BY JIM WEBSTER It was back in the 1990s, and I knew several farmers who decided to give up their agricultural tenancies and get out of the industry. At the time they were somewhat nervous as to how they were going to make a living. After all, this wasn’t retirement. I’m not sure if any of them got out of the industry with enough to … Continue reading What Will Be Your Next Job?
BY JIM WEBSTER There is a saying: ‘To deny is to confirm’ The minute a body puts out press releases saying that it has never considered a policy change, everybody assumes that policy is about to be changed and they’re just waiting for a good day to bury bad news before they inform us. The problem is that, thanks to the Ukrainian War, an awful … Continue reading Few Noticed The World Has Changed
BY JOHN NASH There is a huge difference between a dairy farm where milk is produced from grass and, say, a petting farm where people, especially children, go to see and touch live animals. Rather importantly, the first is actually a farm and the second is entertainment even when sold as education. Farming is a primary occupation, exploiting the “outside” environment to produce the … Continue reading Different Worlds
BY JIM WEBSTER Friday was a busy day, we sorted a lot of heifers out, moved them about, and had the vet check that those who’d been running with the bull were in calf. Then on Sunday morning I found two different groups had tested the limits of their current boundaries and found them significantly more permeable than I had previously thought. Certainly, the previous … Continue reading Rural Vehicle Emissions Negligible
BY QUENTIN PIGG Those familiar with George Monbiot’s journalism – to use the word in its loosest and most absurd sense – will know of his strange, almost pathological obsession with farmers. He writes endlessly about abolishing livestock farming and rewilding agricultural land, but shows little care or consideration as to what should happen to the families and communities for whom farming is not just … Continue reading Regenesis
BY JIM WEBSTER I’ve worked with sheep, but I’d never call myself a shepherd. I’ve not got that level of expertise. But one of the things about shepherds is that they tend not to be centre stage. Historically they were always looked down upon. Even more so than the rest of us involved in agriculture, shepherds were shunned. (Even now ‘peasant’ is an insult in … Continue reading Shepherds Forgotten Again
BY JIM WEBSTER Sri Lanka has been the victim of a government organised experiment. In April 2021, the government imposed a nationwide ban on the importation and use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides and ordered the country’s two million farmers to go organic. It may well be that this wasn’t so much ideological as a desperate attempt to keep money in the country. It backfired. … Continue reading Let’s Not Be Sri Lanka
BY JIM WEBSTER It all started innocently enough. Suddenly I could not download my emails. Now you might wonder why I should want to. Simple, rubbish broadband. If I use a client like Outlook I can still read my emails when I have no broadband, (like now, when we have a power cut so of course the router doesn’t work.) Not only that but if … Continue reading The Joys of Rubbish Rural Broadband
BY JIM WEBSTER Apparently it was Machiavelli who said (almost certainly in Italian): “Never waste the opportunity offered by a good crisis.” Churchill followed him by saying: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Obviously their wise advice is being followed. So, the government has unveiled a new food strategy ‘and told farmers to produce more fruit and vegetables in the wake of record … Continue reading Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste
BY JIM WEBSTER Don’t you know there is a war on? What does it take to get people to take things seriously? Do we need Chief Warden Hodges from Dad’s Army storming round Brussels shouting ‘Put that Light Out’? There is a problem with people. They will continue to believe things even when they’re obviously not true. As an example of this, YouGov do a … Continue reading The EU Has Lost its Marbles
BY JIM WEBSTER During first lockdown, behind the scenes, major retailers performed logistical miracles. As a farmer I’m not somebody who is prone to praise them, but in spite of ridiculous levels of panic buying (there are people out there who won’t need to buy toilet paper for another couple of years) the retailers managed to keep the show on the road. During lockdown I … Continue reading Too Little Wheat, Too Much Makeup
BY NOEL YAXLEY I have a confession to make. Although I am writing this for a rural affairs magazine, I personally know very little about farming. My own experience of farming extends to a combine harvester ride with a man called Donny when I was five on holiday on the North Norfolk coast. For a few hours on a hot Autumn day I got to … Continue reading LADS no Lasses
BY ROGER WATSON While we are not in the season for harvesting potatoes in this country, each time I open a pack of potatoes I cannot help being reminded of the October break we used to have from school in Scotland known as ‘The Tattie Holidays’ (the Scottish word for potato is ‘tattie’). They have almost faded from memory now as the generations of those—like … Continue reading The Acceptable Face of Child Slavery
BY NOEL YAXLEY If ever there was a time of the year to conjure up images of the ‘winter blues’ it is January. If Covid restrictions had you reaching for the bottle, how about a spot of Dry January? But for those who truly aspire to reach the heights of ascetic self-denial, how about signing up for Veganuary? For the uninitiated, Veganuary is an annual … Continue reading Veganuary
BY JIM WEBSTER The whole system of farm payments is up in the air. To be brutally frank, this isn’t surprising. On a general, first world level, governments have blown so much money on the pandemic they are scrabbling behind the sofa for loose change. I would be surprised if, in five years’ time, any country hasn’t cut its agricultural support, or moved the money … Continue reading Spending the Money Thrice
BY JIM WEBSTER The thing about farming and agriculture is that it isn’t just an industry, it isn’t just a way of life, it’s a world. All sorts of people come into this world and they might pass through, going about their lawful occasions. They might enter it and flee gibbering unable to cope with the proclivities of the natives. Some will arrive, breathe deeply … Continue reading Going Native
BY ROCHELLE BLAKEMAN “Toil mastered everything, relentless toil And the pressure of pinching poverty… Everything by nature’s law Tends to the worse, slips ever backward, backward.” Virgil, the Georgics As a farmer’s daughter, I was blessed with a bucolic childhood. With only 1% of the UK population being farmers, it is a lucky stroke to have lived my younger years with a closeness to the … Continue reading A Country Girl’s Reflections on Environmentalism
BY JIM WEBSTER I went down to London the other day. First time for a couple of years, so I was quite intrigued to see what things were like down there. On the train and at the stations, masks were optional. Pretty much the same proportion of people were wearing them as wear them round here. Once in the big city it did feel quiet. … Continue reading What Shall the Future Bring Us?
BY JIM WEBSTER I kept a few pigs before the last foot and mouth outbreak. I used to buy a weaned litter or two and fatten them on a mix of spare milk and some 16% protein dairy feed. This is grossly inefficient but was quite profitable because I was having them killed at a local abattoir. Then they were cut up for me by … Continue reading Pigs & Boars
BY NICK PEARCE Providing a seasonal tour of a traditional farming year, passionate beef farmer Joe Stanley seeks to bridge this knowledge gap and inform the reader about the journey their food takes before it gets to the plate, revealing the realities of modern agricultural life for a British lowland farmer. Drawing on a lifetime of experience, he strips observations of the countryside and agricultural … Continue reading Farm to Fork
