"To Spray or Not to Spray?"-That is the Question

We have just completed the Health and Harmony consultation organised by Secretary of State for DEFRA Michael Gove where we were asked to put forward our views about the new Agricultural system post Brexit. There was a lot of noise and gesturing from many sides of the argument about what our country side should and must produce. Very sadly the words 'Food Production' were missing from the initial phases of the conversation and ultimately this is only part of the argument. Our ever shrinking and ever compromised countryside has and can produce a wide range of 'public goods' It can provide, food, environmental benefits, jobs, clean air and water, it can provide habitat and food not just for people but also for our wildlife, but it needs a balanced approach.
Lets also be clear that between 2006-2012, 224,200 Ha was developed in the UK (Professor Heiko Balzter-Leicester Uni) for infrastructure, roads, rail, houses, golf courses and wind turbine's. This squeezes the natural world into smaller and smaller segments. More people in the countryside, more disturbance means less wildlife. This was observed in the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak when public rights of way were closed during the breeding season and farmland bird numbers rose.
This blog isn't a piece about how we should be supporting farmers to produce food.  It is about supporting farmers to provide what many are already doing-a balance of environmental resilience, economic return and healthier foods. But this way of farming does not come without its risks and sometime for no reward and this Michael Gove, if you are reading this, is where farmers who are doing the right things need support. Let me give you a scenario.

We are a notill farm cropping arable crops and this spring has been the wettest and coldest for a long time, but this farming that's in our bloody, we know the risks. One of the challenges we have set ourselves as LEAF farmers is to reduce our impact on the environment and I have set a challenge to not use insecticides on the farm. The theory being that natural predators will increase with the habitat we have created and help us control pests when they appear. Great in theory but here is a dilemma in some spring sown Linseed.

Linseed with Flax Beetle Damage- Photo from David Miller

The notches you can see are being caused by the flax beetle, (one visible top half toward the right) of which there is no seed dressing to control (not a neonicotinoid solution in this case). We use an economic threshold of 3 beetles in a 5cm row of crop to assess the economic return to make the case for spraying field wide insecticide. Out of stubbornness; I don't want to use insecticides, I try to turn a blind eye to this economic threshold, and environmentally we want to do the right thing. If we don't spray then the plant population could be reduced by 50% and the seed yield at the end of the day will be less than half. This is because fewer plants will be less competitive to weeds, loose vigour and so yield suffers a disproportional reduction. Linseed is worth £375/tonne and has a target yield of 2.25t/Ha, meaning this field (7.5ha) could loose over £3,500 in income (1.25t/Ha @£375/tonne), for a treatment and application cost of £75. (whole field). The economic argument is obviously very clear if you were Mr Hammond sitting in the treasury Dept the decision would be very easy. Are there some alternatives to spraying?
We as a LEAF farmers, as many other farmers do something called IPM (Integrated Pest Management) which encourages us to use lots of other options before resorting to a chemical solution. In the case of this field this meant looking at some options ahead of spraying, including:

1. A long rotation (never grown Linseed here before),
2. Increasing seed rate, to compensate for some pest damage,
3. Planting when soil temperatures are warm, (to enable the crop to establish evenly and quickly), 
4. Using no-till techniques to avoid the soil drying out (reducing establishment),
5. Removing weeds before we plant to reduce competition.

We want to farm without insecticides in the hope (and others experiences) that in the long term the build up of natural pests and predators will balance out but in the short term we need an economic return or we won't make it to the long term goal.
You can't look after the green if you are farming in the red and who pays the price for using less pesticides? At the moment the farmer carries all of the risk which if society wants us to use less artificial inputs then the reward must be greater to be able us to handle these losses. Alternatively the imports of food coming into the country must adhere to the same standards. If that's the case then currently we should not be importing any Soya beans (protein source) or Maize (corn) products from the United States as the majority are grown using plant breeding techniques not allowed in the UK and Europe and are treated with many agro-chemicals that, although safe, are not licensed in the EU.

It's a complex path that we have to tread in order to not disadvantage any UK farmers in the future. Maybe as a result of the Health and Harmony Consultation a no insecticide commitment by the farmer should be rewarded with suitable compensation for crop losses to ensure better biodiversity whilst keeping farmers in business?

Just for information the field was sprayed with a heavy heart last Thursday.

Nuffield Pre Contemporary Conference - London

What a day we had yesterday (Friday 8^th March), with a real mixed bag of presentations and discussion.  Our morning started with a walk from the Union Jack Club to the treasury where we were met by Brendan Bailey (Head of Structural Reform Branch).  The presentation he gave us was a mixed bag of slides telling the story of the main aspects that were important to the treasury, namely Policy Interest, Food Security, Economic and Financial costs, the change in food prices and Ag trade barriers.  One thing that was really drummed home to us was the massive competition from the far East and especially China and India.  We learnt that China and India produce 1/3 of the worlds grain.

