Subscribers' Newsletter July 2011

May: ISSUE 20-1, published May 8. Changes to the magazine cover have gone down well with farmers and other magazine designers - some even emailed us with their approval!

May: GRASS & MUCK, Stoneleigh  May 18

With minimal crops it was difficult to assess forager and mower performance. I was looking for, and found, some machinery that would do the job cheaper, but most companies were parading ever larger more expensive, high capacity machines. The economics of running these monsters is hard to grasp, and I am still not certain about the effectiveness of clamping when loads are coming in so quickly. I bumped into Hugh Turley from N Ireland, a reader who has sent brilliant forager ideas for  previous issues, and we both looked at the unacceptable level of waste left by the rakes - in some swaths it must have been at least 5%, a lot to leave behind.

The new Farm Safety Charter was launched at Grass & Muck by all the major farming organisations, including CLA. I contacted their Welsh President, William Worsley, who "pledged to improve the safety record of people working in agriculture.. (press release dated Wed 18 May). Having had a practical interest in the subject for many years, and creating a Child Safety on the Farm leaflet, I suggested they promote some practical ideas, such as fixing beacon masts to road going ATVs, using home made spike guards and many other ideas we have published in past issues. Should I be surprised at getting no response? So much for 'pledges'. I’ll need to try harder to interest them in promoting these ideas.

June: CEREALS

Again, the demo part was hardly taxing or, in many ways, very informative, though it's always good to see kit in action. The PFI Arable Expert, who grows cereals on the Lincolnshire fens, decided to replace his Bateman drill with a modern multi-stage tine machine, and we went through his research and decision processes, which are revealed in full in the forthcoming issue. Choosing the right machine involves a number of issues which, as all machinery buyers know, are often in conflict (I want a bigger machine, but I need it to be less heavy... I want something more complex, but want to pay less money). The drill he bought will be delivered in January next year, in good time to get inside the new Capital Allowance limits which will have a considerable effect on the cost of new machinery - see below.

I had a good meeting with a LloydsTSB agricultural advisor and was surprised to learn the size of their farming department, centred in Bristol. She had never seen our magazine, and thought it would be useful for the staff, who spend much of their time visiting farms and assessing the viability of projects.
I met with Gary Markham, the partner in Grant Thornton Accountants who heads their agricultural team, and we talked about the effects of high cereal prices. Tax Planning, he said, was a necessity for cereal growers, and it was alarming how few have taken an interest in the subject. This was particularly interesting to me, as I was invited to the Chartered Accountants Farming and Rural Business Group annual conference in July. (see below)

June: WWW.FARMIDEAS.CO.UK

Since the start of the year I have had Ben Wheeler of Beach Software in Swansea rebuilding the magazine website, and at the end of the month the work, though not complete, was deemed ready to go live. The new site offers an extra dimension, in as much as individual articles from back issues can be instantly downloaded. At present, the number is a paltry few dozen, but when time permits more will be uploaded. The downloads are 99p, and there's a new free one every month. The internet can become too great a focus and I am constantly having to remind myself that not all farmers are stuck in front of their computers all day, but are doing other far more useful and important jobs, like dagging sheep, baling straw, milking cows and drying grain. For many, the post and paper PFI is the way they like it.

Farm Visits: HEREFORD While I occasionally meet farmers whose business progresses on an even path, many, indeed most, have to make U turns and changes in direction over the years. We visit a farmer whose potato enterprise has been considerably reduced, and whose main work is now contracting, both with his potato equipment and other kit. A qualified ag engineer, he's built some very interesting machinery. Converting artic step trailers for ag use has involved fitting sprung drawbars, and he has done some to his own design, which he drew up having experienced the deficiencies of some manufactured ones. Novel machines include a potato weeder for organic crops, and a beautifully designed square bale squeeze.


LINCOLNSHIRE Some of the most interesting and valuable workshop projects are the smallest, and on this visit I discovered a simple way to make a mobile drill press for a Wolf type power drill. One which enables the user to drill holes through heavy steel that’s in situ - girders, cross members, purlins in buildings, and machinery. This guy drilled a few thousand awkward holes to fix walling in a new grain store - and was drilling them as fast as his mates (one inside the shed, one out) could fix the nuts and bolts.

July: CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS FARM AND RURAL BUSINESS CONFERENCE
Tax issues are becoming of increasing importance in farming. For example, the change in Capital Allowances from April 2012 from £100,000 to £25,000 may be widely known about, but do all farmers know what this is going to mean in practice, and what they need to think about doing well before the date? Similarly, people are well aware of the differences in taxation between sole traders and limited companies, but here again the actual figures are not so readily found. Company directors will take loans from the business, and these needed to be reconciled to avoid lodging funds with the Revenue until such time as the loans are paid off - but what are the alternatives? Farm vehicles are a favourite topic - should they be owned by the company or the individual? Here are just a few tax planning issues raised at this conference which we enlarge in the Financial Focus feature in the next issue.



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Could mega-farms compromise food security?

Why food security is best served by a large number of smaller operators.

Is it feasible the problems of Southern Cross care homes could be replicated in other sectors, including that of food production and farming?

The effects of sophisticated financing, lease-back, equity swaps, leveraged loan syndication, off-shore interests and ownership, and other structured financial products allows the big to get bigger, and in time reach a critical mass which means the decisions they take, or which are forced on them, liable to have a profound effect on the supply of the essential goods. In the case of Southern Cross, it's care for the elderly. Allow the same development in food production, it could be milk, meat, or cereals. 

In this article I look at the milk industry, its recent history and the direction it might possibly take. Dairy farming has been under huge stress for a decade and more, and the longer this continues the greater the likelihood of some major adverse event - the branch of the tree will snap under the strain. 

Practical Farm Ideas      Helping farmers improve safety for workers and children        Special Farm Energy Issue    

The dairy industry is a fundamental corner of UK agriculture. It supplies a vital ingredient for the food trade, both as liquid milk and milk products. It provides a significant proportion of the feed-stock of the beef industry, through beef cross and dairy bull calves. It is a major customer for the arable sector, providing a market for feed grains and also by-products such as  beet pulp, pot ale syrup etc. The dairy industry, in addition, has a valuable and world beating breeding arm, producing globally important dairy genetics. Finally, it should be remembered that it supports an engineering business, for milking equipment, forage machinery and preservatives including silage additives and silage film. 

Despite its size and importance, the present situation in the UK milk market is not, to use an overworked work 'sustainable'. The dairy industry in the UK is living on borrowed time, propped up by a cohort of farmers who continue to eke a living from their loss making businesses. The return they are getting on the capital invested is risible. They work long hours, and with livestock in their charge have greater responsibilities than those farming crops, in terms of health and welfare. 

Since the end of the MMB and it's central pricing system the market has been in turmoil. The milk business is increasingly in the hands of a small number of major multiples who exert their market power through processors and the farmers co-operatives. The result has been a contraction in milk price, forcing many dairy farmers out while a smaller number have expanded. National milk production has decreased, so that today output is approx 1bn litres below the quota threshold set in 1992. 

