Easter is just around the corner, and we've had a pretty good lambing at this stage. We have been lambing on and off since January, and our organic conversion flock is due to start this week. Our heifers have all calved successfully and now the older cows have started, so far we have a greater number of male calves to females but it usually evens out.
The farmers markets continue to be very successful, which is different to the current retail results we hear about on the TV and in the media. I hope that the past years of educating the consumer to the advantage of buying good quality and maybe a little less or a poorer cut has paid off and we are seeing the change in peoples shopping and eating habits.
I have just picked up and paid for our Blue Tongue vaccine. It has cost just short of £1000, with enough to vaccinate all of our sheep and cattle. The Welsh Assembly Government were concerned last year that there was very little take up on the vaccination programme, but then as farmers had had a very bad year in 2007 with lamb prices where do they think that the majority of farmers will get the extra money to pay for yet something else? As with all business' if you haven't got it you can't spend it....... anyway after a partnership meeting ( after lunch on Sunday) we all decided if we were going to do ti it had to be now just after lambing, and as much before our next
tupping season as we could make it, or not at all, we also deduced that if blue tongue midges were already in the country after last years outbreaks, then they were going to move across Britain much quicker this year, and as we are not insured against this then the risk was too great.
Reading the farming press on Friday (we receive both the farmers weekly and the farmers guardian) it is difficult to imagine why farmers would want to stay in a business where they are granted so little respect by government officials making decisions about farming business which affects so many rural incomes. Currently there are discussions afoot that farmers should compulsorily contribute towards animal health plans dictated by the government. So for instance TB which costs the taxpayer millions of £'s per year should be contributed towards by us. They are suggesting a levy in the region of £5 per cow and 9p per ewe. We would welcome this if the government then gave the farmer- who would be paying for the outcome of disease running riot, the option to deal with such diseases, i.e. dealing with badgers who spread TB, and taking responsibility for their own laboratories which hold these diseases such as
Pirbright, which released the last outbreak of Foot & Mouth into the community, and for which the government will take no compensatory action.
The legal battle has been lost by the
NFU into taking the government to court to gain compensation for the losses these farms made, as has the battle to gain farmers in England satisfactory compensation for pedigree cattle that they have been made to slaughter under TB regulations, on a TB test which is only 70% reliable.
I will finish by saying that after reading the Media on Friday and having a rant about why do we bother, by Saturday morning, when the sun was shinning and I was watching Philip feeding the ewes with lambs gambling about the edge of the fields I decided - yes we would carry on what a life we lead and what a wonderful opportunity we have to contributing to the worked, helping feed it's population, continuing to help tend the countryside and environment, and to educate all as to the
worthiness of farming.
We wouldn't
swop it for anything!
Always a favourite - just holding a lamb. This is taken for granted by many farmers but children think this is wonderful, to feel them hear them, and to be taking 'care' of them
What could be better than a roly poly down a big hill. Simple fun. (thank goodness they didn't ask me to do it!)
Here in the butchery the children were able to see different cuts of meat and compare them to where they came off the animal.
After arriving at the farm I always allow the children some freedom, running, walking to use up some of the excitement that many of them feel when coming on a trip. this visit we spent an hour in the old oak wood. the only rules being to stay within the confines of the trees, and telling them that it was fine to get muddy or wet now but that is how they would be for the rest of the day. This allows the children to risk asses for themselves and to make their own decisions, two thinking that today's children are rarely allowed to do for themselves and yet is such an important part of growing up. tree climbing, exploring, balancing, playing in a bog, following the stream, exploring the ground, running, whilst the teachers, helpers and i sat and listened, and no electric anywhere!
