When farm bike goes on stop it’s a major incident

ON the farm we have just finished the first three weeks of breeding and have hit our target of 90% seen, using nothing other than tail paint and watching the herd.

It’s a nervous time of year as you hope that they come on heat in sufficient numbers equally over that time, so fingers crossed that they hold and there are not many repeats in the coming weeks.

Grass in the middle of May is growing at a terrific rate which is comforting to see as we have reduced our fertiliser usage significantly on the grazing platform. But this is just the beginning of the season and a lot can change in the coming months, so here’s crossing my fingers again.

When a tractor goes on stop, it’s awkward but not the end of the world, you can usually get a mechanic out or borrow one. But when the farm bike goes on stop it’s a major incident. My mother told me once that God gave us legs so we could walk, apparently not.

He gave us feet so we can press the brake pedal occasionally and change gear. Here lies the dilemma, the gear pedal had broken. We couldn’t start or move the bike; we were close to tears. Walking to fetch the cows in the morning was a no no. This bike had to be fixed or there was a mutiny on my hands. So I go on the mobile and phone the dealer for a new gear pedal. I thought the bike would be back in action within the hour and the toys safely back in the pram once more. How wrong I was.

The dealer said he could get the part to me by July, something about China shutting down due to Covid-19 and couldn’t get parts out. My heart sank, some of us were inconsolable. ‘What now?’ was asked. There was a light bulb moment, a small light in the darkest of tunnels.

We called a local man who has a rare gift of being a master of all trades. If he can’t get this bike to move, then the farm is sunk. He was with us within half an hour and fixed the bike within seconds of seeing it. He had clamped mole grips on to the pinion of the gear change and we were back in business. There was champagne all round and the only charge was that he wanted his mole grips back in July.

There is a more serious note here as now the country has hit 9% inflation – the highest in 40 years.

Food is up 30% and the experts are predicting further rises. The UN is saying that more than a billion people, mostly in the developed world, will experience food poverty. Our government food production policies over the last couple of decades are now being exposed as being woefully inadequate.

NFU Cymru has consistently debated that the local farm primary producer is the cornerstone of a civil society. It looks now that government may need a pair of mole grips, as well.