The milk price squeeze has meant the size of the smallest viable herd size has continuously increased. Many farmers see the only defence against decreasing margins is to expand the number of cows. While proposed 8,000 cow herds hit the headlines, gaining criticism from press and welfare organisations, a third of dairy farmers (2010 DairyCo Farmer Intentions Survey) were looking to increase production over 2010 - two-thirds were either staying the same or getting out.  

Running large herds is far from plain sailing, both from a cow welfare and an environmental point of view. Keeping cows in conditions so far removed from the traditional poses real fundamental moral questions. Should market forces, in an advanced and wealthy economy, be permitted to dictate such fundamental changes to the way animals such a dairy cows are kept? Is it progress to have a significant part of the national herd under cover 365 days a year, being looked after in conditions similar to battery hens? The UK dairy cow is currently on an inexorable march towards 50% being all-year housed within a decade or two, and the driver for this move is the decreasing milk price. Dairy farmers will adapt and adopt the measures it takes to stay in business, which, in today's perspective is to satisfy the demands of the supermarket consumer through a milk supply sourced at its cheapest. 

This is the dairy farmer's side of the equation. On the buyers side, the market is highly competitive. Milk buyers in the major multiples are not concerned with anything other than the price, quality and delivery of the deal they are making, and the processors and co-ops who they buy from are always in a poor bargaining position. They have a product with a short shelf life which has to find a market. Buyers have come to realise that sellers can be held over a barrel in terms of both time and contract details, all which improves their margins. As the food industry adopts the 'Just in time' techniques of other manufacturers, so buyers can wait to the last minute before finding a load that's looking for a buyer. 

In economic terms, buyers are paying little more than the marginal costs of production for much of their milk, and any industry which works on this basis is facing either long term decline or a major adjustment in trading terms.

The oil industry has distributors with no refining capacity - companies that buy petrol when it's a bargain and sell at a cut price. But the bulk of the fuel business is controlled by companies with processes that require a steady flow  -  refineries, transport and storage and distribution for a wide range of products. These main companies have basic requirements of raw material which need long term and sustainable contracts. 

In the milk industry the belief is that the goose will continue to lay golden eggs, even if she has to continue to give them away - but it won't last. As the next tranche of smaller dairy farmers - those with 80 to 160 cows - throw in the towel, so national production will drop another 1bn litres. Processors will be looking for milk, and, when it's not there, will respond by closing factories temporarily and then permanently. The dairy industry itself becomes increasingly uncompetitive with continental companies, who then become an even greater source of supply to the UK supermarket and their customers. 

The expectation is that a sufficient number of dairy farmers will take on major investments to create super sized herds run on battery hen lines. These farmers face a fine balancing act. There will always be a major risk of increases in interest rates, as their percentage of borrowed capital will be many times that of the smaller family unit. The super herds will be operated by specialist workers rather than the omni-skilled farm workers of today. 

This scenario will involve considerable pain and turmoil for those involved. Many of the retirees will leave dairy farming with few assets. Others will fail to make the leap from 250 to 1,000 cows, through management or financial problems. And there are the cows themselves to consider. Will the Great British public, which after all forced protection on the wild fox and the badger, which abhor and legislate on the puppy farming business, stand by and let the domesticated Daisy and Buttercup become complete units of production which never see the sun, lie in a field, get their tongue around a hank of grass? 

Milk prices need to be changed so they provide an honest income for honest producers. Dairy farmers need a sustainable reward for their core production, and this is true not in Britain alone, but throughout the EU, for the same situation exists in every milk producing country. The system must not be allowed to be exploited by brokers and middle men who deal in 'entitlements' or other forms of paper, for this leads to poverty in the exact sector which is in greatest need of protection. 

There are examples where such schemes have worked well - such as the sugar beet regime. Their problems concerning competitiveness with the Caribbean cane growers does not happen in milk. Our trading difficulties and ties with New Zealand and Australia seem to have waned in recent years. 

Some basic reorganisation to halt the decline of family farms has long term benefits for the world population as a whole. Family farms need men as well as machines, so populations are likely to be dissuaded from moving to the city, as has been the case in virtually every country, developed and undeveloped in the world. Family farms are diverse in production, create more wealth per acre, cater for local needs and supplies, reduce transport, storage and refrigeration costs of food, add to diversity both of diet and production systems. While involvement of the major international corporations involved in food is curtailed, the likes of Cargill, Monsanto, Bayer; WallMart, Tesco and Carrfour  and others will still have a sizeable cherry on which to bite. 

If the world is looking for a more sustainable source of food, it's leaders need to be looking at the smaller farmer as well as agri-business. 

It is of course inconceivable that a single dairy production company would get as large a share of the business as Southern Cross has in the care market. But concentrating production into herds of 1,000 plus cows is now not such a remote idea, and these farms can themselves merge into larger groups, using sophisticated finance such as we have seen in other industries. 

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A bad week for meat

A bad week for meat

April Dembosky, writing in this weekend's Financial Times, reports that the spectators at the Super Bowl will be munching baby carrots and baked lentil crisps instead of the normal fare of fat in chips and burgers. The demand for "healthy" snacks and food in the USA is growing fast, and one in four snacks now has a label saying it's a "better for you" product.
Pepi-owned Frito-Lay says that by the end of the year half their snacks will contain only natural ingredients - they are following the speciality food sector making crisps and other snack products from lentils, falfel, hummus and beans.

Meanwhile, the #1 book on Amazon has been Kathy Freson's new title - Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World. It details the physical and environmental benefits of a vegan diet in shocking and compelling terms.

Here's an excerpt from an interview on the top news Website, Huffington Post. Click

Interviewer CE: Tell us a little about the phenomenon of disease reversal that you explore in your book.

KF: Substantial peer reviewed studies indicate that some cancers are not only halted but can be reversed by a plant-based diet. That's very exciting. But even more accepted is the fact that heart disease can be halted and reversed by a vegan diet. And type 2 diabetes can be reversed in a matter of weeks. You can get off your medication, under a doctor's supervision of course.
    Weight begins to drop after just 1 week on a vegan diet. Your thermogenic levels go up after 3 weeks, which means you're getting a 16% higher calorie burn after eating a vegan versus a meat-based diet. Plus of course you're getting the fiber -- so you won't feel the need to overeat. Plus there's no saturated fat in vegetables. There are just so many health benefits to a veggie-based diet.

CE: Do you consider the environmental effects?

KF: Absolutely. It's a complex issue, but to put it briefly: raising animals for food is the primary cause of: land degradation, air pollution, water shortage and climate change. If we care about the planet, then eating vegan is an excellent step we can all take.

CE: Tell us what was the most shocking thing you learned in researching this book?

KF: I'd have to say what's happening to animals every single second. 10 billion animals are killed every year in the U.S. And 60 billion worldwide. Although the industry says it's moving towards more humane practices, 9 of 10 animals killed are birds. They don't have humane slaughterhouses. They're crammed in cages, live in near darkness, pumped with antibiotics. I just think it's shocking. So many of us simply don't know the truth.
    Eating a vegan diet is the most direct way we can put into practice values like kindness, compassion and mercy. When we eat consciously, we're automatically following those values.

