Back on our own farm I have been preparing for winter. The bales are laid out in the field ready for the cattle to eat during the winter, for as long as it is dry enough anyway. The ewes are on better grazing getting ready for the rams to go with them at the start of November and I am picking apples.
We pregnancy scanned our cows a couple of weeks ago too and we had one empty, with two to rescan. It was slightly disappointing, but perhaps not too bad considering the difficult dry summer. Added to that the clear TB test we had in late September and all things told, I think we can be quite happy to have come out of the dry weather quite well.
I was lucky to get our application in around lunchtime, while reports and messages were flying around about how some people were having problems accessing the online portal.
I had problems too and I did ring the hotline (they didn’t call me back), but I managed to get the computer system to accept my application. It will be reviewed in due course and hopefully approved. I am relatively young, slotting as I do into the ‘Gen X’ category, or more specifically the ‘Xennial’ category. Essentially having an analogue childhood, but a digital adulthood. Growing up as I did with the development of the computer age.
So, I am fairly well versed with computers and online computer systems, such as the one used by the Department for the Environment. It really is fantastic when it works, but hugely frustrating when it doesn’t. And for older farmers, I suspect it can all be rather unnerving, especially when you are relying on an application like this to help your business for the next few years.
So, we had a too small pot of money, being sought by too many businesses, for work that we are expected to do. This will not be a licence to pollute for businesses that were not successful in applying for the SFI money, but it will certainly result in some changes. Some farmers will have no choice than to remove areas they have left for wildlife and bring them back into production.
This might sound like a ransom demand, but it’s not. It’s just business. If the market will not pay for the unintended consequences of an action, then you can try to legislate, or incentivise it away.
If we accept that there is a climate and nature crisis and I think it’s fairly well established that we do, at least to some level, the work required to undo the issues that came from the post war, feed the nation at all costs system, is going to be big. Bigger than legislation can deal with.
It will require a concerted effort from all parts of society to design, build, action and fund the necessary changes. And we are not going to get there with competitive, underfunded, piecemeal schemes. I’m not suggesting that we choose giving money for wild bird seed areas in fields over schools and hospitals, but at some point we will have to have some difficult conversations and work out a way forward, not just for agriculture, but for society as a whole.
I read an article about superintelligent AI a couple of weeks ago and one sentence stuck with me. ‘Ultimately, they (AI bots) could compete for resources, prioritising data centres and solar panels over houses and food’. If that doesn’t give cause for alarm I don’t know what will. At some point we will have to prioritise the environment and food.'
LIVE24-SEVEN.COM
Our farm ecosystem is doing well, as you may know we generally don’t trim our hedges, I am laying them on a twenty five year rotation. The one we planted in lock down is coming along really well, with plenty of winter berries for the birds. Laying the one in the photo maybe well be a 2030 project! And we were really excited to have a late hatch of swallows in the stables back in September. The chicks grew well and left with the rest a few weeks ago.
Although it is getting a little more difficult, there is space for nature on most farms. The more we try to work with it, the better the farm gets. Maybe it’s not all about the money, maybe we just need to reframe the debate and for society to value nature a little more than it does at the moment.
rich@risburycourt.com 89
BUSINESS ON THE FARM
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