8 minute read
Farming
Help secure the future of British food
Back British Farming! That’s our over-riding message – whether it’s to the public, Government or any policy holder who‘s decisions impact our farming businesses.
It’s the sixth year of the NFU’s big campaign ‘Back British Farming Day’, which is always held in September. The aim is to drive support for the British food and farming sector through simple actions like buying British produce, enjoying the countryside responsibly, and spreading the word with friends and family.
Why is this important?
The UK food and farming industry contributes more than £120 billion to the UK economy, with our farmers producing the raw ingredients for the food industry. Here in the South West (SW) we have over 1.7 million hectares of farmed land - that’s 1,700,000 rugby pitches! Every SW farm trades with an average of 48 other businesses, whether that’s tractor dealerships, animal feed companies or vets. The farmed landscape also makes a key contribution to the tourism industry by managing our glorious countryside. All in all, the value of farming to the South West’s economy stands at a gross output of £4 billion and a gross value added of £1.6 billion. So, yes it is important!
Reasons to be proud
This year on our Back British Farming Day on Wednesday 15th September, Jeremy Clarkson joined the NFU and thousands of farmers and growers, MPs, celebrities and members of the general public to take part in the annual celebration of British farming. You may have seen farming champions across the nation using the hashtag #BackBritishFarmingDay on social media with videos and pictures of why they were proud to produce the nation’s food. And quite right they are to be proud - British farmers produce some of the best food in the world. Not only is it delicious and nutritious, but it’s produced to incredibly high environmental, animal welfare, traceability, and food safety standards – something not every country is able to say.
Food self-sufficiency
Yet, over the past few years the country has watched its selfsufficiency drop from 78% in the mid-1980s to its current level of just 60%. As an island nation very well suited for quality food production, it would be a mistake to become even more reliant on the rest of the world to feed us. We would encourage you to add your support to our letter to George Eustice, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and ask him to keep food self-sufficiency levels above 60%: Help secure the future of British farming. If our government truly backs the potential of British food and farming, the country could see huge benefits. British farmers could increase the industry’s economic contribution and provide more nutritious, affordable, climate-friendly British food for UK shoppers while bolstering domestic food security.
The Cheese Festival.
Our local office in Sturminster Newton was delighted to be supporting the Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival again the weekend before Back British Farming Day. The Festival has raised over £100,000 for local charities and organisations. We were delighted that Dorset Tractors & Agricultural Equipment - CJ Cox Agricultural Engineers donated to our stand their striking pink tractor and the Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show their enormous floor tractor puzzles! Alongside our wooden milking cow “Daisy” we were able to entertain and talk farming to people of all ages and show where your food comes from, whether its wheat becoming bread, barley becoming beer or oats becoming your porridge.
Louise Stratton NFU Dorset County Adviser
Autumn sowing at Rawston Farm sixty years ago Image: James Cossins
The Great British Sowing... bet
by James Cossins, a fifth generation farmer in the Tarrant Valley. The annual gamble is upon farmers – when do we sow next year’s crops?
As we move into October our main activity is planting autumn crops, winter barley and winter wheat. Our grass seed, oil seed rape and cover crops are already in the ground. The timing of sowing these crops is becoming increasingly critical. If the crops are planted too early aphids will spread viruses to the leaves leading to diseases affecting the yield. Also early sowing will increase the amount of fungal disease in the crop leading to more pesticides having to be applied in the spring. Yet, sowing the crop too late can mean the fields are too wet to get the operations completed. In recent years we have experienced some extreme weather conditions preventing machinery from travelling in fields because of excessive rainfall. Crops can be successfully established in November if only we knew what the weather conditions would be like.
Attacking deadly TB
The TB test of all our cattle was partially successful with no reactors having to be taken from the farm, but we have to re-test two milking cows as their results are inconclusive. So our future TB status depends on two cows as to how quickly we can be classified as TB-free. It is very frustrating. We have though, I think, made progress as we are not losing as many cattle being confirmed as TB cases as in the past. Fingers crossed that in our next test in 60 days we are clear. The milking cows are now beginning to eat into their winter supply of food and with our maize crop still to be harvested we look as if we have a plentiful supply of fodder to see us through to next spring. It was a busy month for our farm audits from the Red Tractor Scheme and the Food Standard Agency. Both visits were at short notice, or no, notice so they certainly came as a surprise . We have a few non-compliances to correct otherwise we were reasonably in order. There is a lot of debate within the farming community about the benefits from the Red Tractor Scheme . My feeling is that if it brings farms up to a sensible standard of food production and a high standard of animal welfare then it is worth keeping. But there is a need to explain to consumers what the Red Tractor logo means on food products.
What is the Red Tractor Scheme?
Primarily the food will be produced to a certain standard and the farm inspected regularly. The logo also means that the produce has come from this country. The labeling needs to be more readily identifiable to consumers. Also food products coming from outside the UK which are processed in the UK have the logo on the packaging. I believe this is wrong. Currently there are concerns that cereals produced abroad are being mixed with home-grown cereals and given a Red Tractor logo. Yet the imported grain has not gone through such rigorous checks.
Trust local
At our Rawston Farm Butchery we are promoting the Trust Local Love Local brand (p.80) After hosting Open Farm Sunday a few years ago it was apparent that consumers wanted to support the British Farmer. We hope that other counties will follow Dorset’s lead and use the logo with their county flag on to show where the food comes from.
Farming recently became the second love of my life - last month saw the introduction of my first child to the world. I’m not promising now that my little Martha will grow up to be a tractor driver or shepherdess, but once her hands grow big enough to hold an egg she’ll certainly be spending her days on the farm helping me.
I didn’t grow up on a 300-acre farm, driving tractors and chasing sheep. I had a more relaxed introduction to the country life on my parents smallholding. My mother was obsessed with everything equestrian, whereas my dad chased his 20 sheep around the small village of Hooke just outside of Beaminster. With his history of being a herdsman on large dairy farms, I doubt my dad would have ever admitted to the fact that he was now a ‘hobby farmer’. But while I was growing up he worked his full-time job, ran a small farm and carried his share of the raising of both me and my brother. His dedication to the 34 acres that enriched the borders of our house didn’t pay for me to go to private school or have expensive holidays. It did mean we had a home-grown lamb roast every Sunday. Fifteen years later, visits for lunch at my parents result in my dad chiselling a lamb joint out of the freezer, so old that you couldn’t tell if it died in an abattoir or of freezer burn. Without a doubt, my dad’s favourite plot of land on the farm was his vegetable patch. As a child, I didn’t quite see the attraction of growing your own food, but since starting my own family I have managed to not quite kill a potted parsley and chive plant. I won’t be running a fruit and veg stall any time soon, but to grow your own produce is exciting after all. My dad would go to great pains to explain the origins of every piece of fibre on the plate: “You see that potato? First lot of the year, dug fresh out the ground today,” or it would be, “Guess where that leek is from?” The amount of soil on the plate would usually give a clue.
I was spoilt growing up on a farm. Not with nice presents or expensive gifts. Instead, I grew up with experiences, and memories that I would never be able to forget. Mornings before school would be spent bottlefeeding lambs or swearing at the tiny David Brown tractor as it was too cold to start. My dad taught me so much as a child - but how I am to raise my own daughter I am clueless about at the moment. All I know is that if Martha has half the dad that I had growing up, I’ll know I’ll have done alright.
Andrew and baby Martha - she has some growing to do before her egg collecting days begin. Andrew’s dad Guy gave him an early introduction to farming, and Andrew cherishes the memories.