If that wasn't enough to cut national meat consumption, celebrity host Oprah Winfrey decides to focus on the same theme in this, the final season of her long running TV show. Oprah challenged 378 of her staff members to join her in going vegan for a week. The results are posted on the Winfrey site, and viewers get to see healthy people who have lost weight and feel great as a result.

Oprah Winfrey wields huge influence. The consequence is that many businesses in America are planning to get on the bandwagon and have their bosses offer staff the same challenge, on the basis that it will inspire workers to live healthier, and hence more productive lives.

The American beef industry hasn't stood still. Cargill have created a video on meat.   It starts with a visit to the Timmerman Feeding feedlot at La Salle, Colorado, which has 12,000 cattle each putting on about 3lbs of weight per day. The film shows them in a blizzard, with snow on their backs and some inches of slurry round their feet. It then goes on to show them being transported to the Cargill Meat Solutions plant at Fort Morgan, Colarado, which takes in 4,500 head a day in 140 truckloads. Cargill had the courage to allow filming all aspects of the job, apart from the actual captive bolt operation.

Neither the BBC or ITV have an Oprah Whitney, but the country certainly has an increasing number of vegetarians and vegans, many with a passion and commitment sufficient to influence and agitate. Could they demand prime broadcast time to match that provided each week on Countryfile? Or demand that their beliefs need a similar airing to those chefs who create meat dishes? That being vegetarian or vegan is actually an 'ism' or belief and not simply a quirky dietary practice.

The UK meat industry needs to plan for such eventualities, for if they don't they will be caught napping. Farmers' groups need to study the Oprah slaughterhouse video. They need discover the results, and assess the effect of such a film on UK audiences. If something similar was shown from a UK slaughterhouse, would the reaction be positive - 'okay, I've seen how livestock are slaughtered and prepared and now know it's humane and acceptable', or the reverse 'I've never seen anything so gross in all my life'.

The question is - should the UK meat industry become pro-active or not?  Please let me know your thoughts.

Farmers Feeling Flush

Well, a little more, anyway. Over £1 billion has been added to farmers' bank accounts from the first tranche of Farm Payments paid Dec 1, which is an average of £12,500 for the 80,000 farmers who have had their payments.  There are more payments to come, when the calculations have been finalised.

The $64,000 question is how long the SFP system is likely to continue. A recent document  by the European Commission titled 'The CAP towards 2020: meeting the food, natural resource and territorial challenges of the future', has 13 pages that spell out the parameters for the future. The document raises the relevant issues concerning farming and the countryside, but does so in isolation from the global picture. That picture is focussed on debt, currencies, inflation, and the stability of the euro.

Tomorrow's issues
So issues such as climate change, global food demand, security, and declining farm and rural incomes all get a say, but there's nothing about the fundamental issue of financing and the burden on the German economy, nothing about the banking crisis and how this is affecting the EU budget, about the level of Member State borrowing, unemployment, the continued threat of recession, social consequences, 'fairness' (a popular word in politics these days) and the need of sectors other than agriculture to have support.

Yesterday's concerns
The political drivers of the Common Agricultural Policy were the ration cards in post war Europe, the food supply ships and convoys of WW2, and the relative starvation of many parts of the EU during the 50s and even 60s. As these concerns have receded in the public's mind, to be replaced by issues such as  obesity and health, so the agricultural policy of the EU has shifted to environmental issues, rural social problems. Payments to farmers and landowners are for environmental stewardship rather than food production. But it remains unclear just  how effective these measures have been. Surveys of natural birds and insects show no great increase in numbers, despite the huge funds made available, and the question is whether these funds are being wisely applied to the problem.

Political realities
Read the document and it appears to have been written in a vacuum, an agri-bubble that is divorced from where the money might be coming from and, perhaps, the needs and desires of those 'taxpayers' providing it.
The 13 pages might be seen as a last gasp of a regime which is finding it harder to justify its actions. Which leads us to a possible scenario of more rapid change and reform. Some believe there will be a major change in CAP after 2013, perhaps a complete abolition of market and income support. Others see farmers as getting basic income support from the EU, with an icing of environmental payments. These will hardly be to the liking of the CLA and others who have favoured the way this report looks at food and environmental challenges.

Farming concerns
Farming is a long term business which needs long term planning. Being highly capitalised, farming looks for long term funding, and so needs openness: from politicians, government departments, administrators. There's a weariness among farmers about reports which curry the farming vote, but fail to deliver. The older generation will remember the much heralded ' Food from our own Resources' report of the 1970's which provided the impetus for expansion - but failed to help farmers ride the financial crisis that shortly followed.

Fair trading
Give farmers the choice of either selling to a fair market and getting no taxpayers' money, or having a paltry income at prices which have remain unchanged for 12 years and more which is made up with government hand-outs, and the fair market wins every time. There's greater pleasure gained in an honest penny that one which has been wrested from the tax payer, processed and paid out in some kind of subsidy.
Creating fair markets, providing the thousands of farmers who produce the cereal, meat, milk, vegetables bought by a handful of buyers requires some basic rules.
Juggernaughts have to obey the rules of the road, and the giants of retailing and grocery distribution need to be bound by equivalent rules. 

Practical Farm Ideas says - "Be Prepared"
In the Financial Focus column of the current issue of Practical Farm Ideas, editor Mike Donovan spells out the dangers of taking no notice of the wider economic framework. The economic theories discussed in ivory towers resolve themselves on actual farms. There's an uncanny link between alterations in government and EU policy and the accounts and incomes of the thousands of people who make up the farming industry.
There's a huge impact from the current CAP on farming accounts. 
Looking at the massive machinery on show last week in Herning, Denmark, at the AgroMek show, I couldn't help but remember that much of this is being bought on the back of a generous farm payment system, which costs the EU some €45 billion. That's in the same ballpark as the funds needed to bail out a country like Ireland, or Greece. Money which could save the euro and give strength to the whole European project.

Where change comes from
It's not the farm unions or the government departments covering farming which will be the arbiters of change. For them, and all who ride alongside, the state of the present applecart is okay. The need is to look outside, to listen and read the opinions of others in influence, or who try to influence. Yes, they know nothing about farming, have no idea of its difficulties. But they see figures, compare costs, mentally redistribute payments...   and they have influence. These are the people we need on the conference podium.

Further reading:






 http://www.farmideas.co.uk/online_shop_p.php?product=144

http://www.reformthecap.eu/blog/sfp-phase-out-options  

and 

http://www.reformthecap.eu/node/421

World food production is way short of any practical ceiling

High profile scientists and economists have predicted a starving world, detailing problems but few solutions. This article suggests that the solutions are being developed a the same time as the academics pronounce their predictions of "blood in the streets" and "perfect storms". Farmers are responsive to changes in demand and supply, and agri-science and positive politics can make a huge difference - without the kind of financial support directed towards those farming in Europe. 

Find out more about Practical Farm Ideas magazine

Productive land lies idle throughout the developed world. Owners don't see a sufficient return from cropping, and are happy for their acres, which over recent decades have had a tendency to increase in value, being a store of wealth and capital. In addition, farmland is a place which provides leisure activities and an enviable life style. That's why so many high earners are also farmers.

