For future reference for vegetables such as
#cauliflowers
&
#potatoes
as an example. If it’s more profitable for the farmer to grow a crop of wheat instead of these expensive to grow high risk crops that supermarkets don’t like paying a fair price for, he will grow wheat
#simple
Unless your lucky enough to have lots of spare capacity, the only way harvest gets done in a tricky year is to be fortunate enough to have people happy to work anti social hours when the weather allows. Tonight we’ve got 7 of them, while most people are sleeping.
#rewilding
, Some peoples dream, this is what you end up with. Not many birds like it, 6 species instead of 40. it’s been a good experiment alongside commercial mixed farming but if your buying land to improve for nature you’d be better mixed farming it, or let a farmer farm it.
Same oak tree 78 years apart, it’s grown but not as fast as costs. Machinery in 1947 £1100, adjusted for inflation £36,000 today. Wheat £19 ton then, now should be £600. Machinery today £700,000 and wheat £180. Madman maths
I feel even luckier than Chris. The milk I like, is produced with the uttermost care. It serves local communities with environmental and social responsibilities. I see the farms that produce it everyday, all locally. Even less than a flight away!
Cities across Germany are now overwhelmed by massive convoys of tractors and trucks, as the German farmers and truckers mass mobilise their protest against the German government. This is Stuttgart.
🇩🇪🚜
Sadly this young bull got in with a bigger one because of a countryside loving walker leaving two gates open. They didn’t bond! He’s found a lovely place to rest for a few days under a massive
#oak
THIS isn’t complicated. Egg farmers warned last April they couldn’t afford to restock at current feed prices unless
#supermarkets
paid more. Greenhouse businesses said they wouldn’t be growing
#tomatoes
,
#cucumbers
and
#peppers
without help with energy and being paid more.
Facts are facts, farmyard alive with swallows as it was 100 years ago. If the farming is the same mixed style and the buildings are left the same why wouldn’t they be there!? I fully understand why farmers convert buildings into houses, we are just lucky our landlords didn’t.
One of the few actual interviews with German farmers that gives all the reasons why they are protesting and have the full support of the country.
#food
🇩🇪 German farmer
@AnthonyLeeLsvD
tells me about the farmers’ uprising:
“We’re sick of the lies. We’ve been here for generations, we work 24/7, we’re the people who put food on your plates!
We are all united in getting rid of the politicians who are trying to get rid of us!” 🔥
You can have cheap food as we have for the last 30 years but you can’t have food below the cost of production for long. First pork now eggs. Next vegetables or beef?
Calf units are ready, 20 years thinking 2 years in planning 2 weeks building second one. Hopefully not 20 year payback but farming is a little unpredictable. Better for staff,calves, suppliers & customers, Got to make the most of opportunities because not everyone gets to.
Together with
@MetOffice
we have issued a yellow heat health alert for England, starting on Mon 24 June. Our updated data dashboard includes a heat health alert map with useful information and guidance for health & social care settings:
#WeatherAlert
Serious sparrows feeding between hedge and stubbles the cars on the road next to it would have no idea how the wildlife can thrive on the other side of the hedge.
#farming
#foodproduction
#birds
Final piece of the jigsaw. CFs profits up 45%, oil companies post record profits and Tesco report 2.7 billion . No room in the chain to reduce input costs or cushion impact to the consumer and farmer.
Inherent fertility from cows is interesting, 25 years since this was 2 fields, spilt by fence , one side grazed by 70 dairy cows in an arable rotation but still yields better or goes flat quicker to the line.
Article from APRIL warning of an egg shortage looming of supermarkets didn’t increase the price paid to the farmer. Ignore all the warnings and the shelves will slowly empty
Quality
#dairy
#angus
9 months old, born in
#sussex
,reared in sussex, grazed in sussex,fed barley from sussex all traceable but if you can buy it cheaper elsewhere in the world and burn carbon getting it here, why wouldn’t you?
#beef
#farming
Certainly not the only way to go, mixed farming is achieving the same across the country, certainly on farms that didn’t go purely in the pursuit of profit on the 80s so already had plenty of species to build on. Oh and of course mixed farming also feeds humans on scale!
Even if the demand and necessity for houses is genuine to use grade 1 land has to be stupidity beyond anyone’s predictions. The country is is predominantly low productive land and grade 1 is the rarity
The site for 2000 houses next to Westgate & Garlinge in Thanet. Land farmed for centuries. Grade 1 soil growing crops that feed us. It’s mad to concrete this while facing a changing climate where crops around the world are failing. We need our farmland!
#foodsecurity
#COP26
NO BUTTERFLIES? wish I could agree but this patch of thistle in a grazing field has clouds of them. What’s the biggest crime? To leave the unsightly thistles or top them of urgently?
Without leaving the yard in
#sussex
yesterday, 21 recorded bird species.
My concern is people are being brain washed into thinking the countryside is dead, some of the direct neighbours complain they never hear or see birds anymore! Head phones off, phones down,look,listen
#swallows
don’t always use this shed but they have nests in 3 others. How many sheds are left in
#sussex
like this for them to use? Many of them are full of people criticising farmers for destroying habitat and reducing swallow numbers!
Angus ready for loading out today, on average 18 kgs heavier than same month last year. 1.5% mortality of last 1170 calves reared. Considering the weather a massive credit to the team, their protocols & attention to detail feeding, along either best start from our dairy farmers
What amazes me is why is the roof of every new build house not covered in solar panels? Literally 100s of acres of new houses round here totalling 1000s of rooftops but no solar?
