm outbuildings offering diversification opportunities, subject to planning permission. The farm is located on the edge of Eastry village with good road and rail connections. Henry Wethered, associate at Finns, commented: “This is a fantastic opportunity to purchase a private family farm close to the stunning Kent coast. “The farm has been owned by the same family since 1952 and has been managed to a good standard, giving a rare opportunity for someone to come in and take on a significant arable farm
A ONCE IN A GENERATION
OPPORTUNITY EASTRY | KENT
GUIDE PRICE: £4.4 MILLION
in Kent. Currently the farm is cropped with winter wheat and winter barley but in the past it has grown soft fruits. “The farmhouse and the bungalow are both in need of refurbishment and this will allow someone to make their own mark on these properties to make a very comfortable, family home with a ringfenced farm. The range of outbuildings includes both an oast house and Kent Barn. The Kent Barn is of timber construction with black weather boarding and a slated roof and includes the former grain storage with its associated silos. “The barn measures 1,763 sq ft. The brick built
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oast house fronts Monkeys Hill and is currently in a dilapidated condition. However, there is significant potential for the two storey oast house which, subject to full planning permission, could be converted into a spectacular residential property. The location alone of this farm shows the potential and must be seen for the unique nature of this property to be appreciated. “Although the farm has been actively managed and farmed, the farmhouse, bungalow and buildings have stood still for a number of years and with careful renovation this could once again be a thriving family farm.”
Call Henry Wethered on 01843 210879 or email h.wethered@finns.co.uk
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Ashburnham, East Sussex
Farm to Let
Deer Park Farm and Agmerhurst Farm A mixed arable and pasture farm with modern cattle building
Driven in to a planning mess?
We can help steer you out.
Approx. 560 acres Contact Florence Wolfe T: 01273 407012 / M: 07458 117431 E: Florence.Wolfe@Struttandparker.com
www.struttandparker.com
TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883
www.therpp.co.uk CRANBROOK 01580 201888
CIRENCESTER 01285 323200
R
office@therpp.co.uk
Chartered Town Planner
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An attractive block of mixed use farmland with a traditional barn and quaint lodge Wootton, Kent | Canterbury: 11 miles
A detached Grade II listed 2 bedroom lodge with traditional farm buildings. Productive arable, pasture and woodland block extending to approximately 133 acres. Available as a whole or in 4 lots. Freehold.
About 133 acres |
Mark Chandler
Guide Price: £1.9 million
Sandwich Office | 01304 626093 | m.chandler@finns.co.uk
FINN’S 82 Castle Street Canterbury Kent CT1 2QD A traditional farmwww.finns.co.uk with huge potential t: 01227 454111 e : nKent . ro o| ke @fin ns. co. u k Barfrestone, Canterbury: 12 miles Chartered Surveyors Valuers Planning Consultants Estate & Letting Agents since 1865
A 5 bedroom detached Grade II listed period farmhouse. Extensive range of traditional farm buildings arranged around a central courtyard with scope for a variety of alternative uses, subject to planning permission. Modern farm buildings including a purpose built ‘Roundhouse’ livestock building. Arable land and pasture extending to approximately 100 acres. Available as a whole or in 5 lots. Freehold.
About 100 acres | Offers In Excess Of £2.6 million
Mark Chandler Sandwich Office | 01304 626093 | m.chandler@finns.co.uk
FINN’S The Packhouse, St Nicholas at Wade, Kent www.finns.co.uk
A once in a generation opportunity to acquire a secluded ring-fenced farm close to the Kent Coast
FINN’S 82 Castle Street Canterbury Kent CT1 2QD t: 01227 454111 www.finns.co.uk Eastry, Kent | Canterbury: 11 miles e: n.rooke @finns.co.uk A detached Grade II listed farmhouse with 5 bedrooms. Chartered Surveyors
Valuers Planning Consultants Estate & Letting Agents since 1865
Extensive range of traditional farm buildings, including a former oasthouse, well located within the centre of the holding with scope for alternative uses, subject to planning permission. 3 bedroom detached bungalow. Productive farmland extending to approximately 281 acres. Available as a whole or in 7 lots. Freehold.
