For Flock's Sake - Please Let it End .....

One of the few books I’ve read more than once is “The Farming Ladder” by George Henderson.  I liked it so much, I named my Nuffield Scholarship study after it.  Oddly - even though there is so much wisdom within his book's cover - I would have hated to meet George.  He seemed to be incredibly opinionated, self-satisfied and humourless.  Yet he left a book to the world that - almost 70 years on - will still be inspirational to some and was, certainly, to me.

One thing he spoke of ... which was, in many ways, totally out of character to his normally practical and coldly objective attitude .... was of a spiritual connection with sheep.  If I’m weirding you out skip this next bit and go to the even weirder next post.

He described a couple of occasions of significant spiritual liaisons with sheep and sharing them with other shepherds.  Even though sheep became of less and less significance to his business, he described the overwhelming contentedness he felt like no other in farming ... when he knew all was well with his flock.

I can identify with this.  And I reckon even alot of proper stockmen might.  You feel uneasy when all is not well.  Every now and then you act on a gut feeling and think its weird because there was something a bit psychic to it (obviously I imagine this and it is simply coincidence but I like the idea).

The flock now has not seen grass for 4 weeks.  The Met Office keep teasing about a thaw but it never comes.  I’m not a real farmer - no tractor, don’t make silage, no shed.  My mission is to operate with very little fixed costs hence - no tractor, don’t make silage, no shed.  Its times like these, unlikely to be repeated,  extreme conditions, that you wish your fixed costs were extravagant and thus the sheep were happy.  Its like torture relying so heavily on something you can't control. Please let it end, please let the thaw come, please let them see grass, please let all be well with the flock once again.

To prove there is a special relationship between Shepherd and his Sheep, one of my flock gave me the following yesterday .....

The Diary of Lamb Fank ....

18th November 2010 - Day 1

This has to be a first! I am a sheep and I’m actually writing a diary .... coooool!  Not only do I shed my own wool but I am genetically bred to be literate, to have an appreciation of the melancholic genius of Del Amitri lyrics and to have strong opinions on the subtleties of test cricket.

I live in the uplands above the Firth of Forth in West Fife and weigh 65 kg ... though horrifically, I’m pushing 70 at the moment.  Worse still my wool is growing and making my bum look really big. Otherwise, I’m feeling good and have lots of girl friends I can relate to on a spiritual and deeply emotional level.  I love life, though this does not constitute a contract and I may decide to end things at any time for no apparent reason.

19th November - Day 2

Feeling a bit odd today ... restless .... tense.  My mind calender reckons The Master of Disaster (our “shepherd” - Michael ) should have supplied a boy sheep to me by now.  He constantly disappoints me and needs to seriously up his game.

20th November - Day 3

At last - Boy Sheep supplied for my delectation. He is semi-gorgeous, though not exactly Brad Tup-Pitt.  However, he is kind and generous with his love ... albeit his chat needs work for him to be “The One”.

26th November - Day 9

Sorry for not writing for a while.  Been a bit busy. Mind elsewhere.  Boy Sheep bores me and I am ... like ... sooo vanilla about him.  He is a bit of a dog anyway .... God, I hate him ... he is dead to me.

27th November - Day 10

It snowed yesterday which was nice ... makes my nose tingle when I bury to eat the grass.  Boy Sheep really getting on my nerves.

28th November - Day 11

Still snowing. Feeling a bit peckish.  Burying to get at grass becoming tiresome, I prefer grazing without the foreplay, if you know what I mean.  Which reminds me ... Boy Sheep is potentially the biggest loser in the world.

2nd December - Day 15

Two feet of snow and not a lot to eat apart from rushes - the culinary equivalent of cardboard spread with doggy do-do, for sheep.  Boy Sheep doesn’t understand me - I am putting him in my mind box and shutting the lid forever!

10th December - Day 23

This is getting ridiculous.  We have a crap weather sandwich: Layer of snow - layer of ice above the luscious layer of grass ... I can almost touch it .... thinking about drilling for it.  Have to rely on His Uselessness to provide pityful morsels of hay.  Its bloody freezing.  Only plus point is Boy Sheep looks knackered and well ugly.

Me with my girlfriends.  He-Who-Can't-Be-Named is second from the left .... PRAT! 

