Inspiration our news page come in many shapes and forms. It may be the time of year, the weather, the future or quite often a question from one of our guests. We have had a busy summer on the campsite and although restricted somewhat by Covid in our interactions there have been lots of questions. A lot is happening in the agricultural world and a lot of it in the public eye.
Thanks to Mr.Clarkson (Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon) the realities of managing a working farm have been brought to a new audience and you’d be hard pushed to find a farmer who didn’t relate to most of the trials Jeremy put himself through. Our guests were very disappointed I didn’t own a Lamborghini and I don’t have a Caleb telling me how to do it. Yes at times there was creative licence but Clarkson did try and portray what most farmers face and was open to the fact that as much as he enjoyed it ,if he didn’t have his extra income from his day job, things would be very tough. This allied to a recent comment I saw “A farm isn’t just a farmer’s workplace, it is his heart and soul”.
Many of the guests had read the reports on recent trade deals with Australia and while at present I do not feel too threatened by them, the precedent set will open the flood gates for other deals that could undermine British Agriculture completely. I appreciate deals like this could work both ways but farming in this country has many more hurdles to jump through that our Australian counterparts don’t, and this is without even touching on their advantages of scale. I’m sure this topic will crop up in future articles, but it is undermining British farmer’s confidence and their willingness to invest in their farming enterprises.
One topic that kept cropping up was carbon trading or offsetting. A few of our guests asked me whether I see our future on the farm as primarily being food producers or will we be sequestering carbon for those industries unable too? Thus offsetting their impact i.e the airline industry. Whilst I am by no means an expert on this subject I think it has along way to go before income is derided from the way I farm, rather than what I produce. We are already someway into our journey of farming in a more sympathetic way and now have an idea of our biodiversity gains but at present this is because I think it is right and the way I like to farm. Whether I will be able to make a living out of it remains to be seen. It was pointed out to me the other day that sequestering carbon will only really slow climate change so if we want to stop it or even reverse it we have to change the way we live or reduce the need to offset it, something for us all to think about.
For those wanting a good read on farming I thoroughly recommend Field Work: What land does to people and what people do to land, by Bella Bathurst.