Mouth of the Wash

Economical With The Truth

2012-02-10T08:13:48Z

According to the National Ecosystem Assessment, pollinating insects are worth £430 million to the economy.

A statistic must have strirred you up, hasn't it?

If you are a conservationist you will probably think

"We'd better look after them"

If you are a Daily Mail reader then you will probably be thinking

"Wow, the insects are prepared to put in the graft to support their families so why can't the illegal immigrants and Abu Hamza?"

If you work for the Treasury you would probably look to tax pollen. Or to privatise national ecosystem services.

I don't think any of those things. Hang on. I think the first one. Obviously I think the first one. But my main feeling is overwhelming annoyance that we have got into the habit of measuring the natural environment in cash terms.

It would be fun to write an article about the financial performance other species (I might do that at some point) but today I feel too seriously about the subject.

One could say that sterling is an irrelevant measure of an essential process such as pollination; that it is like deciding whether or not you love your sister based on the length of her nose or how many times she has used a pelican crossing.

I feel even more strongly than that. Financial calculations of this sort are not just crass, dopey or surreal, although they are all of those things too, they are dangerously misleading.

Firstly, cash is not a constant value to measure anything against, it inflates and deflates and can be stolen or lost. Secondly, when we put a price on natural capital, we are throwing it to the tender mercy of the marketplace. We are allowing someone to decide whether or not they want it. This is Thatcherism taken to a black and evil conclusion.

On this note, you will be thrilled to hear that the government has formed a Natural Capital Committee.

It will report to the Economic Affairs Committee (chaired by the Chancellor of the Exchequer) and will measure English natural capital.

Hoorah. The coutryside is safe

Pulling the Safety Cords

2012-02-07T20:16:34Z

You know posh land agents and their colourful trousers?

Well now there's a blog devoted to them. It's pretty funny.

Snowly Does It

2012-02-07T20:11:32Z

I went to the Peak District at the weekend for a couple of days hill walking. It snowed well and, although it was rather cold on the cliff edges, it was great fun.

I've come home to a similar amount of snow but it's no fun at all. We have rubbish snow in Lincolnshire. Here it spoils things, it delays crops, it puts up heating costs and it stops you getting about. Why can't we have snow like they have in Derbyshire?

In Bread

2012-02-03T06:43:03Z

What is wrong with the world?

Now there is a craze for putting bread on your cat's head.

In revealing this phenomenon and providing that link, I have inadvertently made the shameful admission that I read the Daily Mail yesterday. Whoops a daisy. You have to be careful about these things, I believe that these people made a similar mistake when they advertised their kettle on ebay (if you look at the photo closely you will notice that they are victims of a phenomenon which, I believe, is known as "reflecto-porn").

Anyhow. Cats in Bread. This is what it looks like

There is a Facebook group where these nutters can congregate around their unedifying images. If you are an idiot, you might like to join in.

Cats, you will unastounded to learn, are the most popular animal on the internet.

"No further questions, your Honour"

This blog has always tried to highlight the severe mental health challenges that are caused/symptomised by cat ownership. This latest craze shows that the problem is more severe and prevalent than even we imagined. It even makes Catchat look sane and proportionate.

If you wish to join in with Cat Breading (and, in doing so, you have to agree that you will never visit the blog again) then the instructions are quite simple

1.Take a piece of bread. If this is your first time, use a soft white bread. You could move on to Ryvita later.

2. Cut a hole approximately 25mm larger than your cat's head. This trips some people up. Remember: the bread has to fit around the not just the cat's head, but its ears, too.

3. Gently place the bread around your Cat's head.

4. Eat Cat

Sauce of Nutrition

2012-02-02T09:53:54Z

What are we going to do about these potato fertiliser rates? I'm in a right lather about it. I've reached the stage where I'm stopping people in the street to ask their opinion.

Some farmers say that you don't need any Phosphate if the soil index is over 3. Some people lather the same rates on that they have for years. Some people say that expensive formulations are a waste of money, others say that they are better value. There isn't another industry in the World where businesses slag off their competitors more than the fertiliser industry. Even rival Mafia gangs have more respect for one another. This breeds uncertainty. All farmers now harbour doubts about whether they are getting the levels of nutrition that the maufacturers claim from the products.

This is a serious subject for two reasons, A: because fertiliser is expensive and 2: because it can harm the planet if it is over applied.

Farmers usually err on the side of over-application. Agriculture, in it's most basic sense, is the job of managing risk. A good manager will always avoid the short cuts that can lead to a crop failure.