15th December - Day 28

I am seriously thinking about giving this lark up.  Taking the “four feet in air” life-option.  If I were carnivorous, I could probably eat a horse.  My favourite colour is green and my favourite organic compound is cellulose .... please provide it to me and my friends (NB this does not include Boy Sheep) timeously!!

20th December - Day 33

Someone, somewhere is having a laugh!  This snow is like the sheep equivalent of water boarding and should be outlawed worldwide.  The big bum syndrome is no longer an issue.  Not weighed myself recently but as diets go this snow has been overly effective.  I have told my girlfriends that talk of Boy Sheep in my presence is totally banned or I will look annoyed.

I am stopping this diary as it bores me and I don’t have the strength any more.  I have decided not to have babies next Spring ... I don’t want to be reminded of their incredibly awful father.  Enjoy your Christmas dinner in the warmth.  Looks like me and 49 friends and one complete plonker will be spending it hungry, cold with occasional annoyed looks and resultant awkward silences. 

The Ghost of Christmas Past ....

Christmas 2008.  Something so right but sooo wrong has happened. This great new scheme has been launched that gives farmer’s access to more capital.  Its the Scottish Rural Development Programme - Rural Priorities ... catchy name.  You can get 50% funding on relevant shiny new stuff. I need it ... I need it bad!

I ignore that 50% means SRDP is a game of TWO halves and that I will actually have to fund the rest .... I get overly excited and, in the festive spirit, I write a wish list as if I were going to send it up the chimney on Christmas Eve.

The resultant application was essentially the following:

Two years on and the Ghost of Christmas Past has come to me ... telling me I am a total pillock.  All the items on the list can be justified ... apart from Number 5.  The others were useful and needed. They added efficiency and enhanced my balance sheet at effectively half their cost.  

Number 5 though! ... Its ostentatious.  Its completely OTT.  I originally planned on getting a Racewell - it senses the sheep,  reads its electronic tag, then grips it, then weighs it, then can draft it three ways according to just about any EID criteria you set ... all by itself ... all whilst I stand behind the sheep making funny body movements and eery sounds to keep them moving.  It was £11,500 in December 2008 ... now its £15,500 - GULP!  The cheque would bounce at this price and as the deadline approached for buying something, I wrote a cheque the other day for a Prattley 3 Way Auto Drafter ... 4 figures (but only just) ... I’ll get half back, but that still means  effectively a five grand investment and for what?  Its almost the same as a Racewell and can weigh and draft (but not grip) up to 600 sheep per hour.  I don’t need it!

This throws up the issue of capital and its efficient use.  Effective capital useage is absolutely key to the scaling of the farming ladder.  On the subject of what to invest in when building a business, the wise old men I have talked to have told me: "the less depreciating rust you have, the better"; “buy flesh, not metal”; “buy legs and land”; “keep it simple”.  Effectively I’ve said in response - “bugger that, I want a cool new toy to play with”.

I’ve bought the auto drafter to enter the complex world of EID.  I want to know what all my sheep are doing and how good or bad each of them are.  This ‘want’ costs money ... in many ways it makes work rather than saves it . What the hell am I doing?

But then there is this hope that the Ghost of Christmas’s Yet to Come will pay a visitation apon me soon and show that in the furure I am getting genetic improvement worth £2/ewe per year.  I am hiring it out.  I even go round farms contracting and consulting. Harvesting data through my pneumatic wonder toy ... spreading genetic gain to all who open their gates.  It pays for itself in a year and as a return on investment it is my best purchase ever .... Don’t stop believing! as the song says.

Simplicity saves, complexity costs.  The auto-drafter is the bastard child of these two extremes ... the end result could be drafted three ways ... its up to me to set the right criteria.

Hannah Montana Rocks ....

Sometimes, as a parent you are asked to perform great sacrifices for your children.  Sometimes, parent / child bonding means sitting beside each other ... saying nothing.  Keres ... (its Fijian, don’t ask) ... is the scariest five year old girl on earth.  I really try to say no to her, but can’t.  Her interests include style, fashion, singing, fairies, princesses, getting her photo taken and telling her father what to do.  

To incorporate most of the aforementioned - she told me to watch her heroine in ‘Hannah Montana: The Movie’ last night ... but to be quiet for its entire duration. I duly obliged.