Farming in the developing world is divided into the subsistence, small scale and big agri-business. Each is capable of far greater levels of production given the right inputs such as political will, education and capital investment. Without this we find that breadbaskets like Zimbabwe have become agricultural deserts, and land areas in Eastern Europe is effectively abandoned. Here we find production diminished from what it was 20 years ago. Yet countries such as Brazil have moved from peasant to high-tech, and the increased output means they join the world's major agri exporters. Brazilian grain production has increased from 80m tonnes in 2000 to 150m t in 2010. It's ranked world #1 for orange juice, coffee and sugar production as well as beef and chicken exports, world #2 in soyabeans, beef production, maize exports. Farm subsidies accounted for 5.7% of total farm income in Brazil in 2005-07, which compares with 12% in the USA and 29% in the EU. Farm productivity has not been associated with de-forestation, but almost entirely with neutralising the acid soils of the cerrado, farm research, particularly in grassland production through cross breeding native greasses with the brachiaria from Africa, and by turning soyabeans into a tropical crop. Brazil has worked hard at no-till cultivations, which no grow more than 50% of the grain crop. Mixing arable with livestock and forest produces a farming system that keeps in balance without major chemical intervention. 

Spikes in farm commodity prices occur as a result of increased demand from new entrants into the food market as well as traditional buyers. The new entrants, call them investors, speculators, are rarely interested in the delivery of the commodity they are buying, and there's no spike in demand from people holding out their bowls for food aid, and little from the housewife pushing her Tesco trolley. But when investors see the price of a commodity 'moving north' to use the current City parlance, and they see good reasons why a short term marginal shortage might happen - they pile in, buying commodities on futures contracts. Companies set up and market funds which sell the concept to the punter in the street, creating further demand - not for the physical commodity but the 'uplift'.

Actual farmers producing these commodities have to time their marketing efforts to catch these waves and avoid the troughs which happen in between. So in 2010, farmers who have sold this season's grain forward will have missed the peak of the wave - and the decision in their minds now is how long the swell will last. Should they sell forward at today's price, or, they ask, is there a bigger peak to come in a few months time? Unlike the speculator, who can move funds out of wheat and into gold at the click of a mouse, the farmer is stuck with grain to sell.

In a recent BBC radio interview Professor Lang from the City University predicted "riots and blood on the streets" in a world which became increasingly hungry due to a "perfect storm" where food supplies are limited while the world population expands out of control. Others have been there before him. In 1967 the celebrated economist Paul Ehrlich said "the battle to feed all of humanity is over" and forecast that in the 1970s and 1980s 'hundreds of millions of people would starve to death". In 1972 the influential Club of Rome said the world was running out of resources and that societies would collapse into anarchy on the 21st century. 

Professors such as Lang are fortunate to be in a position where they can spread false rumour and create waves while remaining in a well paid public sector position. Unlike the farmer, who gambles on being able to sell produce at a profit, or the commodity trader, who backs predictions with buying and selling positions, the professor's position is immune from market fluctuations.  

The grotesque predictions from these 'experts' provide news channels with juicy headlines, expand the notoriety of their authors, and add fuel to the commodity spike which is taking place. 

Tesco baton gets smooth hand-over

Tesco baton gets smooth hand-over

Selling more food in Britain than any other company, Tesco is the largest customer of UK Farming. What happens in Tesco has a real bearing on farming and the supply trade, so when its hugely successful boss decides he has achieved his ambition of building the biggest multiple store in the country, and that the time has come to hand over the reins, it matters to farmers.
In recent years any change at the top of large corporations has involved a level of in-fighting and posturing that makes business page headlines for months. Think of the drama attached to Sir Stuart Rose at M&S, of the changes at the top at EasyJet, BP, and many others. Yet the biggest supermarket does it seamlessly, with hardly a ripple.
It's called management, and Tesco has shown the City and the rest of the economy how company management can and should be done. They have been on a wave of success for more than two decades, and in that time have continued to woo and wow their customers with the products and service demanded. The smooth change-over at the top means there's no hiccup in trading, no concerns that the direction of travel is going to be altered.
Yet the new man Clarke is no clone of Sir Terry, despite their similar background and careers. Like Sir Terry, Clarke is intensely Tesco. He joined the company in 1981, became a board member in 1998, was responsible for supply chain activities, then moved to IT and became the boss of their international operations in 2004. Like Leahy, he thinks inside boxes, uses tried and tested methods, and is averse to risk. Customers are the important people in both their lives - which may help explain their tough stance with suppliers.

Tesco and farmers
Farmers have been forced to knuckle to the terms and conditions of supplying supermarkets such as Tesco, and a book could be written on how their buying policies have changed farming.
Buying power has held prices low. The buyers have been able to dictate the market by holding intermediates such as dairy companies, fruit and veg processors and food companies to account. The farmer at the end of the chain has been given a survival price, which can only be converted into profit through rigourous farm management. The processor is always concerned that others will provide Sir Terry with a better deal, a cheaper price, and hence a better margin, and knowing that the buyer will move for a fraction of a penny.
Quality demands have increased. Together with legislation, supermarkets have demanded increased shelf life, fresher produce and slicker storage and transport, and their dominance in the market means that, in the 14 years of Leahy's reign at Tesco, there has been huge investment in packing and storage by farmer groups and supply companies.
The food business has changed. From broiler chickens to broccoli the demand for uniformity has developed the factory farm where output is as close to a Ford car production line as possible. New genetics in plants and animals have been introduced to help. Closer management of inputs such as sprays and fertilisers, of livestock treatments such as wormers, vaccines and other inputs lift their effectiveness and reduce waste.

Negotiation
For much of the post-war period farmers and their leaders negotiated with government, over the effective price of cereals, milk and meat. The demolition of this relationship and the substitute of retailers and processors has been a huge shift for farming, and one that has taken some decades to adjust to. The drive of Sir Terry, and others, to maximise their bargaining position, to get the best deal going, has forced change on producers like never before.

The future
Sir Terry retires at a time of further change in the relationship between the buying public, the retailer and the supplier. He sees the slow but steady growth of farmers markets, a need to become closer to the actual grower and producer from an increasing percentage of the population. Quality is being measured less in terms of physical uniformity, but in taste and provenance. Marketing is less red and blue and more green and brown. People are being led to a time when things were simpler, more rustic, but still overlayed with modern attributes of long shelf life, convenience, visual appeal.
'Local' is a powerful word in today's marketing parlance, and retail giants will be working on using and developing the concept. It will make a further significant change in the relationship between farmer and retailer, and, as always, will create new opportunities for farmers.
Practical Farm Ideas will be exploring how these can be created and developed, and we'll be looking for case studies and examples for farmers to follow.

If you liked this article you might be interested in:
Supermarket trading practices are 'Big Boys Game' - PFI Vol 18-4

Reith Lecture lacked bite

Summary: was there an original thought or opinion in the 45 mins lecture?

