FW Opinion: Don’t let farming’s traditions put you in chains
John Buckland won the Machinery category of the FW Photo Competition
with this stunning image © John Buckland Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people, someone once said. Others see it as a golden thread running through history that helps give us a sense of place and perspective in our own lives.
At the Tower of London, they’ve been doing the same ceremony to lock up the famous old fortress each evening since the 14th century (which you can go and watch, as I did this week).
That’s a similar era to when most of your yard scrapers and small balers were first put to work.
Never does tradition come to the fore more than in the run-up to Christmas, as we go through the familiar routines of last-minute shopping, listening to Michael Bublé and putting up the decorations.
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It’s also been lovely to witness the creation of a new farming tradition in recent years – the festive tractor runs up and down the country that have helped raise so much money for charity.
At Farmers Weekly, our tradition is to always bring you a bumper two-week edition to see you through the festive period, and this year the team have done a sterling job again.
We’ve got eye-catching news from our reader Sentiment Survey that won’t make comfortable reading for the Conservative party.
Then there are features with a nod to the past in Business, Livestock and Arable.
Among other things, the teams have looked back at how trade has changed since Brexit, how the dairy sector has adapted since the end of quotas, and how wheat breeding has evolved since 1650.
Perhaps the most controversial article in the whole magazine is our machinery desk’s pick of the best tractors of the past decade. Do fill up the letters page if we’ve missed out any notable contenders.
Many of you will feel tradition to be a warm blanket that lies over the land – particularly those who have had the privilege to occupy the same farm for many years.
The expectation to carry on doing things the way they’ve always been done can be claustrophobic, frustrating and damaging to family relations
The results from our photography competition in the Farmlife section taps into that, with glimpses of the truly magnificent scenery farmers across the UK can call home.
Farms can feel like a haven from the mad world beyond the farm gate – at least when things are going well.
There are constant reminders in every hedgerow, stone wall, ditch and long-running flock or herd of the hard work that generations of women and men put in to steward the land, produce food and raise families.
But some of you reading this will feel as if you are in a battle with tradition and the silent grip that the past has on the present.
I am thinking particularly of those tussling with the older generation about the future of their business, after a year when it feels as if we’ve spent more time than ever thinking about how to adapt to the changes to come in farming.
The expectation to carry on doing things the way they’ve always been done can be claustrophobic, frustrating and damaging to family relations.
At the Tower of London they revere the past, but they certainly don’t live in it. The rifles the guards were holding were definitely up to date, and I’m sure they are not relying on just a Yale lock and a few pairs of eyes to guard the Crown Jewels anymore.
So it should be with farming – continual tweaks and changes married with the best of the lessons learned before.
Merry Christmas to you all.