Now this isn’t quite the sacrifice you might imagine.  The TV series has to be one of the best written children’s programmes I’ve seen (I’m being serious for a change!) and the absolute comic genius of Jackson (Miley/Hannah’s brother) is a wonder..... Have I just admitted I like Hannah Montana? .... let’s move on quickly.

I need to explain that the gist of the entire plot for every episode (and hence the film) is that Miley is a plain, normal girl but can put on a blond wig and become Hannah Montana - the most phenomenal teen music sensation in the world ... no one notices the facial similarities ... just the hair colour.  

The movie involves Miley/Hannah returning to her home town in Tennessee. She has become more Hannah than Miley and is a bit pretentious.  She meets a boy with lots of hair.  The boy is salt of the earth.  He has been given a chance to start farming by Miley’s grandma.  If he does up the chicken coup, he can sell the eggs (yes ... the farming ladder has reached mainstream ... I knew it would).  Miley doesn’t understand.  He says you have to start somewhere and that its all about “the climb”.  He stole this from me .... as in - its all in the struggle - but as he has more hair than me and the film was made before I thought of this - I’ll let him off ..... She is working on a song.  He says its OK, but his main criticism is that its not about anything.

In the end, she has let 'barnet boy' down by lying to him.  She does up the chicken coup to say sorry.  She plays a concert in her home town as Hannah but when she sees the boy with the hair style [who by now has grown a huge hat] ... she can’t continue.  She takes off the wig and sings the song she was working on, as her true “Miley self” ... this time its about something ... its about first generation farming ... its about life ... its about the process, not the result ...  its about “The Climb”. The coiffured egg seller boy smiles ... so does Miley ... [sigh].  

Please listen intently to the lyrics ... raise your arms ... sway them from side to side .... and enjoy (without smiling):

The End.  

Keres tells me to stop crying ... I try to do what I am told.  

Who would have thought Miley Cyrus would be the siren for the farming ladder and first generation farmers.  I think we've just found a new theme tune .... watch out, my next karaoke victims .... especially as its in completely the wrong key for a bass baritone!!!

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em ....

I see this job in the paper.  £25k p.a. ... 21 hours per week ... really positive and proactive role which could seriously move Scotland’s rural economy forward .... even with me involved.  SRDP applications (my consultancy bread and butter) look as if they will be the equivalent of urinating into a strong south westerly next year; I might have a lot less sheep aswell and then there is always the threat of caravan living again.  All in all, £25k for half a week looks a sensible strategic move.

I apply at the last minute, juggling a SRDP deadline on the same day. 

I get an interview.  We have to do a presentation on one of the many subjects I know nothing about (its a long list). I do some research and even talk to someone about it.

The interview goes well.  They are very nice.  I do however talk about the Rural Leadership course I did in 2009 and describe the moment when we had an American Rural Policy guru giving his opinion on our individual presentations ....  I blurt out that he “touched” me (I might explain this one day).  Fortunately, they obviously don’t assume it was in the physical sense .... phew.

They phone me again.  Lambing and Nuffield commitments are a concern but they seem keen.

Get a call today, offering me the job ...  Back of the Net!! .... We review the terms and conditions ... get to the pay.  “So if its £25,000 pro rata” .... [pause, my end] .... PRO RATA! .... that’s half what I was thinking ... I consider just accepting the job to avoid embarrassment but manage to substitute this by saying “sorry” 34 times in 2 minutes.

Note to self: read the damn advert properly before applying for a job.

It wasn’t THE most embarrassing moment I’ve had to endure in my life ... but its a brand new entry in my top forty.

FREEEEEDOOOMMM!

It was Saturday night. The conference had ended. A massive 14.285714% (every little helps) of 2010 scholars had stayed for the final night.  Though this number didn’t include “groupies”.  As the lonely Scot I felt some pressure to make suggestions .... what did I come up with?  Scottish folk music!  Albeit semi-acoustic. Being “cool” is so over-rated, you know.

The Scotsman Lounge is my favourite pub in Edinburgh. More a Spit Only pub as they think Sawdust is for girls.  We could have gone to the trendy bars or the student pubs with Irish names ... but the Scotsman is part of Scotland many visitors don’t see .... or at least see and live to tell the tale.