Reith lecturer created hardly a ripple

The BBC Reith Lectures have that revered slot in the annual programming which eclipses all else. Today we had the second in the series presented by Professor Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal whose title was Surviving the Century.

Food and energy played a big part in his analysis, as well as population and pollution. His arguments have been spoken before, by the Government Chief Scientist Prof Beddington, and Lord Stern who, in a report published last year, said we should give up meat.   This year's Reith lecturer clearly likes science, and GM crops, citing their benefits. He doesn't like populations that are expanding quickly, or the American way of life which if repeated across the globe would create untold damage. What was surprising was the lack of a call to action. Research, international cooperation, controlling fanatics who threaten scientists and research, but no mention of targets which need to be set. 

No mention of biogas

His views on energy generation are very pro wind power and also tides, including a Severn barrage. He's quite pro nuclear. But not a mention of biogas, which in our view is the wasted resource of the modern era. 

The role of farming across the globe was hardly touched on, despite the fact that it is farmers who have the task of producing most of the food needed for survival. So GM was applauded from a scientific viewpoint, rather than a practical and economic one.  It would have been interesting to discover how he viewed the prospect of a farming industry being dominated by a few major companies, in much the same way as oil is today.  Companies that provide the seed and the semen, the feed and fertiliser and also provide the marketing and the distribution. Creating food commodities that are traded and processed in much the same way as petrol, where big hitters at the top of the pile can skim off a useful percentage of profit for themselves. 

These companies and those employed by them will be in a position of huge economic power, controlling the activities of millions of the world's poorer people, and being part responsible for the ecological balance of the planet. Farmers may well find themselves unable to operate outside this system, either because they need the essential inputs to make things grow, or because marketing privileges will be available to members of the club - ie customers of their seed and chemicals.

Professor Rees's future doesn't include such events, neither does it remark on the growth of giant distributors which effectively control the markets for food and other essential commodities. They too have a potential, and existing power which effects the actions and lives of thousands of farmers and growers. 

We listened to the Reith Lecture with all the reverence required for the occasion, increased by Sue Lawley's deferential introduction and presentation. She was broking no argument and no criticism from her audience, who were there to adore and admire, not to probe and enquire. 

Send me your comments:  editor@farmideas.co.uk

Link to the only farming publication independent of the farm supply trade because it is all editorial, with no advertisers or sponsors (published quarterly since 1992)  - Practical Farm Ideas

2010 election - judging the party rural manifestos

Review of rural manifestos

Being a notorious floating voter who can bob in any political direction, Thursday's decision time creates a void in the pit of my stomach. What to do? Who to support?

Before I grasp the stubby black pencil I want to to know where I'll actually be putting my cross. No point in taking my newsagent's advice "put a cross in every box - then you can't be wrong!"

After weathering the priministerial debates, absorbing the Today programme, Parliament channel, Sky News, CNN and others surely there has been enough material to make a reasonable decision? The problem is the more information, the more muddled it all becomes. The cross roads gets bigger, but the direction no clearer.

To resolve the problem I made a rational and objective study of each party's rural Manifesto - hoping for an answer.

The Conservative tome

The 18 pg Conservative manifesto 'A New Age of Agriculture - Our Agenda for British Farming', with a pastoral cover, is signed by shadow ministers Nick Herbert and Jim Paice. The promise is farming with fewer regulations, fair competition, effective action on animal disease, environmental protection.

Rationalising and improving farm inspections is appealing, and cattlemen will like the promise of positive immediate action on TB and badgers: "We will introduce a carefully managed and science-led policy of badger control in areas of high and persistent levels of TB in cattle."
The conservatives seem to have cottoned on to the value of bio-gas (which we featured inWinter 2006/7 Vol 15-4 ), and their manifesto says that 3,000 farm based digesters in Germany compare with 20 in the UK. "According to the National Grid, up to half the country’s domestic gas heating could be met by turning waste into biogas..."
With regard to funding, the conservatives say: "We will redirect existing funding to increase the proportion of spending under the rural development programme on measures to help the farming industry modernise and meet future challenges."

The Labour large print

The 10 page Labour manifesto, 'A future fair for rural Britain' has a green cover with felt tip puzzle that looks impossible to solve. Here we have a wider remit but far fewer words. Six of the large print pages carry no more than a paragraph or two. It starts off optimistically, telling us "Rural communities are, by and large, healthier, better educated, happier and less likely to experience crime than those in urban areas."

I soon find myself reading it with a Gordon Brown voice. It's his language - the anonymous authors sound so close to the PM to be uncanny.  Here are the facts as he sees them: "We have doubled the size of Labour’s Rural Development Programme..."
The manifesto is quick to tell us what the others would do:  "Working with Business Link and the  Regional Development Agencies  – which the Tories would abolish – we have ensured..." comes on page 2, yet searching the Conservative document I could find no reference to the abolition of RDAs. Later it says in relation to Europe: "The Tory policy of isolation will leave us helpless in defending our interests." Not so positive given how short the document is anyway.  The Labour promised policies on TB, market competition and a supermarket Ombudsman (see my blog of Feb 4 2010 ) match those in other manifestos.
The Labour manifesto says "assess the national importance of the County Farm network for providing opportunities for young people to get into food production, and issue guidance for local authorities in how this asset is managed in the national interest "    What does this imply? Limited term county council tenancies? - County Councils becoming even involved in farm management? - Parts of CC farms converted into allotments and greater public access?

The Lib-Dem pamphlet

On to the Lib-Dems 'Manifesto for farming and the uplands - change that works for you' gets signed by Nick Clegg and Tim Farron. At 7 pages it is less paper, but  more words than Labour. The promises read the same - supermarket regulation - "Reform farm payments, cut waste and ensure farmers get the support they need" sounds all-embracing, as does "Help for hill farmers".

Dig deeper and you don't find much extra substance. A large detailed paragraph is devoted to Lake District lamb producers still affected by Chernobyl whose lambs have to be checked before marketing. But no mention of TB, clearly showing what a problem badgers are to the Lib-Dems as well as farmers. And there's something which is plainly wrong in this sentence: "...our ability to maintain watercourses that have such a crucial role in flood prevention." Where's the evidence that cleaner ditches in farmland reduces flooding? The facts are the reverse - bunged up ditches hold rain water. Farmers in the uplands need to be encouraged to retain heavy rainfall through grassland aeration, not helped to clear ditches.

Manifesto summary

All manifestos feel the need to flatter, and all promise action on the main issues. Any talent show jury would pick the conservative manifesto as the winner, in terms of detail and presentation. The language is clear, unlike Labour's section on rural youth: "We know that young people in rural affairs often find it more difficult to get work..." Rural affairs? Did anybody proof read it?

Will I now leap into the polling booth, certain of the way I should be voting? Or are there more important things, such as the character, honesty and integrity of the candidates who seek my support? Roll on Friday!

