Farmer Focus: Lack of management could harm farming areas

I quite enjoy farming in the Vale of York. We have varied soil types, including heavy land suited to grass and wheat, and light land for maize, as well as wheat, and a bonus crop of grass. It suits our business down to the ground.

Folk easily manage 4t/acre on wheats, and we did 17.5t/acre of maize this year.

All the land is about 15-16m above sea level with no hills, so power requirement is lower and there is minimal chance of terrain-related accidents.

See also: Environment Agency blamed for farm flooding devastation

About the author

Tom Hildreth

Livestock Farmer Focus writer Tom Hildreth and family grow grass and maize for the 130-cow herd of genomically tested 11,000-litre Holsteins near York supplying Arla. The Hildreths run a café, ice cream business and milk vending machine on the farm.

Read more articles by Tom Hildreth

It is quite an easy place to farm. A good lump of land is well drained, and while the rest was drained in the 1970s by someone who didn’t believe in backfilling, there are drains nonetheless, all of which run.

Or they would run if the gutters weren’t backed up. All our drain ends are below gutter water level and have been for a while now.

It makes you wonder what people at the Environment Agency spend their days doing.

They should, among other things, be ensuring rivers have a minimum flow rate with minimal bottlenecks to reduce flooding and, therefore, damage to property and wildlife habitats.

I think one of the biggest causes of flooding, particularly in the Yorkshire region, could be the silted-up Humber estuary.

It was well maintained when Hull docks were in heavy use, but since trade slowed down there, the silt has built up.

This in turn, backs up the Humber, the Ouse, the Nidd, the Foss dyke, the field gutters and finally, our drains.

Fortunately, all the stock are now inside. Every week, a few more heifers are confirmed in-calf, so I’m hoping they will all be pregnant by Christmas, helping our aim for a slightly tighter summer block-calving.

Mastitis has been creeping in. I hoped we could keep it a bay, but also kind of knew we would have it to deal with sooner or later.

I have some bedding conditioner on the way to change the pH of the beds, supposedly stopping bacteria in its tracks. Who knows if it will work for us –  I’ll report back next time.