Bearing in mind the guests were Sassenachs, I’m sure they felt comfortable and welcome with the dominant display above the bar:

Its from the Declaration of Arbroath, that declared Scottish Independence from England in 1320 .... we take a while to let go, north of the border! The two piece band played their own songs about love lost and the solace of alcohol.  When I first started going it was all about the protest song ... about oppression, injustice, the struggle, the fight, the revolution and the socialist way.  William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, the Jacobites, the Highland Clearances, the love of this country .... our country.  The oppressors were usually the English or the landowners .... or worse still, the English landowners.  A high proportion of my good friends are English - and some even own land - but when I used to step into the Scotsman there was a fever that took hold.  The thought of truth being repressed, compassion being discarded and justice being suffocated, does that to a man and makes you sing louder.  

This is mere history ... it just happened to involve the English (sorry) but the bottom line is ... all this anger involves the lust of some for wealth and therefore the lust for land. It’s not just the Scots and the English, its a common theme throughout the world with a few notable variations.

This culture permeates rural society a millennium on. People used to fight and die for land in the UK, so at least there’s been some form of progress.  Yet land still brings out a certain avarice in folk.  There is a significant minority of farmers that would rather farm 1000 acres at a loss, than 100 acres at a profit.  Land is emotional, it can become a fever, having more land is often the most important priority in a farmer’s brain.

This culture resists any temperance on who can own land, it gives rich approval to taxation breaks for land ownership, and, most importantly, it prevents trust in new (and even existing) ways to lease land.  After a 1,000 years - despite all the singing - land is still guarded warily and possessively.  Some people really want it, some people really want to keep it ..... nothing has changed.

This is the culture that saturates our soil .... to change it, seems impossible.  But there is hope - I reckon there is a reason why the two piece sing no longer of protest and prefer the more important things in life - love and good times. 11 years ago the Scottish Parliament opened and I have sensed a shift in culture since.  Scotland had a voice again, its destiny was partly in its ownership, we as a people had a bit of hope and pride.  It gave us an opportunity to make our own decisions.  I feel we love the English a bit more as a nation now because they were, in many respects, unselfish by helping Holyrood happen.

If not a bit more love, then at least a bit more unselfishness, a bit less fever, a bit more trust - from both sides of the land question - would go a long way to letting go of the past .... forgiving and forgetting .... and - for first generation farmers - walking on with hope in our hearts.

We've Only Got 12 Minutes to Save the World ....

And so they came ... to a place known as Edinburgh, birth place of Michael the Strange, son to Doreen the Nag.  Guided by the almighty Stones, they arrived. 

This was the location of the Nuffield conference.  2009 scholars each do their 12 minute talk.  We drink beer, but only after dark. I talk to some very interesting individuals.  A few people laugh at my jokes (.... and my flies weren’t even undone). 

The talks are intriguing.  There are some really good ones.  I imagine doing mine next year. I nip out to purchase additional underpants.  Later, I picture getting asked an aggressive question.  I nip out to get more handkerchiefs.  Then, I worry about what to say and envisage myself getting all emotional.  I nip out to pick up extra valium.

What struck me were the good ones.  One chap was a natural orator, used no notes that I could see and was incredibly lucid.  One guy was clever, original, with a wit so sharp you had to say “ouch”.  Another though was probably the most entertaining.  He talked on a controversial subject but was very funny and unconventional.  I heard later that his talk split opinion - a few were disapproving.  Apparently it wasn’t serious enough!!  I guess this disappoints me but maybe this is my first brush with stuffiness and as such it is a navigation point.  I might bring my target of 24 jokes in 12 minutes down in slight compromise ... and even incorporate at least one fact.

I noticed many were really professional, they were very controlled emotionally ... this is obviously a sensible thing.  I panic about when its my turn ... I think of embarrassment and a weird hybrid of Gwyneth Paltrow at the Oscars and Kevin Keegan getting mad with Sir Alex ... expressed through a 12 minute talk format about first generation farmers .... I’m nipping out again - and this time, I’m buying in bulk.

Two Missed Meals from Revolution ....