Best wishes

Mike Donovan

PS  Amid all this, a new issue of Practical Farm Ideas is out.  No politics, no products, but 48 pages of "Made it Myself" ideas for livestock and arable men, and a helpful piece for all - 'Maxxing your Single Farm Payment'.  It is reading that will make any farmer's life easier, more positive and productive, whichever party gets into power. Farm IDEAS Vol 19-1

The Banks got too big to fail, and government is too bloated to diet

Each political party says public expenditure must be reduced, but nobody knows how or where to start. 

 Government is the biggest business in the UK. It employs more than half the workforce. Add in sub-contractors, businesses and organisations dependent on grants, subsidies and other public funds, and you have a huge part of the economy. None have any desire to be down-sized. The situation has gone way past the tipping point for serious government downsizing to happen. There are too many people 'on benefits'. Government is self-protective, and more interested in self preservation and enlargement than efficiency.
      Take agriculture -  government administration today is a significant proportion of the total expense needed to do the job of growing crops and raising livestock. We have a few front line staff driving tractors and combines being inspected, administered, measured, monitored by an army of people - not so different to the Health Service. Each of these inspectors is there for a good reason, and have been added piecemeal in response to legislation.
      The interesting question is - is this the fate other large organisations? Do supermarkets have an increasing army of back office staff - people checking that the people doing the work are doing it correctly? An army to supervise the suppliers, to deal with compliance in all its guises? 

Why a 1p / litre price reduction can cause real hardship to milk producers

A penny a litre doesn't seem like too much to make a fuss of, but in milk production today every penny counts. The cost of keeping cows rises, as tractor fuel gets more expensive, wages improve, rules and regulations get tougher.

For more than a decade farmers have been earning nothing from milking their cows. They have been living off the farmhouse B B they run, the mobile phone mast  on their land, the 4x4 circuit or paintball activities they've developed, the shooting rights or caravan site and off-farm earnings driving a lorry, or their wife, son and daughter going out to work. Plus their Single Farm Payment entitlement.

Cows are a habit, and a tradition which is hard to change. It's a long term, a life-time job for many in the business. It's very easy to become so absorbed with the job, which as everyone knows starts at around 5.00am every morning of the year, that the income is secondary to getting the bulk tank filled, cooled and ready for collection. Giving up the cows is life-changing - it's as hard as marriage break down. Selling up is a public admission of defeat, not a rational business decision. So farmers will keep plodding on, with hope in their heart that things will improve.

And, for a while, they did. Two years ago the numbers of dairymen throwing in the towel was becoming a worry to the people whose job it is to have milk on the shelves - the supermarkets. So some buyers decided it would be valuable to have specific contracts with individual farmers. If the supply got tight these farmers would allow the shelves to be stocked.

ASDA has been supplied by a dairy business called Arla (Arla Foods Milk Partnership) who collect, process and bottle ASDA milk throughout the country. The company is in some ways unusual in having a single supplier. Sainsbury, for example, uses both Robert Wiseman and Dairy Crest, and it is their flirtation with Arla which may have caused the present upset. While welcoming Arla as a supplier, Sainsbury reduced the business they did with Dairy Crest, who then are on the warpath for more contracts, and it is just possible they have got a foot in the door at ASDA at a price the supermarket could not refuse.

It's all fair in love and war, but the poor chap at the end of the chain, the man who is married to his cows and gets up at 5.00 every morning, is, as always, the loser.

What can be done? Milk contracts are fabulously skewed towards the buyer, despite the new regulations   www.farmideas.co.uk/newsdetailed.php?id=62  The free market might provide consumers with low cost milk at present, but only as long as farmers are prepared to do the job for nothing.

Maybe farmers should all be planning to create super dairy farms, like the 8,000 cow farm factory planned in Lincs.  There's little evidence to suggest that herds of this size really have the economies of scale to produce milk at much lower a cost than the smaller herds we have at present. Dairy farming in the UK is pretty efficient, by any standards. The one advantage the mega-farm has is in transport costs, which are out of the farmers control, but there some useful ways of improving this.

Let's hope we'll continue to see cows grazing the fields in the summer months, and have milk from British meadows on the shelves, rather than milk from Poland, Latvia and other countries.

Farm income comes from Brussels SFP payment

The new UK farming income figures have been released which shows the industry ticking over nicely at £4.07bn, or a satisfactory £21,000 a farmer. Macro figures like this matter, as global planners of economic policy in London, Brussels, Davos or New York can only grasp the headlines without rooting too deeply into the details. Which seems, from their news release, to be how DEFRA would like it to be. 

The TIFF (Total Income From Farming) figure has been broadened over the years to include any income that finds its way into a farmhouse, including B+B, industrial lets, mobile phone masts, and more - 'anything which cannot be separated from the agricultural business'. 

Take a fractionally deeper look at the £4bn and you'll see it includes a Single Farm Payment (SFP) payment of £3.6bn which comes from Brussels. Strip this payment, which is not seen or considered as a subsidy, but a reward for managing the glorious British countryside, and the income from actually producing crops and livestock looks meagre indeed. With less than half a million coming from actual farming, it's clear that many farmers are operating at a loss and would have been better off not farming but simply taking the SFP. The reasons for not simply packing up, selling the cows and doing as little as is compatible with getting the Farm Payments are not so complex. There's the omni-present optimism that the next year is the one where corners are turned and profits made. There's a lack of trust in politicians, who are the people sustaining the valuable payment, and a suspicion that it may be drastically reduced. There's also the long term nature of the business, which means that starting back in either livestock or even crops is something that takes not months, but often years.  

The official farm income figures contrast with the up-beat message from Defra ministers and indeed the farming unions themselves who have all subscribed to the call for increased production in order to feed the burgeoning world population which, as we all know, is due to reach 9 billion in a decades time. But would increasing production, getting more intensive, add to existing losses?

Slicing into costs can be a sustainable way of righting the profit-loss see-saw. Remembering that machinery makes up a high proportion of fixed costs, any efforts to reduce these can be financially very useful. So reducing the replacement of machinery and running older kit, modifying existing fixed equipment, adapting used and maybe redundant machinery are useful ways to reduce capital spending. Cutting inputs such as fertiliser, feed and others will generally have greater consequences on output. 

Review the latest cost cutting ideas here:  http://bit.ly/bYLHQD

Is the new supermarket code of practice whitewash?

The Supermarket Code of Practice comes in force today

Peter Kendall's performance on this morning's Today on Radio 4  was politically correct - but did he get to the real issue?  Farmers have become used to the measured tone of their President, but I'm not sure he cuts much ice with the public. This morning he totally left me, and I think, many others when talked about a "rotten time before Christmas, the frost has made life very difficult for us, we've lost money, we need you to help us make up the shortfall...". It was only on the third replay I realised that he was quoting the excuses buyers were making to reduce the price they were paying producers. People are used to hear farmers moaning about frost and losing money - not supermarkets! 
Applauding the new Code, Kendall said "We've moved back to proper commercial practices...". We need to wait and see. He failed to mention that many farmers and growers deal with co-ops, packers, and wholesalers. They are the ones who negotiate.  Are these small businesses really in a position to take their complaints to arbitration? It's very doubtful. They can't jeopardise a major customer, but the supermarket is quite able to cut them out of their plans.  If their Tesco buyer says the March price for potatoes will be down 10%, there's a 99% liklihood they simply pass the pain on the the man in the field. It's in nobody's interests to do otherrwise.