A hedge laid in 2022 with in hedge oaks left. picture2 hedge laid in 2002 with in hedge trees left, picture 3 that hedge in 2024 with decent sized trees. What farmers do today is really important, what they were doing before being told 20 years ago is now useful
#WorldWildlifeDay
To be clear it’s not far right it’s reality! Without subsidies or a price over COP People can’t invest in one of the most capital hungry businesses on earth, that also produces the occasionally needed thing of food!
Swallows are happy in here but the other open fronted shed that they nest in the magpies are raiding the nest.
So do we
1. Trap the magpies?
2. Try putting electric fence up to keep magpies out?
3. Leave it to nature and the strongest bird wins?
Vote below
10 years after trying to grow wheat on this heavy yellow clay, cattle of all breeds now happily spread out grazing after over 400 mm of rain this autumn, 35mm in last 48 hrs
All news today saying livestock farming causes global warming, so air travel is guaranteed to cause pollution and generate profit & livestock farming is guaranteed to produce food for humans and fertiliser for crops even vegan ones! Surely one is more necessary than the other?
If you say farmland birds are increasing or rewilding isn’t the golden bullet you get asked for scientific evidence to prove it, when it comes to the badger cull reducing tb and increase in hedgehogs the same people refuse the scientific evidence!?
#labour
#tb
#kierstarmer
If you forgot to sell your barley at £200, worry not. Get to Salisbury market this Tuesday for your chance to buy these barley conversion machines. Already on ground barley, ready to perform.
#beef
#storecattle
#rearedcalves
Good to see the shelves still fully stacked with these nutritious, naturally produced products. Maybe if supermarkets need a 15p loss leader these would be a good place to start.
Always nice to have some cattle in the old farmyard, very lucky our landlords let them remain as active farmyards not London yards & it shows the swallows who provided the food!
#farming
#food
Good article on the harvest problems across the country, but begs the question if climate change means more grain becomes animal feed and we get rid the animals to prevent climate change, who eats the feed quality grain?
These long term rough field corners are vital for birds like nightingales and turtle doves, on short term agreements nothing like this is achievable but with long term tenancies landlords and tenants can achieve so much more for the environment
@tenantfarmers
#farm24
It looks lovely, the bees, insects and birds love it but I’ve yet to find a human that can turn it into a mass produced meal for humans. Lucky the cows also love it and turn it into something millions can live on.
#farming
#wildflowers
#beef
A mob of cattle grazing alongside butterflies and insects a mix of grass & herbs, this field has always been a poor arable field but now produces quality safe food from grass with no inputs.
#farm24
@tenantfarmers
@FarmersGuardian
@Morrisons
While the farming critics sip their £5 coffee, Butterflies enjoying the work farmers across the country are doing. We need to accept to feed a growing population, farmers can grow huge amounts of food on the good arable ground and nearly all farmers leave poorer areas for nature
Another piece of the jigsaw is the rain water harvesting tanks turned up yesterday. Nothing worse than suffering from flooding one day and a huge water bill the next. On a tenanted farm these projects are only possible with long term tenancies.
#offgrid
#farm24
@tenantfarmers
Whether your eating preferences are carnivore, vegetarian, vegan or flexitarian if one of these holds you up on the road for ten minutes it produces much of your food for the next year. Wheat, oats, maize, barley, soya, linseed, quinoa, baked beans,sunflowers all are combined
Luckily we moved the cows up to high ground last night, the speed the water is coming in now & the noise is impressive, was all dry this morning till tide turned.
#flooding
#sussex
We cleaned out miles of ditches in winter 19. We deepened some of them by half a metre giving us 100s tons of spoil. This summer we pushed out the spoil and added top quality compost from a site less than a mile away. So far the results are impressive
Combine resting, surrounded by rooks, historically rooks were a farmers nightmare but seemed to go quiet for the last few decades. Recent years they are back with with serious numbers doing a lot of damage.
#harvest24
Before 7.30 left phone on post pin yard & 50 metres from farm yard it missed Egyptian goose, kingfisher, partridge, snipe and cuckoo but 40 species around modern productive farming says that farming isn’t the only problem? Facts are facts
#birds
#farming
#conservation
#food
As we expand the farm which is crucial to its future in the production of food and protection of wildlife we also make more space for nature. New facilities are good for our staff, suppliers and customers. We need to invest to keep improving and need a fair supply chain 1/2
The retardants that took our manitou last night weren’t clever enough to realise the ground was wet! Sadly they just managed to escape so if anyone sees a
#manitou
625 exceptionally muddy it’s ours! Probably long gone but you never know.
Shed is holding the perfect environment in
#StormCiara
a combination of
#galebreaker
and bales has kept it out so far! Can hear it roaring outside and see the space boarding at the end flexing!
#windy
Incredibly sad. working with contractors & seeing the pressures, farmers can do their bit. The way some think it’s acceptable to talk to contractors who’ve broken down or threaten to lose work to someone who’s a few pence cheaper after they’ve financed machinery, doesn’t help
Very sad to hear that a young contractor in Wiltshire has taken his life. There are lots of stresses & strains, compounded by many hours working alone. Please just pick up the phone or catch up with one friend, ask them how they are and share the load. We've got to work on this.
Winter wheat on yellow clay after 2 of the wettest months we’ve ever recorded. Had our share of patchy crops on it but 10 years of compost & fym it’s survived this one so far.
#worms
#livestock
#mixedfarming