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May 2024 May 2024
the “environmental restrictions” that are likely to be imposed by future
governments, farmers are in for an extremely difficult future.
As anyone who reads the “Over the Hill” article will understand that I am now truly
an environmentalist but I also understand farmers have to make a living and our
rapidly increasing populations have to be fed. It is an extremely difficult time for
all. Farming must be profitable, with crop and animal yields, including milk, beef,
pork and lambs at such production levels, which enable the farms to achieve
some form of financial stability, while at the same time feeding more and more
people..
However there is now some good news
to be shared, because as my
grandfather would have told us, some
eighty years ago,
“ The ash before the oak, we will
surely get a soak, but the oak before
the ash, we will only have a splash.”
This is of course referring to the times of
the leaf production of these two
species of trees and you will all have
noticed that so far this year the oaks’
leaf buds are well ahead of the ash in
their production. This of course means it
could stop raining this summer.
Old Bob would have been extremely
worried if he were alive today, as
would the people who worked with me
in Ireland. My time there, working on
some 2,500 acres of flat fen land,
reclaimed from the sea, similar to a
much smaller extent to the Fens of Norfolk. I had been working on a farm in Suffolk,
which had a large dairy herd and as well as growing the cereals I had been used
to in previous employment, it also grew potatoes and other vegetables
commercially and being just a few miles from the Fens I was able to visit more
farms and collect more experience of very intensive farming.
Going to Ireland to farm intensively on 2,500 acres, where eleven small farms had
been purchased by my employers was a “God Send” to me. Removing
hedgerows and fencing and installing drainage, meant we could employ fifteen
full time men and from six to ten part time ladies. We supplied Smiths Crisps in
Dublin with their potatoes, local shops and markets with potatoes, carrots, beans
and peas as well large cereal and sugar beet acreages. It was a wonderful
experience for me and for the local area, from which all the staff apart from me
were locals.

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