Representing the supermarkets, Andrew Opie was in complete denial about the need for the Code or any changes to the present system which he saw as completely satisfactory. He welcomed the new Code. "The really important thing about today, a really significant day, is that it will actually dispel lots of these myths and allegations that we hear around the supply chain. This is a really key moment, as it was drawn up by the Competition Commission after their own investigation into the grocery chain..."
Why should he be so bullish? Is he saying 'we're happy because we know the Code is going to have very limited effects, but will provide a valuable and effective smokescreen for the major buyers to continue much as before. Does he see the Code putting a lid on the issue of buyers' practices for the next decade?
There's a huge gap between the way supermarkets work and how the rest of us behave. I've reported it in some detail in Practical Farm Ideas (Vol 18, issue 4).
The article is headed 'Supermarket trading practices are 'big boys game' '.  It shows that buyers can be like the dealer who wants to buy your tractor. You ask £7,000. He takes a cursory look and says he'll take it for £5,500, lets you argue the toss, and you reluctantly agree £6,250. But he's not going to pay you this amount, (he never pays cash on the nail). He'll find undisclosed faults, either before but preferably after delivery, he'll tell you the value has dropped so will be revising his offer, he'll ask for money on account. The game for this buyer is to get the tractor for nothing, not pay you a fair price, a market price or even a trade price. The tractor dealer works from instinct, supermarket buyers are trained. The Practical Farm Ideas article is worth reading. It's the only mainstream farming magazine independent of the supply trade (all editorial, it carries no advertising)  from www.farmideas.co.uk
Contact Mike through editor@farmideas.co.uk
Each issue is 48 colour pages, 40 "Made it Myself" cost cutting workshop projects and practical ideas, financial and legal info..  all for £3.45 (UK)  available overseas.

Too many children get hurt

Children on UK farms are being put at needless risk through outdated legislation which prevents them from riding in the tractor cab, under supervision, so forcing parents to let them play, unsupervised, in the farm yard.

In ten years - 1998 - 2008 - 43 children and young people were killed on farms in the UK, and many more suffered injuries including amputations and serious burns, reported the HSE Agriculture expert Bernardine Cooney in 2008.


The problem needs to be addressed

She said "The messages from HSE about how to keep children safe on the farm don't change. While these tragedies are keenly felt by the families involved and throughout their local community, it is a national tragedy that they are still happening." She explains the current regulations are called Prevention of Accidents to Children in Agriculture 1998 (PACAR), and date back to duties to protect children under the Agriculture (Safety, Health and Welfare Provisions) Act 1956.


The Law needs to catch up

Farming practice and farm life have changed out of all recognition since 1956 and in many respects the law has failed to keep up. One of the main issues concerns children riding on tractors. Law makers and enforcers need to view the issue with fresh eyes. The reasons they give are that children can and do fall from cabs through doors that open accidentally, through rear windows and during emergencies. They say that when the driver leaves the cab children can work parking brakes and hydraulic controls, and they are a distraction to the driver at all times.

We believe the Law needs to look at the children who are excluded from the tractor. Having brought up four children on the farm,  I personally know how difficult it is to keep an eye on them and another on the job in hand - and this was some years ago so the tractors I used were smaller and had fewer blind spots. There's a constant worry of where they are playing. Are they close to a wheel, or behind an implement? In the summer, there's the anxiety that children are playing in the field, hiding from their friends or the tractor driver in the hay or straw swath? Ask many farming parent these questions and the answer is "I would prefer them in the cab with me. It's where farm youngsters want to be, and they'll behave because they don't want to be chucked out."


A thorough review needs to take place

Bernardine says: "Many of the deaths happened to younger children at work with their parents. They occurred as a consequence of work activity rather than the child doing the work themselves. The stark reason for this is simple: Children and young people are still being exposed to the same unmanaged hazards and risks."

Since 1994 Practical Farm Ideas has campaigned for a thorough review. We believe some major 'unmanaged hazards and risks' are there as a consequence of the current law. That if the laws were changed hazards and risks would be reduced.

Tragedy at Christmas

The tragic Christmas eve accident in the village of Bethlehem, Carmarthenshire involving 6 year old Dafydd Bowen, who was killed by his father's tractor, is yet another tragedy caused by the outdated safety laws which prohibit children from tractor cabs.  The strictly enforced regulations are as outdated as hand signalling when driving a car. Cars have indicators and for the past 20 years tractors have had safe, enclosed cabs which are impossible to fall off or out of, and many have passenger seats actually fitted as well. A six-year old can be safely and comfortably accommodated in any tractor cab, and is in no greater danger than in a car.

It is in fact these very cabs which create large blind spots around each wheel. These blind areas are of less concern when doing field work, but create major danger areas when the tractor is used in the yard, feeding livestock, moving bales and so on. This is the time when children are much safer in the cab than running around outside, but I believe that they are safer in the cab at almost all times.

For the past 15 years Practical Farm Ideas magazine has been running a lone campaign to get the law changed, so farmers can have children out of danger, in the cab. A proportion risk prosecution and do what they know is sensible, but many more are law abiding and each day take the risk that their youngster will be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Legislators and safety experts are blind to real farming conditions, and still seem unable to appreciate how different farms are to other industrial units. It's highly likely that many inspectors realise the   The farmhouse and farmyard and buildings are frequently together, unseparated, in one block. Children have a natural inclination to become involved. Work is seven days a week.

Official safety advice has a high negative content. Practical Farm Ideas, being run by a farmer (now retired) who brought up four children, focusses on positive advice, accessed through www.farmideas.co.uk  Download this report


Send your comments, whether supporting or opposing these views, in confidence to me.Email me from here

Send me your pesticide issues

Open Meeting for Government Advisory Committee on Pesticides

I'm going to this 'Open' meeting and am willing to raise concerns and issues from farmers. The meeting is this next Monday, 9 November, in York, (entry by ticket).

My reason is to see if the Committee is aware of CDA, controlled droplet spraying. Readers of Practical Farm Ideas will remember I featured this in the Summer issue "Is Controlled Droplet Spraying Buried Technology?" The savings in chemical, water, and road travel through using this advanced form of droplet generation, perfected by Lely in the late 1970s and early 80s seems of even greater use today than when it was first pioneered.

If anyone wants to submit other issues re pesticides, please do so. Maybe the controls on specific chemicals; regulations regarding use... all would be interesting. It is unclear how much time there will be for discussion, but I am in the workshop session:
• Integrated Pest Management and its contribution to sustainable agriculture.

