#Forageaid To Flooded Somerset

On Saturday 8th February, after a few frantic phone calls with the Nation Farmers Union, based in the South West of England we were ready to swing into action.  Everybody will have witnessed the long period of devastation the flooding on the Somerset Levels has caused farmers and home owners; for a period of almost 6 weeks.  Livestock are being moved from flooded farmyards, to higher ground or to livestock markets for their safety.  Access to forage is becoming a problem for these farmers, at home but also for those who's livestock are spread around the countryside.  Much of the forage, made during the summer is underwater and will not be safe to feed to livestock even if they could be reached.

We were more than happy to donate over 80 bales of hay to the crisis down on the Somerset Levels.  We are very grateful to all of the hauliers that are donating their lorries, fuel and labour to help supply feed to the animals in Somerset.  Our feed was transported to the Sedgemoor Livestock Market with hauliers from Walsall in the West Midlands D.E.O'Reilly 

The Somerset Levels have been managed by draining and ditching since days of the Roman Empire.  The most recent drainage scheme was introduced by the Dutch in the 17th Century and have been managed to control the water levels ever since (at least until the late 1990's).  The whole area of about 70,000Ha is very flat, below high tide levels and was once covered by the sea (up until 4500BC). It is not uncommon for this area to flood but the long period of flooding is causing real issues.  The management of the main water courses has changed and water is now much slower to drain out to sea.  Silting up of the rivers since the mid 1990's has reduced the water carrying capacity of the main rivers (Tone and Parrett) to about 60% of their maximum carrying capacity (EA modelling).  This means water backs up and floods the levels and can't feed back into the rivers as the high banks carry the river levels higher than the surrounding farmland.  The cost to farmers and house owners, who's properties have flooded is vast.  Fields of grass will not recover from being under water for this length of time and will need to be resown in the spring, (or whenever the land dries out enough). Management through the ages has allowed the area to drain providing productive agricultural land.  This land is the home many thousands of cattle many of whom are having to be evacuated to higher ground, leaving behind their forage (food) supplies.  Hence the need for the farming community across the country to get involved and send them supplies of hay, silage and feed.  The National Farmers Union is co-ordinaing the supply of forage to the Somerset area, click on the link highlighted above to see if you are able to help, or you are a farmer in need of supplies.

Getting The Job Wrapped Up

So far this year our silage making has been well timed and the sun and wind has helped dry out the cut grass nicely.  For the last two years I have been using a local contractor to come and do the baling and the wrapping.  Our old equipment means the whole team has to be turned out in order to get the job done.  Derek would be baling, a couple of people carting the bales back to the yard where they would be wrapped and then stacked.  Now with a little planning we can get Nigel to bale and wrap in one pass. 

He's actually using the same amount of fuel doing the two jobs at once than he was just doing the baling.  It helps our carbon footprint as farmers.  Tomorrow we will get the trailers out and carefully carry the bales back to the farm and stack them up.  We will treat them as eggs so that the plastic does not get ripped.  The plastic seals in the bale which turns anaerobic pickling the grass into silage or a slightly drier product more suited to sheep called hayledge.  The plastic will remain on the bales until they are used in the winter to feed the sheep.  Once removed the plastic is stored and then sent for re-cycling as part of our commitment to the environment as per the requirements for the LEAF Marque  Using two different colours of wrap the bales look like one of my favourite sweets, can you guess which ones?

Click HERE to the link of the baler/wrapper combo in operation, it really is an amazing bit of farm machinery

Silage Wrapped Up

Following the grass being cut, the grass swath is spread out in the sun to dry. When dried to the correct level it is gathered together into long rows that the baler can follow. This makes it an efficient way of collecting the grass and wrapping it up. The baler and wrapper is a very new piece of nachinery allowing both operations to be completed by one machine.