Last year’s drought has left a mark
THE legacy of last summer’s drought is still determining farm policy in early 2019. The plan was to keep our ewe flock out on turnips and swedes until the beginning of February, delaying housing for five weeks. The drought left its mark though, and the reduced root crop was finished off in a rapid three weeks. However the system did work well and we will revisit again next winter with hopefully a more favourable planting and early growing season this summer.
We have found that housing the ewes makes their management in mid to late pregnancy a great deal easier than outwintering. Single, twin and triplet bearing ewes are grouped and fed according to their differing energy needs. Mechanisation enables silage to be fed and straw spread for bedding in a matter of minutes, with not a hand fork in sight. The key husbandry priorities for us at Llandre in the coming weeks leading up to lambing are to constantly monitor individual ewe conditions and mitigate the bedding conditions that could lead to lameness issues.
A few days ago, I attended a Future of Farming and Agriculture conference in Westminster. If there is one common theme to Brexit, it is the fact that every Tom, Dick and Harry seems to have come out of the woodwork and have an opinion on how we as farmers and country people should manage our farms and live our lives. I will not name and shame, but the director of one well known nonGovernment Organisation (NGO) stated at the conference that Brexit and the drafting of a new domestic agricultural policy is the ideal scenario for farmers and environmentalist to engage.
This comment made me extremely angry and to be frank I find it extremely patronising when I hear key note conference speakers, who are usually armchair experts saying, “we need to bring farmers and environmentalists together.” As a sheep farmer I am an active environmentalist (and food producer) every day, as are my fellow Welsh farmers. I tackled the individual concerned at lunch, but as expected just received a bland response – “well obviously you are a good farmer” – even more patronising.
My week improved significantly when a large envelope in the post revealed some great wildlife pictures from bird and photography enthusiast, Alan Thomas, who had stayed in our holiday cottage at Llandre last autumn. The pictures were of a Pied Wagtail, Dipper, House Sparrow, Red Kite, and a Nuthatch. As farmers we are the eternal custodians of the countryside, and fully realise our future depends on nurturing the environment we farm whilst sustainably producing food for our nation.