I have drawn up eight different fertiliser programmes, the costs of these vary between

£212 per ha for 76:92:150 and

£465 per ha for 100:125:300 with 250 SO3 and 100 Ca

My preference initally was to precision place everything. This would mean using Sulphate of Potash because the Chlorine in Muriate of potash could burn the roots. This method adds a lot of cost and means that our potato planter would need to fill up with fertiliser every hectare.

I am still confused about the agronomic advantages of liquid/granular fertilisers. Most farmers base the choice on the ease that it fits into their operations rather than efficacy.

I am allowing myself one more week of head scratching and then I've got to make a decision.

Drop the Sails

2012-02-02T06:37:48Z

We have an area of grass hidden away behind our farmyard where we store all of the machinery that we don't use often. It is all laid out in neat rows so that everything is accessible. When most people see it they say

"Are you having a sale?"

This is because it is laid out as though it is lotted up for an auction.

It is very boring when people say "Are you having a sale?" I love a repetitive joke but the problem here is that this one wasn't even funny in the first place. Farmers have a very strong pride about not having to sell things *joke removed to use in a Farmers Weekly column*

There is no other logical way of laying out this machinery and building a half acre shed to store chisel ploughs is low down on my financial priorities righht now.

The reason that I mention it is that periodically I have a walk around the field seeing if there is anything that we don't need anymore which I can advertise. As I get older, I am increasingly reluctant to sell anything. I can envisage a use for most things.

We have a set of nearly-new row crop wheels for a Case MXU135 which we don't need now that this tractor has been sold and there is a very tidy Hoekstra GLB cultivator with two different forming hoods (for cultivating beds or for ridging rowcrops). I know that it's early for Christmas shopping but if you are interested, give me a call. This stuff is advertised in the press but blog readers get a special discount

Rates

2012-01-31T07:29:16Z

This is a blog post for fertiliser nerds only. Later on this morning am going to a Syngenta technical update about Nemathorin. If you are really well-behaved then I might write a post for Potato Cyst Nematode nerds a bit later.

Yesterday I was pondering over potato fertiliser rates.

Our soil indexes for Phosphate and Potash are solid 3's and 4's. Most of our potato crops are following at least one crop of brassicas and, since we have had exceptionally dry weather, it stands to reason that the levels of soil Nitrogen will possibly be high and at least 1.

This makes fertiliser maths quite complicated. I want to keep our costs as low as possible and I have a strong moral objection to using more fertiliser than a crop absolutely needs. Nitrous oxide emissions and the leaching of phosphate and nitrate into watercourses are pollutants which cost farmers money. There is nothing to be gained from over-using N and P.

I consider it terribly mealy-mouthed when people say "on the other hand" but, "on the other hand," it is foolish to go to all of the trouble, cost and diesel use of producing an area of potatoes and then losing yield because you have under-fed it. In theory we need very little fertiliser to grow a good crop but my experience dictates that this would be a foolish omission to make.

For all of the great advice that is offered, fertiliser recommendations are not a perfect science. We often use more inputs than a crop theoretically requires; this is because the cost of a crop failure always outweighs a small saving in production costs.

I am going to draw up two recommendations for our potato crops. I will personalise them by giving each one a name. I'm calling one "Bells and Whistles" and the other one "Ebenezer."

When I get time I will put them both up on here and we can do a vote on it.

Rabbit, Rabbit

2012-01-30T20:53:53Z

My sister called today.

"I need a dead rabbit. Can you help?"

She has a friend in film set design. She spends her life frantically trying to find obscure items like giant fez hats and Trabant cars. Occasionally, if her needs have a rural flavour to them, we get a call.

Today she needed one rabbit, ideally in a dead format.

My sister tried to explain things a bit more fully. "It's for a thing with Sheila Hancock," she said. "She needs the dead rabbit for Sheila Hancock"

"I don't know why you are dragging Sheila Hancock into this" I replied. "Are you trying to give this macabre request a bit of glamour? Am I supposed to be starstruck into action by the mention of Sheila Hancock? Are you trying to starstrike me into killing a rabbit?"

My sister had clearly been seduced by the mention of Sheila Hancock, as I almost was. She had not properly contemplated the grim request. I love Sheila Hancock as much as the next guy (probably more, to be fair, I think she's great) but you really have to question the tenuous connection.

"Let's face reality here. This is not an invitation to a premiere. It is a contract hit" I said. What is our reputation in London circles if we are the first people that spring into someone's mind at the mention of a dead animal.

"Dead Rabbit? I know who I'll call. I'll call the Naylors" As word association games go, it's hardly flattering is it?