If you email me directly editor@farmideas.co.uk this would be best/

Why I'd never run a children's farm

With another group of children hit by E Coli, farmers considering the business of entertaining the public using the animals on their farms need to think again


Once again, farming makes the headlines as visiting children get severely ill. Godstone Farm was apparently entertaining up to 2,000 people a day over the school holidays, which at a total spend per child of maybe £8 makes the job a good earner. There are, however, a great many costs over and above those of running an ordinary farm.
Apart from the cost of swings, slides, climbing frames, climb on tractors and trains, mazes, basket swings, zip slides, tobaggon runs there are the necessary huge variety of animals - rare breed (commercials won't do) cows and pigs, poultry and ponies, chipmunks, donkeys, guinea pigs and llamas.
There are tearooms, shops, toilets, kiosks, and dedicated tractors and trailers to take visitors for rides. The whole operation needs supervising and this means minimum wage staff with all the problems of commitment, skills and ability.
On top of this the business costs a fortune to insure, more to market, and transforms a farm into entertainment. People skills, not much needed with cows and crops, reign supreme. Marketing attracts families living in totally sanitised environments, with no experience of dirt and children who have zilch resistance to the kind of disease which our farm kids just shrug off. You'll have 'Worried-Well' parents on the look-out for problems and others out to make a claim.

The big risks of disease
Overlayed on all this is the spectre of disease such as the E.Coli at Godstone farm which has put 10 children 'seriously ill' in hospital, 36 confirmed cases -as of Sept 14- and a comment from the ubiquitous Professor Hugh Pennington (one of Britain's leading microbiologists) that the consequences of the bug can be catastrophic. Yet he declared the cause a puzzle. Distressed parents have gone through hell with very sick children in hospital, and up to 20,000 others, unaffected so far, have had cause to worry.
So what's the children's farm all about? The educational value is entirely limited to 'touchy-feely'. It's partly a substitute for a family pet, which for many families is impossible.
The alternative to animals is providing mechanical adventures, such as roller-coasters and other rides, and Farm IDEAS magazine has described many of these. Machines require maintenance and supervision, but the dangers are contained and calculable. Accidents involve a limited number of people.
Operators of childrens farms have some difficult hurdles ahead. Ideally, they will want to separate visitors from animals, yet this is a major part of their marketing effort:

Here are some excerpts from childrens farm websites: - We offer animal petting / handling - Activities vary according to the season and may include duck, pig or chicken feeding, sheep milking, lamb feeding, animal handing ( where children are encouraged to stroke the cockerel, hen and baby chicks ) - the children (even the youngest) are encouraged to climb in with some of the smaller animals and to hold young chicks and to stroke the baby rabbits.

So you'll never find me having anything to do with a children's farm. I don't think the experience of eyeballing a llama at the age of six has much if anything to do with later life. If life is maximising ooo's an aaahs there are other ways of doing it that don't involve complex micro-biology.


Mike Donovan, editor

Email comments to editor@farmideas.co.uk

Practical Farm Ideas carries farm business articles as well as those concerning innovations. Download, for free, the Children and Farm Safety INDEX

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Letter published in The Times, Aug 13 2009

Dear Sir

Sean Rickard's assertion in Food News (p 17, Tues Aug 11) "We know that larger-scale, high-capitalised farms are far more productive and efficient than small-scale family farms" needs clarification. Some smaller farms are kept as a hobby, where output and efficiency are not goals, others farm within their means, with minimal borrowings. Smaller farms that are managed efficiently have no difficulty in matching their larger neighbours in terms of output or costs per acre, and can do so with lower impact on the environment and neighbourhood. The challenge is to help small family farms embrace low-cost technology which will edge up output and performance, not, I suggest, help large farms become even bigger.

Your faithfully

Mike Donovan

Will the Grocery Ombudsman help lift farm product prices?

Will the new Grocery Ombudsman help farmers?

Call me a pessimist, but I doubt it. The more law the more entrenched the protagonists. Supermarket buyers will make sure their new contracts are worded so they can operate as normal. Will the Ombudsman be busy? I doubt it. How many farmers and small processors will use the service and subsequently risk a future contract?

The commitment is for low inflation and low supermarket prices, and however achieved, these help keep the nation happy. Few people understand the problems of the industry - they have enough difficulties in their own sectors to be concerned about others.

Creating a Grocery Ombudsman tells farmers that the government is concerned, answers the NFU by showing that something is being done to directly address the issue of supermarket power and dominance. The Ombudsman is not there to look at farming viability, or indeed the comparative strengths and weaknesses of players in the food chain.

There are other actions that could improve the terms of trade for farmers. Gwyn Jones, NFU Dairy Director has been working on milk contracts, devising an agreement fair to both sides. The widespread adoption of fair contracts which have at least in part be written by the producer and not simply provided by the buyer, be it in milk, strawberries or fresh beef or lamb, would go a long way to help. If buyers realised they had to go along with such contracts to be certain of supply, and that these contracts were by and large fair to both parties, change could take place.

Public pressure can still be effective. Farmers need to be continually devising ways of letting consumers of their products know they are being supplied at or below cost. The countryside got together over hunting. Maybe the same organisations, which all make good use of farming land for their sport, should be asked to help the farmers, who after all give them the land on which to gallop, the coverts for their non-quarry, and feed for their steeds!

The Grocery Ombudsman is about politics, not livelihood. Once established, consumers will be able to justify in their mind the low prices they see on supermarket shelves - be happy with the two-for-one promotions which are often funded by the suppliers, not the generous retailers, as are so many of the special offers etc, as well as any costs associated with in-store product promotion. Will the Ombudsman be able to change these practices? It's doubtful, but buyers are going to need to be careful to include for them in the supply contracts. The real issue is that they shouldn't be there in the first place.

The new issue of Practical Farm Ideas Vol 18 - 2 is now published. Get the full contents.

After MPs... will farmers be in the frame?

The MPs have done wrong with their expenses and the Daily Telegraph has created a scenario which has caught everyone's imagination, and doubtless enjoyed healthy sales as well. So what happens when the dust settles? Will the nation's population just get on with their financial difficulties? Or will they, and the media look for another sector which benefits from the public purse?

If farmers and landowners were picked on in the same way, how robustly would their stand be? Have they the moral high ground, can they justify the payments they receive? Last week Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg mentioned the Common Agricultural Policy in the same breath as 'structural reform'. Will others take up the same theme? Farmers might well be advised to prepare for a siege - and then a rainy day.

Major cutbacks to present payments would hit the smaller working farmer badly, for many find the income from crops or livestock products such as milk barely cover their outlays. The large estates, which have useful economies of scale, might be better able to cope, but only by shedding labour and cutting costs further. All farmers find much value in their copies of Practical Farm Ideas.

Fertiliser wastage

Fertiliser wastage

Did you know that nine farmers out of ten waste fertiliser by failing to mount the spreader on the tractor accurately? That the waste of fertiliser can be between 5 and 10 per cent. A striped colour happens when some parts of the field get more than the planned amount, and other parts get less - BUT it's only visible when the difference is more than 15%. The farmer may well use the correct quantity, but the spread pattern is wrong... simply because the the machine has been put on inaccurately.

At today's fertiliser prices it racks up a loss few farmers can afford. Improve accuracy and there's an opportunity to reduce the amount applied. Improve accuracy and total yield improves as each plant receives the recommended calculated application.

There's a useful Practical Farm IDEAS on-line report on www.farmideas.co.uk/reports.php which has 15 useful tips to get the job done correctly, without spending money on a new fertiliser spreader.