Roger Evans.
I get my weekly farming fix from my weekly subscription to Farmers Guardian. I read all the articles and find them interesting. The arable pages do not affect me, but I still like to know what is going on.
But I must confess that my favourite piece is the old photographs sent in by readers. Old photos invariably tell a story; it may be an old story, but it often went on to shape the agriculture we know today.
Recently the photo was of two men wearing the big overcoats of that time, riding four big horses through the deep snow of the 1947 winter.
The caption said they were on their way to feed some cattle. It looked as if they were carting a load of loose hay to those cattle.
If we look behind the picture, if it was loose hay it probably meant they had to get the hay out of a rick and they probably had to cut it out with a hay knife, a laborious activity, but whatever they did they almost certainly had to load it by hand.
It is not easy to make then and now comparison. But although those men certainly worked harder they were limited by how much work a horse could do and by daylight hours.
Hydraulic power
Outdoor clothing is much better now than it was and muscle power has been replaced by the power of hydraulics. However, I suspect that on farms today, longer hours are worked in the milking parlour or on tractor at night. But it remains that none of us are using as much of our own power.
When I was a teenager and into my early 20s I spent week after week pitching small bales of hay and when that was done we moved on to small bales of straw and bags of corn. No need to go to the gym in those days.
The biggest difference of all would be that what those men did and the hard life they endured would be appreciated by most of the population. That would make such a difference.
I recently read an article that told the story of a collaboration between the National Trust and a university. If I jump to the conclusion, its focus was to ‘improve the biodiversity of the UK and to manage our precious landscapes'. The whole population was to be involved in this task.
I read this article three times to make sure, but the word farmer never appeared. The sad fact is that it doesn't matter, farmers' opinions count for nothing, so why include it?
Food security
The other sad fact is that when this report reaches its conclusions, the fact that farmers were not involved will not matter. Why would you involve farmers when it is an easy shot to blame them for most of our woes?
But don't worry, farmers' opinions will count just as soon as food security becomes an issue. You just have to be patient and my feeling is that you won't have to be patient for long.
The big story this week is that wildflower meadows have declined by 90% since the 1930s. No-one qualifies that by saying that in the middle of that, U-boats tried to starve us and we had several years of food rationing. Farmers responded well in the 1950s and 1960s to make sure that never happened again.
People can't eat trees and wildflower meadows. But unfortunately some people seem determined to prove this for themselves.
There is this youngish boy I know, who lives locally, that I have a lot of time for. This is largely because he always seems to have time for me.
Romance
Recently his partner celebrated her 21st birthday, so he bought her 21 sheep hurdles. She has a flock of ewes to lamb and if you have some ewes to lamb you can never have enough sheep hurdles.
I am only telling you this so you know romance is alive and well in the countryside and living near me.