"Tell her to ring Clarissa Dickson Wright" I said.

Petri-fied

2012-01-29T09:44:12Z

As you know, I've never been one to go on about a subject. I've hardly mentioned my new-found fitness and hot physique at all.

I understand that the chattering classes are talking about how it would be possible to bounce a pebble off my buttocks. Others have remarked that my calf muscles look like Wagyu steaks. People will talk. Try as I might, I can't stop these comments. If it continues, I could report the matter to the Leveson inquiry. As it is, I try to take it in my stride.

Obviously I would prefer to keep quiet about my accomplishments. No one wants to sound boastful or intimidating.

OK, sure I can do this

But, it would be embarrassing if I kept going on about it.

The only reason that I mention it; Lord knows, I really didn't want to, is that, coincidentally, this post also happens to be about an extraordinary piece of meat.

If you've got 250 000 euros going spare then you can now treat yourself to a beefburger grown in a petri dish. This is the anticipated cost of a project by Mark Post, a vascular biologist at Maastricht University, to produce synthetic meat.

He is doing research where stem cells from "animal material" (we won't ask to many questions about what "animal material" is, perhaps) are fed with sugars, amino acids and stuff like that until they produce pale, whitish, muscle-like strips which are an inch long and so thin that they are almost see-through.

"Yummy", I hear you say. To which I reply

"Stop looking at the photo and concentrate on the stuff about the stem cells, please."

This is a brave frontier. It could change the World in an unimaginably radical way.

I did a bit of reading up on the subject and the idea of synthetic meats is not a new one. I found the article below which was written by Winston Churchill before WWII and at a time when science was at its most innovative. He predicted the possibility of synthetic food along with some other prescient ideas about how life would look on planet Earth in the 1980's.

I selected the most relevant passage and it is well worth reading in full. We hadn't got quite as far as Churchill predicted we would be 1980. This is a painful reminder of the devastating cost of WWII to humankind. Who knows where we might have got to in terms of food science, green transport and space exploration without it.

Churchill's 1980's prediction also failed to anticipate the rise of Duran Duran or the movie Dirty Dancin' so he can't afford to be too pleased with himself.

Fifty Years Hence by Winston Churchill 1932

recent times, the production of food has been the prime struggle of man. That war is won. There is no doubt that the civilized races can produce or procure all the food they require. Indeed, some of the problems which vex us today are due to the production of wheat by white men having exceeding their own meeds, before yellow men, brown men and black men have learned to demand and become able to purchase a diet superior to rice. But food is at present obtained almost entirely from the energy of the sunlight. The radiation from the sun produces from the carbonic acid in the air more or less complicated carbon compounds which serve us in plants and vegetables. We use the latent chemical energy of these to keep our bodies warm, we convert it into muscular effort. We employ it in the complicated process of digestion to repair and replace the wasted cells of our bodies. Many people, of course, prefer food in what the vegetarians call "the secondhand form," i.e., after it has been digested and converted into meat for us by domestic animals kept for this purpose. In all there processes, however, ninety-nine parts of the solar energy are wasted for every part used.

Even without the new sources of power great improvements are probable here. Microbes, which at present convert the nitrogen of the air into the proteins by which animals live, will be fostered and made to work under controlled conditions, just as yeast is now. New strains of microbes will be developed and made to do a great deal of our chemistry for us. With a greater knowledge of what are called hormones, i.e., the chemical messengers in our blood, it will be possible to control growth. We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium. Synthetic food will, of course, also be used in the future. Nor need the pleasures of the table be banished. That gloomy Utopia of tabloid meals need never be invaded. The new foods will be practically indistinguishable from the natural products from the outset, and any changes will be so gradual as to escape observation.

If the gigantic sources of power become available, food would be produced without recourse to sunlight. Vast cellars, in which artificial radiation is generated, may replace the cornfields and potato patches of the world. Parks and gardens will cover our pastures and plowed fields. When the time comes, there will be plenty of room for the cities to spread themselves.

A Different Kind of Fit

2012-01-28T17:02:54Z

I am gradually getting back into my routine now after my holiday. I have just been to B&Q to pick up some paint for my study. I had to pre-order the colour that I wanted; it was this one if you are interested.

The lady that served me asked for some ID before she would hand the paint over.

"Anything will do. A driving licence, a military card, something like that" she said.

You can see what's happened here, can't you? She had checked out my new, lean physique and made the, perfectly reasonable, assumption that I was an Officer in the Marines.

I bet you are itching to see me in a yoga posture, aren't you.

