Down on the Farm
Fifty years is a long time and I have just reached this significant birthday and it made me thing of how the farming industry has changed over half a century.
When I was born my father was farming in Norfolk. The main enterprise was a dairy herd. He made a good living on the land in the 50's although the farm at that time was only 120 acres in size and supported three families. Nowadays, a dairy farm in Norfolk is a very unusual thing, as most of the farming is very large arable enterprises or intensive livestock production such as Bernard Matthews. Also, having three families making a living off a farm that size nowadays would be almost impossible. Today a farm generally equates to one man per thousand acres of combinable crops. More intensive crops such as sugar beet needs more intensive labour. Needless to say, the farm in Norfolk was swallowed up by a much larger unit and my father, who then wished to pursue a more academic career, took a position at Cambridge University.
Today we also take for granted all the mod cons that go with modern living. Back in 1955 my mother only had electricity in the farmhouse when the cows were being milked because this was when the generator was running in the milking parlour, so a 20 year old first time mother with twins, who came from a town background, found life quite hard to start with.
The farm that I now manage has approximately 3,400 acres as well as the beef herd and there are only five full time employees, whereas 50 years ago, even if there had been a farm of this size, there would probably have been in excess of 50 people employed.
The decline in the number of people working on the land has been in contrast to
the increase in the size of each holding. This, in my opinion, is due to a
number of different reasons. Mainly, in recent history, and it continues to be,
hard to find people to work on the land. In years gone by the farm worker was
always epitomised as someone who fell into the category of, "well, if he
cannot do anything else he can always work on the land". Today with Global
Positioning Satellite technology, onboard computers, detailed record keeping
and equipment costing in excess of £200,000, the calibre of farm employee far
exceeds this simple statement. In the past we had a much more rural community
and often the only jobs were on the land. Today, sadly this sort of work does
not seem to appeal to the younger generation. The average age on this farm is
just over 50 years of age. Historically pay was not good but this has been
addressed more recently. However, we still struggle to attract home grown
workers and find ourselves sourcing our labour from other parts of the world
such as Eastern Europe and countries from the southern hemisphere.
Secondly, with the prices farmers get for their products, they cannot afford to overstaff, so when someone leaves or retires they are often not replaced. We buy a larger tractor or try to cover the void in other ways Ðthe farmer will look at trying to maintain the same level of output without taking on another fulltime employee.
The pricing structure we receive for our crops has changed in a huge way over the last fifty years. The prices that farmers are paid for their products have decreased in real terms over the years. This has resulted in small family run farms and enterprises finding in very difficult to make a living or even to stay in business. This is very sad in my opinion.
However, as I write, the sun is out, the land is drying well and it seems that every man and his tractor is out doing land work. We are no exception. Today, 14th March, we have started to drill Linseed. This has been done into nearly perfect seedbeds, due to good forward planning and good seedbed preparation, up at Caddenham. We prepared the land back in January so as to take advantage of any winter rain as cultivations now can lead to quite serious moisture deficits, so the least amount of soil movement at this time of year the better. Once the land has been drilled it will be rolled so as to save the moisture and help an even germination of the crop.
We have also been preparing sugar beet seed beds at Stretham because the land is in the right condition as it has been dry and sunny which produces a fine tilth to allow a good germination. Rolling of the wheats that were drilled late has taken place as they were sown in less than ideal conditions, as the ground was very wet, following the sugar beet. A good slow roll helps the crop and soil conditions in this situation.
The cattle are starting to calve keeping us on our toes, six this last weekend. All are doing well Ðwe are expecting 89 in total!!
Lastly, I would like to say a big thank you to all the readers who have said such polite and encouraging comments about the farming articles. If there are any questions or concerns about what we are doing or something on the farm that you would like to know about, please do not hesitate to contact me on 07775 911167 and I will do my best to respond.
Apologies
We got our pictures and captions muddled in "Down on the Farm" last month. Here's what the Wilmotts sent and what you should have seen!
