READERS LETTERS
READERS LETTERS
Direct sales are the way forward…
Nina Plancks Talking Point (Aug 27) raises several interesting parallels between country farmers markets and those in London. At the West Somerset farmers market our customers are just as enthusiastic and want us to set up more frequently than the current once a month. Next year we will.
There is a great deal of work initially in setting up the market and in running it. But its both fun and deadly serious. We are the front line troops, educating and meeting the public face to face. The customer expects and demands fresh produce presented in an attractive way.
They are probably just as exasperated by the supermarkets as we are. Do we need the choice of Heinz 57 varieties in every single product line? Does every spud have to be the same size, shape and weight? You may be able to choose variety but at a price. How many food miles were involved in bringing your purchases to the shelves?
Our humble spuds were less than two hours from field to market stall recently. One tonne disappeared in three hours in bags of from 2 to 5lb. The public dont like kilos and the spuds travelled only two miles.
But how does an average farmer sell 500 lambs and 50 suckled calves off his Exmoor farm? Obviously he cant through a farmers market. How about meeting potential customers face to face? Farmers set their own sale price and they need to get it right. A farm-based scheme making direct sales can be publicised with flying advertisements.
The fascinating variety of products on offer each market day has to be seen to be believed. As has been said and bears repeating: Produce a product – not a commodity and sell it yourselves. The number of farmers markets grows daily. About 100 are held or being planned and they are very successful here in the south-west.
They do need to be locally run by local producers – not council run or set up by quasi market operators. Neither do we need direction or control from large bodies such as the NFU or Soil Association.
J Armitage
Lower Brown Farm, Taunton, Somerset.
Hit government with litigation
I have always been uneasy about our activities in confronting supermarkets. The basic laws of commerce imply that one should work with, rather than antagonise, ones customers. Clearly, there has been success in bringing supermarkets to account but those benefits have now disappeared.
Our farm minister claims political pressure has been successful. But the evidence suggests that, irrespective of how much he may wish to help, the government couldnt care less. Yet it is the government which could make the right things happen.
Why dont we get tough with the government, not like the French with their unlawful violence, but through litigation. Have we no lawyer/pig farmers capable of advising where potential claims could be made? If not, what about using some of the BPISG fighting fund? Successful claims could hit the government where it hurts – in their pocket and their prestige. The costs involved are likely to be horrendous but there must be many pig farmers capable of claiming legal aid to support their claims.
What about it industry leaders? Who has got the guts to show up as a real street fighter and put together the means and the strategy to get at our legislators not our customers?
GA Thompson
Managing director, Pyramid Systems (Malton) Ltd, Showfield Lane, Malton, North Yorks.
Return to living off own land
Farming is in desperate straits, particularly for small farmers. One day it will improve – it always does though nobody knows when. Meanwhile, may I make a suggestion to alleviate some of this misery, speaking as a lifelong farmer on 130 acres? Why not opt out of the supermarket culture and get closer to the land? It is old-fashioned but I promise it is very well worthwhile.
Eat your own beef, lamb and pork, ham and bacon. A friendly knacker-man will do the necessary far cheaper than any slaughter house and a butchers apprentice will do some jointing for pocket money. Have your own milk, cream, yoghurt and cheese (butter is far too expensive) and lots of chickens and eggs; even ducks and geese. And with a kitchen garden full of vegetables from asparagus to potatoes, and plenty of fruit, every meal is a feast and exciting to look forward to. Farmers wives are wonderful cooks and gardeners and if they arent it is the farmers own fault.
This provides a luxurious lifestyle and costs very little. Every farm has surplus grass for cattle and sheep, and scraps for hens and pigs. Forget the cholesterol. Historically, farmers were the longest-lived members of the community along with Church of England clergymen. They lived on fat bacon and rich food – and burnt it off with hard work. It isnt gluttony, just living well. Furthermore it is easier to face ones bank manager on a full stomach. And make plenty of beer and wine.
As for the children, give them a pony apiece. These can be found for nothing to a good home. They cost little to feed and it is wonderful to see the joy they bring. Drive a clapped out banger, wear baggy trousers and plenty of thermal underwear and always have a sleep after lunch.
If I were to start again there is little I would change.
Hugh Sheldon
Lee Hall Farm, Lea, Matlock, Derbys.
