Opinion: ‘I’ve come to the conclusion I’m incurably grumpy’

I was grumbling the other day to the chief auctioneer in my local livestock market about how poisonously expensive store cattle have become this spring (an annual complaint I make to the poor man), but my rhythm was interrupted when a friend walked up and interceded with a teasing question.

“Well, Stephen, when am I going to read an article by you in Farmers Weekly that actually owns up to the fact that some farmers are making a decent profit?”

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About the author

Stephen Carr

Farmers Weekly Opinion writer

Stephen Carr runs an 800ha beef, sheep and arable farm on the South Downs near Eastbourne in Sussex in partnership with his wife and four of his daughters. He also runs a nearby pub with his nephew, The Sussex Ox, which serves the farm’s beef, lamb, (and fruit and vegetables from the farmhouse kitchen-garden in season) through its restaurant.

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A little unsettled, I countered by launching into my standard farming gloom-and-doom:

1. “Could the weather this spring have been more unhelpful?”; 2. “Grain and milk prices are crashing”; and 3. “Even if the odd farmer is making a few quid it’s all being wrecked by double-digit inflation”.

I could tell by his fixed smile he was having none of it, so I quickly stepped things up to the next level by reminding him of the “existential threat” posed by the New Zealand and Australia free-trade agreements in beef, lamb and dairy products.

“So let’s wait and see what happens to your beef enterprise, then,” I finished with a flourish. 

But while I’d been talking, I noticed that he’d been giving me a bemused look up and down, taking in my tatty hat, no-longer-waxed coat, moth-eaten sweater, ripped moleskins and scuffed shoes.

“Can’t even afford a pair of shoelaces – I really do feel sorry for you,” he said, at which point the auctioneer failed to contain a loud guffaw.

As I drove home, still smarting from this encounter, my Ifor Williams trailer loaded with five pedigree two-year-old maiden Sussex heifers, I pondered the undoubted truth of my accuser’s assertion that I am incurably gloomy.

Farmers, of course, are famous for grumbling, but our grumbling is for sound professional reasons.

When haggling with a grain merchant, why would I do anything other than plead poverty as a ruse to add a few extra quid to the price?

Around the livestock auction ring, why would I not turn up looking like I’m down to my last quid? A smart outfit would only encourage an auctioneer to take bids from me in increments of £20 rather than my preferred £1. 

But while this downbeat outlook might work with farming, it doesn’t fit so well with my main diversification enterprise: a pub.

Unlike farming, hospitality requires a very different public relations stance that confirms unqualified, ongoing, uninterrupted success backed up with evidence of that prosperity in the form of pristine, state-of-the-art, untatty facilities. 

But even though I know I must sound positive (and the pub has been a great success over the nine years we have owned it), I still have a huge problem saying so.

All my farmer instincts get in the way. So, instead of answering “great” when I’m asked “how’s the pub going?”, the best I can manage is to mumble “not bad” then “could always be better”.

Fortunately, in these pages, I’m only invited to talk about farming.

So: 4. “What about the cost of spare parts, then?”; 5. “Wish I’d sold my bean crop before Christmas when prices were £100/t higher”; 6. “Isn’t the SFI a joke?”; and 7. “The BPS cuts really start to bite this year”.

Phew, that feels better.