November came to the rescue, at least as far as the weather is concerned, and in contrast to last year, we’re drilled up.

Bar a bit of spraying, we’re ready for winter – just as well really, given that one of my team is currently experiencing agriculture in New Zealand, and the other has recently undergone an operation.

See also: Regional focus for 2025-26 Recommended List winter oilseed rape

About the author

Andrew Wilson

Arable Farmer Focus writer Andrew Wilson is a fourth-generation tenant of Castle Howard Estate in North Yorkshire. The farm supports crops of wheat, barley, oats, beans, sugar beet, potatoes, and grass for hay across 250ha. Other enterprises include bed and breakfast pigs, environmental stewardship, rooftop solar and contracting work.  

Contact:

Email: wilsonbrickyard@gmail.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpudSlingsby

Read more articles by Andrew Wilson

The NHS is magnificent. I have benefited from it immeasurably, personally, as a family and with my wider farm team.

It takes some funding I am sure, but top-heavy organisations need to improve efficiency at the top as well as the bottom.

Those on the shop floor are absolute warriors in the main, and every bit as committed to their craft as farmers.

This is obviously paid for from tax – something I have no issue paying if I am making money, but this is becoming impossible to do in the tough years we are encountering.

Good health runs intrinsically alongside good food. Proper, natural grub, fresh water and good sleep are the absolute cornerstones of life, and that comes from good farming.

It’s not found in processed “super gloop” from a faceless, uncaring mercenary corporation that needs super-pharmer products to correct the ills that it creates.

This is not in any way a complicated concept, but the wheels within the wheels have recently acquired a little more momentum than we’d all like.

I think this needs to be offset by highlighting good practices, fresh local produce and the ancillary benefits that come from a vibrant rural economy.

Our supply industry is also suffering battle scars from Starmer’s crackpot ideas, as are other rural businesses of many kinds.

Politics is notoriously short term and rarely considers consequences – nor does it grasp the resilience, determination and pride of this nation’s farmers.

We might have hurdles to scale, volatile weather, 1990’s prices and a thankless government, but the country looks as it does because it is farmed.

Someday the penny will drop that without committed farmers with long vision, every single person in the land will be worse off – even the politicians.

Merry Christmas everybody.