About 281 acres | Guide Price: £4.4 million
Henry Wethered St Nicholas at Wade Office | 01843 210879 | h.wethered@finns.co.uk
Jim Pace St Nicholas at Wade Office | 01843 848230 | j.pace@finns.co.uk
Chartered Surveyors Valuers Planning Consultants Estate & Letting Agents
LAND DEVELOPMENT
GOVERNMENT LEVELS DOWN
ITS PLANNING REFORMS, FAILING THE ECONOMY AND YOUNGER GENERATION
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For young people, home ownership has been decreasing for several decades while rent prices soar. Millennials born in the 1980s have had a raw deal, enduring rapid house price rises and tighter credit conditions despite lower interest rates helping to ease mortgage borrowing costs. With older generations having been at the ‘sharp end’ of high interest rates, a typical UK first-time buyer in 1974 would have paid £9,000 in net interest by the end of their mortgage, compared to £63,000 for a first-time buyer now, research by the Resolution Foundation has found. The average deposit required to get onto the property ladder has tripled in real terms over the past 20 years, from just shy of £11,000 in 2000 to £33,000 in 2020. There is now the added pressure of the doom and gloom regarding the economy, with the cost of living continuing to escalate significantly. The Government’s latest answer? A reform of the planning system! It feels the current planning system acts as a drag anchor on the economy, being unpredictable and unresponsive. It is also part of the cause of the growing societal problems. Last year, for the first time in a generation, the average house earned more than the average worker. The Levelling Up Bill has been trumpeted as the panacea to re-balance the north and south and yet it seems unambitious, with very little economic re-balancing and, instead, a tinkering with a planning system and yet more uncertainty.
UNAMBITIOUS REFORMS
The big plan from government is beauty, infrastructure, democracy, environment and neighbourhood. Michael Gove thinks that if you get these things right then people will become more pro-development. He wants design rules that make sure new buildings look good, along with a levy on development so councils can ensure public services keep pace with new housing. Yet even this might not be enough. Prince Charles’s Duchy of Cornwall is planning a new 2,500-home town in Faversham, Kent, which comfortably meets all these criteria. It’s even based around tree-lined streets and a cricket pitch, but it still faces local opposition and a legal hold-up. Much has been made in the press of neighbourhood street votes and increases to second homes Council Tax, and while they make nice headlines, they do little to deliver actual homes. The Government also wants to reduce what are regarded as speculative applications and applications by appeal by only allowing development in accordance with an up-to-date Local Plan. While most planners would wholeheartedly agree with the principle, as of today only 39% of authorities have an up-to-date plan and many haven’t had a Local Plan since the 1990s. The lack of plan leads to a lack of allocations, leading to a lack of planning permissions and thus lack of development, which eventually results in a shortfall
Could your land have development potential? Find out more about land promotion.
DAWN ADAMS
Senior Planning Manager T: 01788 726810 E: dawna@catesbyestates.co.uk W: www.catesbyestates.co.uk
J U LY 2 0 2 2 | W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T
of house building, which is why speculative development comes forward. While it may be a flash point for some, this is exactly how the planning system is designed to work. If plans come forward quicker and wholeheartedly seek to address housing needs, developers will be enthusiastic supporters. The truth is that among the 338 pages of this sprawling bill, there is scant detail of how things will work in practice, let alone actually ‘level up’ the country.
DIFFICULT CHOICES FOR GOVERNMENT
So, have we got the “whole new system” and “no more fiddling around the edges” which was promised in the White Paper in 2020? No. But the great Tory planning retreat is hardly surprising. One of No 10’s objectives is not to upset its own MPs, so it is now trying to appease the nimbyism the Prime Minister once wanted to crush. “They can’t see their interest is in there being more homeowners, more aspirational voters,” he would say in private about those opposing his planning changes. But he has lost that battle. Planning reform is off the agenda. Some in Whitehall fear that Tory MPs, worried about the Lib Dem threat, will demand further concessions and protections.
