Western Daily Press (Saturday)
New year brings new optimism
It’s time for the RPA to sort out its grants system, writes Wiltshire farmer Ro Collingborn
IT’S good to approach a new year with optimism. I always do, though looking across our flooded farm is a little daunting in terms of future food production.
A third of our farm has been intermittently under water for much of this winter. There’s been talk of paying farmers who suffer from flooded land, as this gives protection to villages and towns downstream.
This needs to get beyond talk. Farmers who are willing to give up land to a wetland or reed bed system to slow the flood of water need to be magnificently rewarded, as they are giving up a long-term source of income. Good incentives are needed to drive change.
May it be the year when the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) finally sorts out its grant system. All the offerings that appear ad hoc have done a good job of leaving farmers mightily confused and adding pounds to agricultural advisers’ pockets. When we left the EU and had control of our own agriculture, the Basic Premium Scheme should have been left to run, until all the grant system had been tested and put into operation, with one overall name with different options branching off it.
Instead, farmers have seen their incomes cut, and a very confusing array of grants appearing haphazardly, with working farmers being offered crumbs each time. Generally, they have not been well thought out and farmers who are no longer engaged in food production are going to benefit most.
What many “hobby” farmers may not have realised is that they in particular shouldn’t be ignoring the latest SFI (Sustainable Farming Initiative) offering. Farmers who practice farming with little or no inputs, and do nothing more than make hay once a year can pick up good payments, as long as their holding is more than five hectares.
These farmers can claim £151 (LIG1) per hectare for doing nothing, and also get paid for having hedges, as long as they don’t cut them too often. There are also payments for leaving trees in hedges every 10 metres on average, and for field corners. In our area, this would fit in with the activities of many of the farmers who have reached retirement age, but have not completely retired their farms.
Of course, there is a flip side. Farmers who have dairy cattle, for example, will find it harder to get similar payment rates and will find it virtually impossible to make up the previous Basic Premium Payment. This particularly applies to responsible farmers who have looked after the environment as well as producing food. These generally do not have spare land to do new actions as it’s all being farmed and the environmental payments favour either new actions or a laissez-faire type of farming – extensive with few inputs.
Being on Countryside Mid-Tier may not help. There is a good payment for introducing legumes but this can’t be put on fields that are in an agreement to keep off the land for five months. It’s not easy to see why you can’t also take the legume action (NUM 2) under SFI. This offers £121 a hectare and would be a real boost if it were not being blocked for no good reason that I can see.
Once you have decided which option to go for, the computerised form is relatively easy, and doesn’t necessarily need an expensive adviser to fill it in. You get £20 a hectare up to the first 50 hectares to submit your SFI application, and this is far better to go in your own pocket.
Back on our farm and after a hopefully successful AI period, our Friesian bull Brinkworth Buster VG87 is out with the cows. This is as much to control his weight, as he is a hefty full-grown bull, as to use his genetics. He’s already got two years’ crop of heifers in calf and has proved easy calving with calves that pop out and instantly suckle.
Behind Brinkworth Buster is a long story of selective breeding. Our herd, which was established in 1910 by my husband’s grandfather, was one of the first Friesian herds in the country which is why we have the Brinkworth Prefix. For the next 50 years we operated as a closed herd, which means only breeding from our own female cattle and not buying in any replacement animals. In 1953, when the herd was reduced due to TB controls, 13 heifers and a bull were brought from Scotland, and the herd has been closed ever since.
In the early ’70s, Holstein cattle began to be imported into Britain and this coincided with a new recording system which rewarded higher yields. These developments made the existing Friesians look unattractive, as they were now minus on milk using the new system (called PIN). Farmers naturally went for the plus milk bulls, leaving the minus Friesians out in the cold. As there was low demand for Friesians, AI companies stopped testing Friesian bulls, to the long-term detriment of Friesian genetics.
Another problem gradually reared its head; farmers had been so blinded by the extra milk they got from the new Holstein semen, that they forgot about legs and feet, milk quality and longevity. The new Holstein cattle were much taller and frailer, needing careful handling and didn’t last as long as the former, more robust Friesians. These results led to a lot of cross breeding, as disappointed farmers tried to get milk quality and strength back into their herds.
An obvious choice for a pedigree breeder is to use a Friesian bull but these have been scarce due to lack of involvement by the AI companies. A few die-hard breeders, like Mary Mead at Yeo Valley, stuck with their Friesians which has been very commendable but the pool of genetics has been greatly reduced so it’s difficult to avoid inbreeding.
Back to our own herd. I have had an ambition to breed a really good Friesian bull, looking to the female line. Brinkworth Buster VG87 has three generations of ‘Excellent’ cows behind him, six ‘Very Good’ and ‘Excellent’, all with very high milk quality and plus production, and his inbreeding rate at 1.4% is very low. He’s the first bull I have managed to get into AI (with UK sires), and looking to the new year, I’m hoping he may appeal to breeders as a robust cross or to widen Friesian genetics.
■ Ro Collingborn is a Wiltshire dairy farmer and has been dairy chairman of the Women’s Food and Farming Union, on the Milk Development Council, the Veterinary Products Committee, the RSPCA Council and a Wiltshire Wildlife Trust director.