This position is called "The Ouch"

Highly Valued

2012-01-27T07:21:31Z

Last night I went to a drinks party to mark the semi-retirement of our valuer, John Allen (FRICS, FAAV etc, etc etc). He is going to be gradually winding-down after nearly 50 years as a land agent, auctioneer and partner with Longstaff and Co. It is a testament to John's character (and enormous likeability) that he can hold a party on the same night as our local NFU AGM and get a full attendance.

I found the night strangely moving. John has been doing our annual stocktaking valuation for more years than I can remember and has been an important source of advice and counsel to my grandfather, father and, latterly, to me. It is sobering to think that when John started in his current role, my grandfather was the same age that I am now.

John memorably banged the gavel at the farm sale where, as a younger man, I bought a 30ft Herbert potato grader on impulse. He helped when I had to sheepishly break the news to my father about how much I had spent that day. He has helped to broker negotiations in all of our main land aquisitions. I hope that we can semi-utilise his experience for a good while yet.

The guests' ages at the party ranged from 30 and 90 and John has also worked with three generations of the Longstaff family. His successor, and our new valuer, will be Robbie Longstaff. This is perfect example of how neatly and gently the transition of power and duty is managed in rural businesses.

I came away with a profound sense of the smooth, unending way that time passes in a farming community. Farmers spend their days believing that, individually, they have a critical role to play in the preservation of the countryside. Ultimately there is a gentle and soothing rhythm to the way that rural life rumbles on.

All Good Things Must Come To Seas End

2012-01-27T05:11:48Z

I am home again after a blissful ten day break. My body, with a tan and after thirty hours of yoga, looks and feels ten years younger. My brain, however, is still all over the place.

My bodyclock has reacted badly to the journey home and, since I am forcing myself to stay in bed until 5am and to not go to bed until 9pm, I look exhausted and wide-eyed. The bewildered face and ripped, bronze, torso are completely at odds with one another. I'm like a sexy zombie. Or a heroin-addicted underwear model.

I spent ten days without a telephone, email, Twitter and news. This is what we fashionistas call (and this is the blog than brought the word "Chillax" into mainstream parlance, remember) a Digital Detox.

After the simplicity of an island life, I am now struggling to step back into the complexity of my daily routine. It is very healthy to come back with an open mind and to re-assess your priorities but it takes a little adjustment. I am seeing the farm in a completely new light.

Anyway. I have a stack of phtos to share with you over the next few days and might upload a few after I've listened to Farming Today and eaten my porridge.

Out of Office Auto-Reply

2012-01-13T22:14:08Z

See you in a fortnight

Electric ELS

2012-01-13T17:08:34Z

ELS application. Done.

With the kind help of Niki from the RSPB, we were able to renew our Stewardship agreement in less than two hours yesterday (which included two cups of coffee and a Kitkat). We have spiced it up a bit by cutting down on field margins and adding managed Winter food crops, nesting habitats and pollen and nectar crops.

We learned a lot during the first five years of ELS; we became familiar with sparing land for conservation, we protected watercourses, we reduced the fertility of the uncropped areas and we began to measure the wildlife on the farm. We will be able to build on this dramatically now and I can't wait to see the impact on bird numbers in five years time.

Policy makers are very impatient about the pace at which these schemes deliver change. Business cultures are not changed in a few months. If our farm is any barometer of national farmer behaviour then there is much to positive about.

On another amusing note. We had our ELS features measured for a second time by the RPA in November. It took several days to complete the surveying. Today we received the results; we were 134 points short on some of the features but we had 100 too many on others. The upshot is that we will have £69 deducted from our payment. This took four visits and goodness knows how many days to calculate.

Wheels On

2012-01-10T18:46:21Z

These photos bring us more or less up to date with progress so far on the b414.

We are waiting for bits and pieces like a new wiring loom, a seat, lights and all of the badges and decals to arrive. They have been order from this company in Ireland. I heard my father on the phone to them today; he was having trouble understanding their Oirish brogue and they were having similar problems with Dad's Lincolnshire accent. Goodness only knows which parts will arrive.

You are also treated to a photo of my dog's bum, there. Had he stood in that spot any longer, he too would have been sprayed with International red along with the rest of the items in that corner of the workshop.

I have been doing other work today; I'm actually pretty busy. This is a side project.

We have also found a photo of my father sitting on this tractor in 1964 when he would have been 16. Funnily enough the photo was taken in the one location on the farm which is still completely recognisable. We are looking forward to re-staging the shoot in the same location (I say "We", Dad is not too keen on the idea at the minute but I think that he can be coaxed around).