BLEAK FUTURE?
The housing crisis is so acute that the Government needs to do everything possible to fix it. Unfortunately, while the latest reforms include some good ideas, they are timetabled to take effect in 2024 following several iterations and changes to law. In the meantime, we can expect more council inertia, which does nothing to stimulate growth in the economy or deliver much needed homes. A choice is fast approaching: to accept a low-growth economy, dismal prospects for the young and a bleak future for the party of the property-owning democracy or to reform, rejuvenate and build the houses and opportunities for a generation of young people who urgently need them. The proof will be in the pudding. Can these reforms really overcome some entrenched and inherent problems with plan-making to deliver the number (and quality) of homes we need in the locations which need them without relying so heavily on an element of so-called speculative development? Key areas will still need scrutiny when regulations start to emerge.
LAND AND FARMS BTF Partnership has launched for sale jointly with Lambert & Foster, Merrymaids Farm near Staplehurst in the county of Kent. This smallholding comprises a well-proportioned and detached family home with an agricultural occupancy condition along with a detached agricultural barn (with potential) and land extending to approximately 27 acres. The property has a guide price of £1,100,000. Merrymaids Farmhouse is an attractive three/four bedroom family home built to a traditional design with well-proportioned accommodation arranged over two floors. The front door opens onto the sitting room with open fireplace, door to study/fourth bedroom and door leading to a kitchen/breakfast room with a utility room off it. On the first floor there are three good sized double bedrooms, two with ensuite bathrooms, and a family bathroom. The front of the property has hardstanding with parking for multiple vehicles. The garden is laid to lawn with post and rail boundaries. There is also a detached double garage. To the west of the house is a detached, seven bay steel portal framed agricultural barn measuring 42.7m x 15m with a chalk floor, pre-cast concrete retaining walls and part Yorkshire board elevations under a pitched, corrugated fibre cement roof. This barn is located outside the Area of Outstanding
AOC FARMHOUSE WITH
BUILDINGS AND LAND STAPLEHURST | KENT
GUIDE PRICE: £1,100,000
Natural Beauty and could offer the potential to conversion to residential use subject to the necessary planning permissions. The farmland is situated to the north of the house and barn and extends to approximately 27 acres of newly established pasture leys with road frontage to the west on the A229 Maidstone Road. Alex Cornwallis at BTF Partnership commented:
27 ACRES
“This is a good sized smallholding and family home for someone already working or previously working in agriculture. The property is in a sought-after location within the Cranbrook School catchment area, with good rail links to London Bridge and Waterloo Station in under an hour from Staplehurst station just down the road. Viewing is certainly recommended but the property has lots of potential.”
LAND FOR SALE ON KENT/SUSSEX BORDERS HURST GREEN | EAST SUSSEX
GUIDE PRICE: £750,000
BTF Partnership has launched for sale 83.63 acres of ring-fenced arable land at Hurst Green, East Sussex, with a guide price of £750,000. The land, known as The Iridge Farmland, is two miles south of Hawkhurst, Kent and 0.5 miles from Hurst Green, East Sussex. Now in a Countryside Stewardship Scheme and located in the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, this single parcel of land has historically been in arable production and was originally used for top fruit. The Grade III land is entered into a five-year Mid-Tier AB 15 Countryside Stewardship Scheme which runs to 31 December
83.63 ACRES 2025 and is sown to a clover mix at the moment. Richard Thomas at BTF Partnership commented: “In the past 12 months we have been fortunate to offer over 350 acres in the Hawkhurst area, and now this good-sized single parcel is available in addition. “There is potential for long-term natural capital income generation which could run alongside the existing scheme that has three years to run under Countryside Stewardship. Well located on the Sussex/Kent border, I think this will be of interest to a number of buyers keen to add to their existing farm land holdings.”