Our second meeting (in three different rooms), was a fantastic presentation by Allan Wilkinson, Head of Agriculture at HSBC.  Allan’s presentation was engaging, knowledgable, thought provoking, challenging (he said it would be) and it got lots of discussion going.  These discussion continued through the day and into the evening.

After lunch we headed across to DEFRA, (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), not no Agriculture, where after security checks we headed upstairs for a meeting with Martin Nesbit (Director of European Union and International DEFRA).  Here we discussed, quite heatedly a range of subjects but mainly the implications of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the new measures that could potentially affect all of our farming businesses for the next 7 years.  The CAP in effect will be cut so farmers will be receiving less support in the future through direct payments (Pillar 1) or indirect environmental support payments (Pillar 2).  It was very interesting to hear and talk about how the UK farmers will be effected by some of the new measures more than some of our European farming cousins.  Following the meeting we even got mentioned in a tweet from Martin, which was actually rather pleasing!

After Martin we popped next door, literally, to meet up with Matthew Ward from the London National Farmers Union (NFU) Office and Peter Kendall  the NFU President.  Here we heard about the lobbying work that takes place on the industries behalf by the team in London (and Brussels).  ONe of the major points that came across from the afternoon meeting Peter was the need to continue of efforts in educating the general public, our customers about farming and engaging them to take more interest in their food production system, buy local and buy British. 

Another message we drew form the whole day was the lack of a joined up sustainable plan to take our Agricultural Industry forward, at a time when global food issues will start to affect our food supply, this was something that was not deemed important by one of our speakers today.  Food security is a global issue, not a UK issue and to me that opinion is flawed, shortsighted and arrogant.  A plan will need to be 20 years in duration, covering the whole industry from planning to public perception to the environment, bio-security, biodiversity, food supply chain issues and many others.  This strategy needs to be wide ranging; cover many governmental departments and should ultimately be steered by our government.

What a very challenging day it was.  Now it’s off to Heathrow for the flight to Toronto and the Contemporary Scholars Conference!

Absent Blogger

Apologies for the month long absence from the blogging Farmer Jake. I have spent most of the first half of May completing the dreaded SP5 form required by DEFRA. Single Payment 5 forms are required by DEFRA in order for us to receive our European compensation. These have a very strict deadline of the 15th May, ingrained into arable farmers minds since 1991 when the first schemes were created. We have to inform DEFRA what crops we are growing, where they are, (each field has a national grid reference) and what the total areas claimed are likely to be. In addition to this where we are growing crops with protein supliment (beans and peas) or where we are growing crops under energy rules all have to be divided up separately. It is a little confusing but worth filling them in! Since then May has turned wet which helped out our droughty crops and held off us irrigating the potatoes. The new irrigation system worked well for a day then, the only part of the old system we didn't change failed, causing a few headaches for a couple of days. All sorted now! (Henry's sigh of relief could be heard from Ross!)

Farm Sunday is rapidly approaching, we're booking up fast but there are places of the 9.00 trip, worth getting up for and seeing the countryside waking up! Fresher By Miles will be launching in Overbury and the surrounding villages on the day some come along and see what local goodies are available for sale, freshly grown within 30miles from Badsey. Some prices are cheaper than Tesco's at the moment! Check out http://www.fresherbymiles.com

Wet and Wild!

What an end to the year, wet and wild, no not another instalment from America but the weather. It was a strange year with 693mm of rain. Monthly variances ranged from 6.6mm (Jan) and 118mm (May and most of that came in 4 days!) The total was about average but the variation in monthly totals was bizzar! The wettest year since 1990 was in 2000 with 873mm and the driest was in 1996 when 458mm fell, so we were about average in 2006.

These are some of the lambs being fed outdoors between Christmas and New Year, just after a very wet night! They are not happy but putting down some straw put a spring back in their steps. The turnips are running out and as a result we have taken 350 lambs to rear indoors on purchased feed, to ease the pressure of the home grown forage. They should start to be ready to sell from early January onwards.

It's time for a New Years Resolution I guess and it would have to be to remain calm whilst talking to the DEFRA helpline (LOL), about, well anything really! Those of you who have experienced this phenomena will know that the chances of keeping this resolution are, to say the least slim and....I know it's not the person on the end of the telephone's fault, and I know the help books are written backwards, inside out and cross referenced beyond belief, and I also know that the computer always says NO! But lets be optimistic at least until the end of the month!