Meet Farmers Weekly’s two new opinion writers

Two new contributors will be joining the opinion writers in Farmers Weekly as we head into 2022. Sam Walker is a mixed tenant farmer in Devon, and Joy Bowles and her partner produce sheep on a farm in the Lake District.

Find out a bit about them and their thoughts on the year ahead.

See also: Flindt on Friday: Of mice and memories in the attic

Sam Walker

How to plan for an unpredictable future? Because you’ve got to plan, haven’t you?

“Proper planning and preparation” and all that sort of thing. No one wants to react as events jump on them, or “firefight” a conflagration because you missed the metaphorical wisp of smoke in the shed corner.

If anyone is capable of coping in this brave, new – and, eventually, unsubsidised – world, then the brightest and the most flexible individuals, of which I know many in UK agriculture, might be the quickest to spot the opportunities when the threats seem everywhere.

Being able to think on your feet and react quickly to events are things we do every day, whether it is a machinery breakdown, a sick animal or a sudden change in the weather.

I want to approach 2022 with a fairly defensive mindset. Perhaps with more emphasis on consolidation than expansion – making large capital investment in farming infrastructure at present could be the equivalent of going into the casino with a blindfold on. But, on the other hand, a business cannot stand still.

Where possible, I aim to invest in areas that can adapt to whatever farming winds blow from COP 26 and anything the final version of the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme comes up with. 

Money spent improving my soils and organic matter, for example, might be a wiser choice than building sheds and laying concrete.

The soil can produce whatever is required – whether it be livestock, crops, bird strips or trees – long after the inhabitants of the cattle shed have been removed or taxed into oblivion.

There will undoubtedly be opportunities for the hands-on farmer who can “adopt, adapt and improve”.

So when the smoke has cleared from the bonfire of the Basic Payment Scheme, grab the chance to take on more land, grow different enterprises and embrace environmental schemes or diversifications to grow robust businesses.

My 2022 resolutions for farming resilience include improving capital items without massive investment; repairing and maintaining what I’ve got and, where possible, doing it myself; and going to a few meetings.

We’re currently involved in these business appraisals and not one has cost a penny:

• Farming  and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) South West through AHDB/Defra’s Future Farming Resilience Fund
• Ecological advice through the FABulous Farmers project
• ELM trials and direct-drilling with the Westcountry Rivers Trust
• Carbon measuring with the Soil Carbon project
• Financial performance benchmarking with the Rural Business Research Farm Business Survey.

Also, talk to the public – since Covid, farming has some goodwill in the bank, and we might need to spend it in the coming decade. Many people want to know more about what we do. And by simply explaining the carbon cycle, you can help counter the anti-cow agenda.

Finally, a top tip from a farming neighbour – make sure to count the free calendars at Christmas. Too many and you’re probably spending too much time keeping the reps in business.

We all know a few farmers who believe that – to quote from Blackadder – “if nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through”, but they may be the ones in for a nasty shock.

Best of luck as we venture into the future of farming with an ever-smaller safety net disappearing from under our feet.

Joy Bowes

I know British farmers destroy the countryside, murder animals and wreck the climate!

I know these farmers and their rapacious livestock should be turned off the land – which I also know really belongs to all of us – so that the ravaged fields can become a wonderful forest in which we can reconnect with nature.

(I don’t know what will happen to the livestock, but I expect they will frolic through the rest of their years as free and happy creatures.)

I know I should tread lightly on this Earth in my vegan trainers, shunning all products that are not plant-based.

I know all this because it’s in the media all the time, and the people saying it are so very sure they are right. But even if they are wrong, they must be in the right, because it’s what they truly believe, and it’s going to save our planet.

And our political leaders must be right, too – otherwise why would they be signing trade agreements for imported food and saying that, in future, public money must go towards planting trees and not raising livestock?

Then, when the farming representatives pop up and say “what about food security?”, or explain that our beef cattle eat mainly grass, which is a great carbon sink, or suggest that, with a growing population, we might actually need to use scientific means to increase yields.

Well, hah, I know they are just saying that because they are in it to make money. All this I know as we head into 2022.

Yet the doubts creep in. I can’t keep body and soul together by going into a wood and breathing deeply, however much I may want to. I have a suspicion that Australian cattle are not fed on moonbeams and that ploughs in Canada are not pulled by unicorns.

So where do I go for information that is neither sugar-coated nor biased and which I – an ignorant but interested member of the public – can understand and trust?

Well, here’s an idea for 2022 – let’s have an independent group whose purpose is to explain agriculture, both in this country and elsewhere, for the layman.

It could follow the example of the rather more rarefied and academic Winton Centre at Cambridge University, whose chair – Sir David Spiegelhalter – is professor for the public understanding of risk.

The centre’s aim is “to inform, not persuade”. Sir David has been in the media a lot recently, helping us understand the risks of Covid and its vaccines.

I could do with a Sir David to explain to me – and journalists and politicians – every stage of growing wheat, and producing milk and meat, and why lentils aren’t a major crop in the UK.

The more people know and understand this, the less likely it is that decisions will be made for or by us, based on slogans.

Five years on, I really don’t want to be wishing I’d known more when our fields are covered in plastic tubes, but I can’t buy a British steak.