i
Further details can be found at www.btfpartnership.co.uk
P O T
TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883
K C I P
W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T | J U LY 2 0 2 2
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CLASSIFIEDS
CONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION
Industrial & Commercial | Structural Steelwork | Agricultural & Equestrian
G. J. ELGAR
CONSTRUCTION Ltd
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• • • • • • •
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Strength, Security, Style Contact us for a free quotation 01269 831831 enquiry@shufflebottom.co.uk www.shufflebottom.co.uk Shufflebottom Ltd Cross Hands Business Park, Cross Hands, Llanelli, Carmarthenshire SA14 6RE
www.gjelgarconstruction.co.uk For more information contact us: t: 01233 623739 m: 07860 414227 e: office@gjelgarconstruction.co.uk
G.E.WHITE & SONS Ltd
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AGRICULTURAL, EQUESTRIAN & INDUSTRIAL STEEL FRAMED BUILDINGS We supply CONCRETE PANELS – Any size to suit your needs
formabuild.co.uk
Office 01273 492404 � info@formabuild.co.uk www.formabuild.co.uk We specialise in the supply and construction of steel framed buildings together with the repair and refurbishment of existing farm buildings. Based in the heart of Sussex, covering the South East. Sussex builders since at least 1605. Forma offer all aspects of steel framed construction and cladding together with groundworks and electrical fit out if required.
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J U LY 2 0 2 2 | W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T
All refurbishments & repairs undertaken. Call for a free quote today.
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ENWARD
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FARM BUILDING REPAIRS REFURBS, BIG 6 ROOF SHEETS, ROOF LIGHTS, RIDGES, VERGES, VALLEY GUTTERS, BOX GUTTERS, BOUNDARY GUTTERS, ASBESTOS, SHEETING Single Sheet To Whole Roof Roller Shutters Accidental or Storm Damage Works Demolition Refurbishments Waste Clearances
Kenward Construction based in Horsham, West Sussex offer a full design and build service for your next steel framed building including composite cladding, concrete panels, roller shutter doors and bespoke designs to meet individual planning conditions. Kenward Construction also offer a wide range of services offering a truly one stop shop for your next farm building project. Demolition, plant hire, access roads, drainage, sewage treatment plants, rainwater harvesting, biobed wash downs, paving, concrete foundations / slabs, walling and site landscaping.
Arrange a site visit with one of our contracts managers to discuss your project in more detail by emailing enquiries@kenwardgroundworks.co.uk or call 01403 210218
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ALL WORKS KENT & SUSSEX Professional Services to the Agricultural, Industrial & Equestrian Sectors
CALL TO DISCUSS YOUR PROJECT!
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To advertise in South East Farmer telephone 01303 233883
®
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Professional Services to the Agricultural, Industrial & Equestrian Sectors
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Specialist in the Agricultural, Industrial and Equestrian sectors. Steel frame supply and erect or just supply. Sheeting, cladding and oversheeting. Gutter replacement, repairs and lining. Steel frame, concrete frame alterations and repairs. Asbestos removal. Roof light and sheet changes. Refurbishments and usage changes. Demolition, groundworks and site clearance. 24 hour call out in the event of fire or break in. Roller shutters, sliding and personnel doors. All works are guaranteed
01227 918723
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jez@JRJconstruction.co.uk
www.JRJconstruction.co.uk
J U LY 2 0 2 2 | W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T
ALL RISKS LTD ASBESTOS ROOF REMOVALS
Asbestos roof sheeting removals Asbestos encapsulation Asbestos fire damage, clearance & re-instatement works Asbestos clearance & de-contamination Asbestos disposals by licenced registered company New metal roofs installed over old asbestos roofs Roof light & sheet repairs Gutter repairs Gutter replacements & re-lining Strip & refurbishment works Change of use projects Demolition & Groundworks
Professional Services to the Agricultural, Industrial & Equestrian Sectors
CALL TO DISCUSS YOUR PROJECT!