It is 2030. Simon Cowell is Prime Minister, elected via the red button on everyone’s remote .... Ant and Dec stay in No11 and manage the nation’s finances in an amusing, laddish way .... most importantly, Scotland have just won the Rugby World Cup .... again (its getting embarrassing now).  I am still writing this blog and have now managed to attract 12 followers ... though of these, two have fallen into deep comas due to reading too much dull and weird internet content.      

The price of land has reached £100,000 per acre.  The UK sheep flock has reduced from 15,000,000 to 650 (and they are all mine .... still on seasonal lets).  Land is owned primarily by merchant bankers, horsey folk and businessmen, not of UK domicile. As a result of the land price, agricultural rents need to be £3,000 per acre but profits on that acre are still only around £100.  In most sectors we have to import 95% of what our population consumes (but most worryingly, 100% of all Kebabs).  All fertiliser and oil are China’s by international law and we have to make do with used chip fat ... luckily everyone is force-fed chips now to ensure their early demise, so that pension costs are kept low.

Liquid farm subsidy has been invented so land “users” / subsidy junkies can just administer it directly through intramuscular injection and thus save bank charges.  The last farm tenancy awarded was in 2015 and people refer to it with the same deference as the last person to be hanged.  There are a few people trying their best to produce food but mostly land has become a great way of 1) retaining wealth - with the help of fiscal policy (Ant and Dec are quite happy with this as they own most of Northumberland) - and 2) having REALLY big gardens.

But all is not well.  For it was foretold by the Great Sayer in the year of our Lord, 2009 that there would be a Perfect Storm in 2030. Formerly know as John Beddington, the Great Sayer was taken as an idol by a ragged band of agrarian militants. He foretold what has now happened: that the increasing world population  - now standing at 10 billion - would mean a whole series of other events would come together: water shortages; energy shortages and .... food shortages.  The smelly, ragged militants argued that land should be accessible to those who want to farm, innovate and drive efficient production ... they weren’t the same people as the merchant bankers, horsey folk and businessmen, not of UK domicile .... daaa!  No one listened. Agriculture stagnated and declined. The Great Sayer was last seen, wearing placards predicting the end of the world, drinking meths and shouting a lot, at Kings Cross Station.  

In 2012 the crack band of agrarian militants were sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit (and for words, they couldn’t spell properly or put in the right order). These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the rural underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as shepherds of fortune. [OK I plagiarised this bit].

But the foretelling has come to pass.  Due to a comprehensive transport strike by the damned French there is no food ... at all ... not even the nut based chocolates in the Quality Street tins.  No one had any breakfast today (apart from those that had once bought a packet of All Bran and then thought better of it) and everyone has had to miss lunch too.  Shops are being looted, cars set alight and we march toward Holyrood and Westminster with revolution in our hearts and just a little All Bran in our bellies (the latter does necessitate longer “rest” stops than normal).

I’ve sent this message via my new time machine, Blogspot application - I wish I had it before.  You need to contact the militants, you need to tell them to try harder this time, they shouldn’t get self-conscious about boring people.  It may seem dull and unimportant all this, merit based progression and the importance of land accessibility, waffle ... but one day .... this day, in 2030 ... when revolution looms and Simon Cowell’s life is in danger ... it will be the most important thing in the world. 

Good luck .... you’ll need it.  Lots of love and hugs

Michael (3 year old trapped in a 61 year old body) xoxo

The Michael O'Clock News ...

22nd of September. I’ve had better days.  Occasionally you get a 16 hour period where you stumble upon whatever the collective noun is for .... lots of crap news:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Imaginary blog video of a newscast from 22.9.2010

Announcer 

(patronising, slightly cynical, mid atlantic tone)

“And now on Channel Blanche its the Michael O’Clock News where events of little consequence are reported over-dramatically”:... 

[Cue dramatic, drum-based music combined with cool visual graphics of sheep] ... 

DONG (this represents a bell chime and not a rude word)....   

[cut to serious man with a serious hairstyle, and an even more serious voice] .... 

Newsreader with the Hair

(impressively theatrical)

“Michael ... [coughs whilst blurting the word Plonker] ... said to be devastated after been given notice on his grazing” ... [cut to picture of Michael making a funny face] .... 

DONG .... 

