Farmer Focus: Completed – the worst harvest ever
© Phil Weedon We’ve just finished the worst harvest ever, prices are below our cost of production, but apart from that, August has been absolutely brilliant.
I hesitate to write this as I know that the west and north of the country have had some pretty dicey harvesting weather, but in Shimpling I think we had only a couple of days when the harvest sun didn’t shine, allowing wheels to turn, tracks to roll and grain to be tipped into our grain store at a manageable moisture.
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If yields had been low alongside rotting grains in the field I would probably be crying in a ditch rather than sitting here trying to conjure some positive words. The sun helps everything.
Meanwhile, autumn cultivations are in full swing, turning in our magnificent fertility leys (this is the silver lining part of the article) with our deeply unfashionable tillage train.
We are also finding the time to bust up any areas of fields that have succumbed to soil pan as a result of the wet weather or due to us being on the land when we shouldn’t have been, in what has been one of the most difficult years I have known in my 39 years of farming.
The rich petrichor rising from freshly turned soil makes everything all right. It’s why we find the strength to fight another day.
The other night, I was talking to a friend who is new to farming who said: “To have one bad harvest is manageable, but to have two in a row is more difficult.”
My article written this time last year in this same spot will tell you the position I am in.
We need to make changes. Luckily, I have the most brilliant team here at Shimpling Park Farm which makes change so much easier. As the late Joe Strummer said, “Without people, you’re nothing”.