FREEPHONE: 01233 659129
from BT land-line
charlie.woodger@btinternet.com
To advertise in South East Farmer telephone 01303 233883
®
S W ATTWOOD & PART
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Price Whitehead Chartered Surveyors, Architectural Design, & Planning Consultants – Est 1997
◆ Planning Consultancy, Applications, & Appeals ◆ Architectural Design & Building Regulations ◆ Farm Buildings & Equestrian ◆ Barn Conversions & New House Schemes ◆ Rural Businesses and Properties
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01580 765111
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◆ Surveys - RICS & Topographical
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EMAIL: james@swattwood.com GROUNDWORKS & CONSTRUCTION
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Drainage Contractors
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To advertise in South East Farmer telephone 01303 233883 TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883
®
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W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T | J U LY 2 0 2 2
CLASSIFIEDS
FENCING CONTRACTORS
I & J Bushell
Redhill Farm Services: Fencing Division
ALL TYPES OF FENCING & GATES
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To advertise in South East Farmer telephone 01303 233883
®
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HAULIERS 07860 728204 Hay & Straw Merchant | Machinery Haulage
CROP DRYING
HAY & STRAW IN STOCK | ROUND & BIG SQUARE BALES
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Manufacturers of centrifugal, low volume and portable fans, air tunnels, drive over floors, grain stirrers and gas burners
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J U LY 2 0 2 2 | W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T
Buy from stock. Visit us to collect or same day dispatch Buy stock. Visit us to New collect or recycled same dayIBC dispatch withfrom nationwide delivery. and tanks. with nationwide delivery. Newtanks and recycled tanks. Plastic and steel drums. Water & plentyIBC of fittings. Plastic and steel drums. Water tanks & plenty of fittings.
Visit www.smdd.co.uk or call 01594 833308 Visit www.smdd.co.uk or call 01594 833308
CROSSWORD ®
VINEYARDS
COMPLETE OUR CROSSWORD TO WIN Two bottles of Gribble Bridge Sparkling White
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Crossword by Rebecca Farmer, Broadstairs, Kent
PRIZE ANAGRAM: Fungus affecting asparagus (9,8)
Soft fruit (9) Essential nutrient for plants (5) Cattle breed (9) Footwear made famous by the Duke of Wellington (5) Mythical creature of the Himalayan mountains (4) Easily damaged (7) Red Italian wine grape (13) ------- roller, machinery (7) Limit the inheritance of property (6) The study of the history of the Earth's structure (7) Largest organ of the body (4) Produced (9) Where land meets water (9) Organ of hearing (4) Always giving orders (5) One of the oldest alcoholic drinks (4) Way to catch rodents (3,4) Toxic gas with pungent odour (5) Canadian provence (7) Metal used for galvanising (4) Used to move from one level to another (4) Without amusement (9) Preposition (4) Drinking vessel (3) ----- on; encourage someone to do something naughty (5) Coloured writing fluid (3) Makes noises when sleeping (6) Mistake (5) Auction item (3) Backbone (5)
To enter, simply unscramble the
anagram (9,8) using the green squares.
LAST MONTH’S ANSWERS: 1
N
VINEYARDS
In this Jubilee year we’re offering readers the chance to win two bottles
Email your replies with your name,
of Gribble Bridge Sparkling White.
address and phone number to
For more information about the
sef.ed@kelsey.co.uk Correct entries will be entered into a draw which will take place on 19 July. The winner will be announced in the August edition. TO ADVERTISE CALL 01303 233883
vineyards, please visit www.biddendenvineyards.com or call 01580 291726. *Subject to availability
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W W W. S O U T H E A S T FA R M E R . N E T | J U LY 2 0 2 2
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