[you don’t want to know the rest - its irrelevant, slightly dull and caravan related]

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I think that had potential but didn’t fulfill (or even half-fill) it.  Anyway, bottom line is I have to be off all the grass I have ... every last blade ... by next Spring. Not because I am a cad or a bounder (... this time, at least) but just because the landlord wants to farm it himself now.  His consultant has been nagging him that he needs to concentrate more on his farming operation .... his consultant is some “plonker” called Michael Blanche! He’s been really good to me, he’s given me five years and I have proceeded to build a flock of an ok size and feather my warm and cozy comfort zone with super-soft downy material.

So now I need to go round Land Agent’s ... buy a cap and make sure I doff it ... and try to understand that my sheep flock isn’t of any concern or importance to anyone else other than me.  I need to make some phone calls, introduce myself, try and find persuasive chat from somewhere and charm pants off people.  Its uncomfortable though.  I’ve been on places where I was a couple of pounds lighter in the flesh department between arriving and leaving.  I’ve been on places where the feudal system is stronger now than it was in the days of William of Orange.  I’ve been on places where my tongue was bitten every day and I spoke with a lisp for months afterwards.  Renting land is just business; my sheep are just passion.  Its not a good mix - when practicality meets passion there is usually only one winner.   

Being given notice may be the best or the worst thing to happen.  I could get more ground, more control, more security. Yet there is the very credible possibility of not finding grass at all; finding grass but not at a price I can make a worthwhile profit; or finding too little grass. I might get a 6 month let and have to go through the process all over again and bi-annually thereafter thus maintaining a constant state of desparation.  I may have to sell all the sheep or a large proportion of them .... and thus sell the dream to the highest bidder in a market place full of wide awake people.  

This position represents a defining paradox in my study ... I have to take sides in my thinking at some point and support one attitude or another:  is it the system’s fault I find it really difficult to get land .... or, is it mine?  I’ve noticed that since returning from Australia and New Zealand where every success and failure was attributed to the individual (and any other reasoning is blatant whinging), that I’ve been sucked back in to this British culture of blaming the system. Land is incredibly difficult to obtain for a price that you are able to grow a business without subsidy.  Control is minimal. Length of term is pitiful. You can be dropped on a whim. It causes frustration and I understand where this culture has come from ... its not illogical.  But first generation farming is all in the struggle.  Struggle is good because it makes you better.  Getting into farming should be hard .... but it also needs to be possible.  That’s the fine line.

Obviously if I fail - its the system’s fault ... if I succeed - its all down to me!  Place your bets please, ladies and gentlemen, place your bets.

Birds - I'll never understand them ....

Day 2. Somewhere in Devon.  I’ve been adopted by a very nice family, who feel sorry for me.  They feed me organic chicken and duck confit.  They give me Jack Daniels ..... straight. They put up with my inane chat despite having a very long to-do-list.  They let me do a few easy jobs that I make difficult; which in the end would have been easier to do themselves. There are a lot of birds, making a lot of incoherent noises.

I’m at Higher Fingle Farm, home of the Amiss family .... all seven of them.  They are so nice I get kind of emotional just thinking about them and their kindness.  Rona Amiss is a Nuffield Scholar too, one of the brethren that knows the secret handshake and the code words (OK the last bit is just an attempt to make it sound mysterious).  Both her and her husband, Nevil, are the kind of humble people that I warm to.  Before I visited - Rona’s portrayal of their business was modest and self-deprecating. This made me feel comfortable as I have a great deal to be modest and self-deprecating about.

As a team, however, Nevil and Rona have built an incredibly impressive business from very little.  They are Country Living/Waitrose Gold Medal winners; suppliers to Duchy Originals and thus best mates with Prince Chaz; their daughter, Elsa, has been on Blue Peter and the Alan Titchmarsh Show for the Duck Egg business she set up.  They have more awards than anyone I have ever known.

Their farm is only 57 acres yet they are both full time and progressing. They employ two men full time, more part time. The keys to having this kind farm business on just 57 acres are 1) intensive enterprises - ducks and duck eggs; 2) added value - the ducks are branded, organic, killed and butchered on the premises, some sold retail; 3) marketing; 4) profiting from their expertise (they have another business that contracts out organic broiler chicken production); 5) more marketing and 6) even more marketing with sugar on top.

