Category: Woodhorn Group

I am asked one question more than any other by my non farming friends these days, and its nothing to do with climate change, Brexit or why I think sheep are pretty but fundamentally stupid. The question it seems on everyone’s lips is “what do I think of Clarkson’s farm”?

I loved it and can’t wait for the second series to start! I’m no petrol head so Top Gear largely passed me by and thus I was never one of Jeremy Clarkson’s acolytes – until now and JC has become universally popular with farmers for many reasons. First, we could laugh at his mistakes and pretend that we never did anything hopeless enough that would have incurred the wrath of a Kaleb equivalent. One of my classics was in the field, now a gravel pit, alongside Drayton House, when I was 16. The night club Martines had just opened, and they had installed a smart new wire fence around the perimeter of the grounds. I was cultivating the field and, being 16, I was far more interested in Radio 1 than what was happening in the field. I came to an end of a ‘run’, lifted the cultivator up, turned the tractor around, dropped the cultivator back in the field, and carried on my merry way. It was only when I was the other end of the field, some 400 metres later, that I bothered to look around and realised that I had hooked the brand new fence with my cultivator and dragged about 100 metres of it up the field. I’m not sure I got paid that week!

As farmers we can also identify with all of JC’s trials and tribulations, but also the passion for the job that gradually takes him over, despite those trials and tribulations, or even maybe because of them.

But I tip my hat to JC primarily because he has brought farming alive to so many people and has done so with humour whilst showing farming ‘warts and all’. Everyone, farming or not, will now know not to buy a tractor too big for their barn (though everyone now also thinks that all farmers have Lamborghini tractors. I have genuinely never seen one on any farm, ever, and if we had that sort of cash to blow on a new tractor then, here at Woodhorn, Sam and Ben would never forgive me if I didn’t buy a John Deere).

JC’s TV series has, perhaps inadvertently, led to a public conversation about every aspect of farming from conservation, soil health and how cows and sheep can jump the highest fences if the mood takes them, to the power of the supermarkets, national food security and why every farm needs a Gerald and a Kaleb. I genuinely overheard a conversation in a cafe about Clarkson’s farm when someone stated that they never understood how much the weather affected farmers until they saw this series. Given how that’s how most of us farmers bore anyone who is listening to death, this was surprising to hear!

You may see some activity along the east side of Colworth lane soon, as we carry out the next phase of our hedge and tree planting plans. Over years we have literally planted thousands of trees and miles of hedgerows. This latest phase will add another mile of hedgerow.

A friend asked me how do we make money from hedges? We don’t of course and it is an expensive hobby which is why we do this in phases. However, it is part of our commitment to the flora and fauna on the farm and is one small but important part of our carbon net zero strategy.

Planting hedges illustrates the irony (some might say lunacy) of how the politics of national food policy has ebbed and flowed over so many years. During WW2 my grandfather (William Pitts) was, like all farmers at the time, visited by the War Agricultural Executive Committee (which came to be known as the ‘War Ags’). The members of the War Ags included civil servants, local farmers and members of the Women’s Institute and had the power to take farms away from farmers who were considered to be farming inefficiently. Grandfather would have been ordered to remove hedges due to the desperate need to increase food production as the whole population faced war time rationing. Food shortages continued into the 1950s and 1960s and farmers were then paid by the government to remove hedges. In the 1970s, after we joined the EEC, policy designed to increase food self-sufficiency was too successful and we ended up with a surplus (grain mountains etc). Over the last 30 years we have, rightly in my opinion, become more aware of the need to protect the environment as part of a sustainable food policy. Planting hedges is back in vogue! But Covid, Ukraine and the fragility of a free trade globalised word, has also made everyone aware of the need to produce more at home of the basics we need to live, especially energy and food. It feels like something of a full circle, and I hope in our small way we can find the right balance at Woodhorn.

As I write, we are approaching Christmas. Our cows are lovely, gentle, and highly educated, but are completely faithless and so do not recognise Christmas. This is a shame given they live in a cow shed, have a manger, and are looked after by three wise men (well two wise men and a wise lady to be precise). The secular stance of the herd means that Graham, Tracy and Tim have to work pretty much as normal through the Christmas and New Year period, which is ‘part of the job’ but a tough call nevertheless.

We all celebrated the first frosts this year in December – about two months late by my reckoning. Frosts are one of nature’s tools that we are reliant upon to kill off bugs and flies that can challenge the cows and see off the aphids that spread a very damaging virus in our autumn sown crops of wheat and oats. Conventional farmers can spray with an insecticide to kill aphids but being Organic, we rely entirely on frosts.

We are now on course (though a year behind schedule) to launch our milk vending project outside Oving Jubilee Hall in 2023. All being well, that will be the subject of my next ‘down on the farm’ article.

By the time you read this Christmas will be a memory, so may I wish everyone a peaceful 2023

John Pitts

The coldest and driest April on record followed last year’s drought, which itself was the most extreme in all my years of farming. Extremes in weather really do seem to be the trend now and it inevitably forces us to ask many challenging questions which start (and almost end) with ‘how do we produce food without water?’

It has now rained and doesn’t look like stopping any time soon! So is this just normal ‘British weather’ or are we looking at genuine changes in weather patterns? I think the latter and without debating the causes, we must adapt because the answer to my question is: ‘you can’t produce food without water’!

All the land in Oving parish sits over chalk that acts as a natural underground aquifer. Fissures in the chalk store winter rainfall water that can be extracted in the spring/summer via boreholes. However, as the population increases in the region and more houses are built every year, the competition for this finite water resource increases. Naturally, the demand from the water companies take precedent over the needs of farming and the Environment agency will not allow farms to sink new bore holes. At the same time, a combination of climate change and demand from the water companies is already reducing water levels in our stream and rivers with serious knock on effects to these important wildlife habitats.

However, we have plenty of water in the winter (winters seems to be getting wetter annually so no concerns there!) when of course we don’t need it. The solution is to capture the winter rainfall and store it in reservoirs for spring/summer use. This is what we are looking at now, but the cost is extremely high. The reality is that the total value of an acre of wheat or barley is less than the cost of storing water, let alone applying it and paying the Environment Agency a fee for the privilege of being allowed to do it in the first place. High value intensive crops such as vegetables can absorb this cost but not traditional arable crops or grassland.

This poses some interesting questions, including whether we will see a significant change in what is grown in our region’s fields? Vineyards are already popping up everywhere and salad and vegetables are already widely grown. But the latter crops need to be part of a long term rotation with the likes of wheat or grass to prevent disease and maintain soil health. How will we achieve this without water? (Off topic but extremely relevant, is the question of who is going to pick the veg?). Organically, we also need to maintain our dairy herd to create fertility and enable a balanced environmentally sound rotation. No water means no grass and again, irrigation is prohibitively expensive.

So we have some challenges ahead but somewhere in the mix is an opportunity that we will find and embrace. Perhaps the holy grail is being able to enjoy a summer BBQ whilst knowing that our crops aren’t going thirsty -if that’s not a challenge worth taking up, I don’t know what is!

All our spring crops have now been sown and the last of these, maize, is just poking out the ground. We have a few more weeks before the rooks and crows will leave it alone. The cows have been out at grass since early March but are only now getting to enjoy some warmth and sun on their backs. This is important as our cows are extremely soft and pampered. So whilst some of their brethren in Scotland and Cumbria would find the coldest day in Oving a delight, the bovine residents at Reeds Farm would happily take a flight to Spain for some extra sun whether they had to quarantine on their return or not!

John Pitts