5 minute read
A family business
Matthew Lamy of Somerleigh Farms, St Peter, talked to Alasdair Crosby about their family farm and farming in Jersey – its past, present, and future
At the end of October, the fields are bare. One potato cycle has ended, the next one has yet to begin. Matthew Lamy was standing in a field of ‘prickly potato’ – a green cover crop that will help to control Potato Cyst Nematodes (PCN) in the soil. The crop will be ploughed back into the soil in due course before another crop of Jersey Royal potatoes is planted. Nearby was another Lamy field of a different type of cover crop.
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‘I would prefer to have fields of calabrese and cauliflower after the potato harvest has been lifted,’ Matthew said. ‘Planting cover crops helps build up the organic matter in the soil and helps with soil erosion. We used to be one of the largest calabrese growers in Jersey. In these fields – back in the 1990s, on a nice, sunny autumn day – we would be picking caulis and calabrese now and shipping them off to the UK.’
‘The demise of the “other crops” is all to do with the cost of shipping them across to the UK. Only volume sales make exporting viable – not just selling a few bits here and a few bits there – especially with the new increased minimum wage of £10.50 an hour. It would make even less sense for us to send a worker to dig the crop.’
The next viable commercial crop they will probably lose will be the daffodils, he said. A few years ago, they use to plant 150 vergées; now they are planting only 25 vergées. ‘What’s the point of growing daffs if you haven’t got the labour force to pick them or you can’t afford to deploy it? We pick only what we can – so that’s a small area, which the workers can pick if weather stops us from planting Jersey Royals.’
In addition, there are the same old problems of the high shipping costs: ‘We carry on with them mainly because of rotation of the potato land. Daffodils help in the PCN problem, and they rest the field. We now rotate for two or three years and then go back in with a potato crop, without having to use chemicals to deal with PCN – but it’s not a big earner.’
Which just leaves the Island’s growers with the Jersey Royal potato crop. In their own case, they export through the Albert Bartlett group to major UK retailers including Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Lidl.
‘The supermarkets need to pay us more. The problem this year is that we tried to get more money for the crop, but sales declined. It’s a Catch 22 situation at the moment.’
The Lamy family own two farms: his father, Peter, lives at Somerleigh Farm, St Peter, and Matthew and his family in La Verte Rue Farm, St Ouen. The land bank totals 874 vergées. It has been in the family since the early 1960s, when his father, Peter, moved from St Martin, where his family had been farming for several generations. “ The supermarkets
“We could sell up,
Their very diffuse holdings stretch from the uttermost east (Fliquet) to the uttermost west (L’Etacq).
His mother, Marion, was born a Le Feuvre, and St Peter is nothing if not Le Feuvre country. ‘We could sell up,’ Matthew said, ‘but we don’t want to give up our business and our heritage. It’s been in the family for so long and we’re passionate about it!’
Much of what they do is highly traditional: every autumn they collect vraic off La Pulente enough for 60 vergées, which they use mostly on the sandy soil in the west of the Island. Côtils are ploughed and planted by hand. A local beekeeper makes use of the cover crops to produce his honey. They are accredited to LEAF and Red Tractor assurance schemes.
Matthew is chairman of the Environment and Resources Sector of the Jersey Farmers’ Union: ‘Caring for the environment continues to be an important consideration for Island farmers,’ he said. ‘Our office is the countryside, and this means that we are increasingly under public scrutiny, both for our stewardship of the countryside and also for the environmental credentials of our produce.‘
The business is always looking at ways in which to improve its energy efficiency, reduce its environmental impact and to enhance the natural environment. Carbon is a hot topic at the moment, and they work with the Trinity AgTech Group (nothing to do with the Parish – it is based in London), which advises Jersey’s farming sector on their carbon output and conducts audits enabling them to understand how much carbon is being captured or sequestered.
It has often been said that the area under potatoes should be reduced, to allow both for a greater diversity of crops to be grown for the local market and to increase crop rotation periods.
‘Everyone wants to reduce,’ he said, ‘but the trouble is, reducing the volume of the crop also reduces our incomes, which are strained enough as it is, with the massively increased cost of inputs.
‘We do need to increase the price of the crop to the multiples. Consumers are just going to have to pay more. People always say that food is expensive; in fact, in recent years it has been too cheap, and farmers cannot afford to produce it. In any event, selling it cheap only devalues the product.’
The business is still very much a family concern. His father, wife and sister are all involved in it; his nephew Benjamin (3), loves to play with toy tractors; his daughters, Estelle (10) and Georgina (4), are members of the RJA&HS and this year, Estelle showed cattle for the first time at their Autumn Show. Georgina also likes to get involved in activities on the farm.
‘We all live, breath, eat and sleep the Jersey Royal potato,’ he said. ‘We just hope that we can pass on our inheritance – and Jersey’s inheritance – to future generations.’
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