Farming needs show of support
Lets stop moaning and do something. The answer is out there among yourselves. As I choose my weekly joint of meat I envy my fellow shoppers who reach straight for imported meat leaving me to find the extra pound or two to buy British.
I work within the farming industry and I hear every day about the state of farming. The one theme that runs through each conversation is the fact they personally do not wish to do anything about it. For instance, what a delight it would be to see dairy farmers grouping together to throw away their milk for one week. Or perhaps truly supporting the NFU by filling every seat on coaches heading to Bournemouth.
Support all of the industry together. Or perhaps I, along with other like-minded people, may just reach for the imports too.
KV Bailey
Merlins Cottage, Motts Mill, Kent.
Blame yourself, spud grower
I was amused to read your headline "Potato growers going bust" (Arable, Sept 17).
In south Shropshire where I farm, which happens to be less than 50 miles from Richard Watson-Jones home territory, arable land offered to rent is immediately taken by potato growers. They pay rents as a one-off annual sum in excess of £350/acre and on three and five year FBTs at over £150 an acre. As a cereal grower wishing to expand, I find these FBT rents about 250% more than can be justified to grow cereals.
If potato growers are going bust its nobodys fault barring their own. They are disrupting all let land values and causing problems across the whole of the rented sector.
The NFU and Richard Watson Jones should be making better use of their time and effort instead of whingeing about the indefensible.
If it was football we were talking about Im sure the FA would accuse Richard Watson-Jones of bringing the game into disrepute.
Richard Griffiths
Coppice House Farm, Craven Arms, Shropshire.
Wry wheeze over document
Thank you for bringing the availability of MAFF Agenda 2000 Consultation Documents to the notice of your readers. Perhaps a response through your columns will attract more attention than an e-mail to the depths of Whitehall Place.
As a small arable farmer, modulation, whereby some arable area payments to very large farms are diverted to smaller units, seems sensible. However, reference to MAFFs Agenda 2000 Consultation Document indicates modulation is to be used to divert area payments away from farm support to other uses within the overall rural economy. What a wheeze!
MAFF emphasises the need to be competitive but views it in its narrowest sense by assuming a level cost structure playing field ignoring the differing sizes and location of farm units.
Though a small unit may match the margins of larger units through astute purchase of supplies and the extensive use of contractors, fixed costs, including a computer to access the Internet, are typically proportionally higher than for larger units. The topography of the Weald of Kent, where I farm, clearly mitigates against prairie farming and a larger operation is not always an available option to reduce unit costs.
Hence it is logical to modulate support to favour the smaller unit, while of course maintaining the total payment rather than putting us at a competitive disadvantage to our fellow EU members.
MAFF argues that diversion of the area payments would increase incentives to restructure and become more competitive. That is to accelerate the decline of agriculture and put UK farming at a competitive disadvantage to other EU members. Why do our politicians always have this death wish on our businesses, while our EU partners consistently assist their industries to make adjustments?
* Nicholas Sturcke
Romford House Farm, Kings Toll Road, Pembury, Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
Milk levy leaves sour taste
My true opinion about the so-called levy (for generic milk advertising) on an already ridiculously low milk price, soon to be made even lower, would make the air turn blue.
No doubt the average farmer will once again allow the wool to be pulled over his eyes and will somehow believe the fairy tales that paying extra money to the MDC for advertising will bring an increase in our share of the milk price. Estimates of a return of up to £5 for every £1 invested by dairy farmers are pie in the sky.
Of course the DIF have already voted Yes and is rubbing its hands in glee at the extra profits it will get for very little investment and no pain.
Two other points I would like to make are these: First, the MDC didnt spend all its money last year and producers are not entirely satisfied with the projects invested in.
Second, if the milk advertising campaign were to be cancelled, the MDC would have to seek Ministerial approval to reduce the levy again – can you see that happening?
CG Pearson
Rainscombe Farm, Dowlands Lane, Surrey.
No obligation to convert DSQ
The article Dont Wait, Convert Now (Business, Aug 27) pointed out that about half the 2000 direct sales quota (DSQ) holders convert temporarily to wholesale each year because they make no direct sales deliveries. The Intervention Board regularly encourages those producers to convert permanently to wholesale to reduce its administration. But, under current regulations, those producers are under no obligation to permanently convert their DSQ.
