The BV magazine, November ‘22 FARMING
the world, the Ukraine war, the energy crisis, climate change and the ongoing aftermath of the COVID pandemic, not to mention the consequences of Brexit – all have affected food supply and flow around the world. If there is to be a pause in ELMS roll out in order to ensure that all these things reach fruition, then a delay in the reduction of BPS must also remain on the table. Insufficient hedgerows We now know what SFI can look like in reality for the two standards which are so far available (arable and grassland soils). The interface is straightforward and the application is easy to complete online, though the level of funding may not be high enough. Let us hope that more standards will appear very soon, but they must be fit for purpose before release. Draft versions of a Hedgerow Standard, for example, still need further work; a way needs to be found whereby SFI would fund farmers to plant new hedges in the advanced level. This could achieve much takeup and make a real difference. Hedges have the potential to provide huge environmental gain, but the key will be the funding. The ‘income foregone plus costs’ model that DEFRA is currently hooked on will not cover all the work needed to be done to many existing hedges, and if trying to get new ones planted, will be utterly insufficient. School visit champions Lastly, we bade goodbye to two old and faithful animal friends this year, both of whom were stars every time we a school trip visits the farm. At the end of a visit, after looking at growing crops, cows with calves, doing a woodland trail and checking out shiny giant machinery, we usually finish with a visit to the paddock where the old pony and the tame
sheep live. We always go armed with a bag of toast, which is handed out to the children and immediately snatched from them by the greedy, though surprisingly gentle, sheep (and the pony if she is quick enough). Florrie the pony was allegedly 38 this year. Sadly 2022 was as far as she could manage, and so too it was for Rocky, a wether lamb from 2012. Junior family members had lambed his mother – he was a big fellow, and the birth proved too much for his mother, who did not survive. Once my 12 yearold recovered from the shock of witnessing the ewe’s demise, she gleefully brought him home to join that year’s band of orphan lambs. From that moment, a life of luxury and uselessness was assured, though poor Rocky had his share of troubles. First there was the time he got himself breached in the bushes, and had it not been for the eagle eye of Jayne he would have expired there. Then there were the many episodes of the hole in his back. What started with a small injury at shearing turned into a massive issue once the magpies spotted it and got dug in. First we tried
disinfectant spray and Stockholm tar, but that just trickled away in the sunshine. Then we tried a lady sheep’s prolapse harness (the indignity of it), but he would shrug it off and the magpie was back in a trice. The stupid animal would just let it peck away. Ugh. After that we tried stitching a patch to his wool; knitting it might have been better, but the wool was too short, and the patch didn’t survive trips into the bushes. Finally Nicki hit on the genius idea of the glue gun (a wonderful tool for a multitude of situations). The glued-on patch lasted weeks, enabling the wound to make a full recovery! Last Sunday afternoon a walker informed us that there was a suspiciously dead-looking animal lying on its side in the paddock. We had only moved them that morning, and Rocky had trotted along happily, so the end had been thankfully swift, lying peacefully in the autumn sunshine. Between them Florrie and Rocky must have met over 3,000 children. That’s a lot of toast. (see George’s full monthly blog and images on View from the Hill here)
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