It should be noted that a permanent conversion to wholesale restricts the producer from trading out wholesale quota for the remainder of that quota year, under current legislation. If the producer is then under-produced in that year, he is unable to transfer out any of this surplus quota towards the year-end. There would be no fine-tuning close to Mar 31 if the producer is under quota, other than increasing production.
All producers should aim to utilise all of their quota, wholesale and/or DSQ, especially in the current climate. It should be remembered that if a DSQ holder does not submit an MQ/15 combined DS deliveries return and temporary conversion form, the IB can confiscate the unused DSQ.
The levy/temporary conversion issue is understandable, but the accuracy of production statistics is a problem surely more easily solved. Why not lobby MAFF/IB to amend the DPQRs to encourage purchaser groups to present timely and accurate monthly returns?
Nigel Astbury
Townsend Chartered Surveyors, Exeter Livestock Centre, Matford Park Road, Exeter.
Cows killed by rising standards
I write regarding your article, "Low SCC: High disease risk" (Livestock, Sept 10). It is about time the academics woke up to the fact that higher standards are killing cows.
If the public knew that a dairy cows life was prematurely terminated just because her cell count is deemed too high, or to put it in laymans terms, her immune system has kicked in which is the natural and evolutionary process, I am sure they might just question the ulterior motives of such standards. I am not talking of lowering standards, but tolerance is something that only works one way these days.
Andrew Steele
Treflach Hall, Oswestry, Shropshire.
Waitrose backs lamb producers
We constantly hear about the dominating buying power of the supermarket groups. A word of praise has to be given, therefore, to Waitrose which not only supports British meat products, but has taken the unusual step of guaranteeing a minimum price to their sheep farmers, via their Farmhouse Lamb Scheme, managed through the Guildford-based meat processor Chitty Food Group.
I am a sheep farmer committed to the policy of producing top quality English lamb, with the necessary Farm Assurance inspections operated annually by Farm Assured British Beef and Lamb.
Waitroses guaranteed price policy is an example to the whole sheep industry of how producer, wholesaler, retailer and customer benefit from producing lamb to the customer requirements at a fair producer price. Long may it last.
We can only hope that other supermarket groups follow its good example.
Perhaps if sheep farmers throughout the industry had this support it would help to prevent them taking the desperate measures recently reported.
Remony Moser
Windmill Farm, Colemore, Nr Alton, Hants.
Local research stations vital
In his defence of the closure of Long Ashton Research Station (Letters, Aug 6), Ray Baker makes much of the increase in the BBSRC funding and the £19m allocated to Rothamstead.
Assurances are given that all research will be seamlessly continued at the new site and that farming interests will be best served by centralisation. Hes missing the point.
Hooray, for an increased budget commitment but that alone is nearly useless if the data generated never sees the light of day.
Much of the value of local research stations, often concentrating on work applicable particularly to that region such as willow biomass, is in their improved ability to cross the technology interface and apply results to the farm.
Thats becoming more critical than ever.
Centralisation will destroy the long-term value of current experiments and experience of environmental variation will be lost. The independent sponsors of much of the work are against the move, as are the scientists themselves, many of whom will be lost to more attractive masters.
The decision to close Long Ashton may already be irreversible, sacrificed on the economic altars of scale and rationalisation. If so the genuine effectiveness of Mr Bakers research support for agriculture, particularly in the south west, will be greatly tested.
AJ Montgomery
Manor Farm, North Cadbury, Yeovil, Somerset.
GMOs will not solve shortages
I must write in response to Lord Walsinghams letter (Sept 3) on the GM panic-mongers. I dispute the science which leads him to imply a justification for GM crops on the basis of their contribution to feeding the Third World.
It is not simply a question of production, it is also a question of distribution and access, factors which GM crops cannot address.
We already produce enough food in the world to feed everyone with a nutritious and adequate diet – about 350kg of cereal a person.
It is poverty, combined with a grossly unfair trading system, which prevents people gaining access to their share.
If the dissemination and production of GM crops are managed by trans-national corporations, questions of distribution and access will not be informed by the needs of people in the Third World, but by the need to maximise profit.
It is all very well getting the biological science right, but we must locate that in a rigorous and scientific understanding of why it is that some people do not have enough to eat.
Dr Matt Smith
International education co-ordinator, Farmers World Network, the Arthur Rank Centre, National Agricultural Centre, Stoneleigh Park, Warks.