Apart from their resourcefulness, I was most amazed at their marketing (as you may have guessed already). Most Thursdays I put some lambs in my trailer, drive to Stirling, drop them off (whilst trying too hard to bond with the yardsmen), get a coffee and a sausage roll, then drive back.  Sometimes I phone later to ask what they made. That’s it ... that’s my marketing.  It seems that half Rona and Nevil’s business is marketing .... and 99% of their reasons for getting to where they are.  They could have still had the brilliant products but they had to be marketed and that meant actually doing deals and selling as opposed to opening a trailer door in Stirling.

Nevil took me on a tour of Higher Fingle .... we saw ducks, sheep, cattle and the butchery. Rona took me on a tour of Devon .... we saw chickens .... more chickens ... and cute little ducklings.  I suspect I had my jaw open most of the time.  This poultry job amazes me.  We met a man that probably made close to £50k profit off 38 acres (more in the good times) and got planning permission for a beautiful house, because of his profitability.  Intensity of production means intensity though.  There is always a threat of stress because there is always a threat - broken contracts, grain price spikes, over-supply, poor end price.  Poultry is heading into difficult times and threats loom large.  

I headed back to Scotland with clucks and quacks ringing in my ears. Intensity of production ... its still the way forward but I’ll need to do more than open trailer doors. 

Devon knows I'm Miserable Now .....

It’s sobering to realise that some of the normal essentials in my life, effectively make me a terrorist suspect.  Stripped of these essentials, immediately stops me being a liability (at least in this strict context).

And so it was, after discarding my beloved pocket knife, my 200 ml can of shaving foam and, most worryingly, my 200 ml can of deodorant at Edinburgh Airport security, I was eventually allowed on the plane to Exeter.

There was a seminar on the “Missing Rung of the Farming Ladder” in Cornwall. Its a long way to go.  Seminars usually disappoint.  As a return on investment, if judged on a knowledge profit per £ spent - it was going to be a risk.  Yet I managed this risk by obtaining an assurance that my hosts, Nevil and Rona Amiss - first generation farmers and all things poultry - would teach me the ways of the bird the following day.

“The missing rung” referred to tenancies for progressing farming businesses. It was a revelation in some respects. As a Scotsman, I didn’t appreciate that the English system of Council tenancies were such a vital tool for first generation farmers.  I asked my obligatory embarrassing question by saying in my introduction that I was from Scotland and that we normally think we are better than the English at most things but that I was really impressed  with the Council farms setup.  No one laughed: if we were in a pub, they’d have switched off the juke box, stopped talking and just stared.

Their problem is the move from smaller Council tenancies to larger farms on private estates.  The Cornwall Council Land Agent’s mission was to get rid of his best tenants! In other words, to ensure they started but then progressed and finished on larger farms.  His aim was principally to facilitate new entrants up the first few rungs in farming - 50 acres up to 200 acres.  Using my calculator, I suspect that Council Farms are perhaps a light drizzle in the ocean. Yet they are at least that compared to the still waters of Scotland.

The log jam were the private estates and the lack of incentive, will and parallel philosophy to let land. Some said persuasion was the key .... I just can’t see it!  To expect business people to act on guilt or loosely held duty rather than financial incentive is asking too much of human nature. But propaganda may be our only weapon.  Changing the tax system, changing a culture, changing aspirations, changing rural housing legislation (so retiring tenants can move to somewhere as cheap) - I’m not holding my breath.

So revolution maybe the only way to go. This land is a common property for everyone to share. We need radical change.

Here I am - a small boy with a receeding hairline but without my 200 ml of deodorant.  Maybe I’ll have to terrorise the Treasury with only my natural smell as a weapon.

Soiling Myself about the Cost of the Earth ....

All through my “professional” career - which I have stumbled through like a gentleman amateur - I have had it drummed in to me not to be late for meetings.  It was reinforced at our Nuffield briefing with the accompanying inference that concerned electrodes and sensitive body parts.  I KNOW I shouldn’t be late - and I have been so good recently - but no matter how hard I try, sometimes it  just feels like its a natural talent.

And so it came to pass, I was 30 minutes late for a 60 minute meeting with an Emeritus Professor at the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute ...... CRINGE ... fire up the electrodes; I’ll start undressing!  I have plenty excuses  ... its just when they are transfered from my over active brain to the written word ... they lose a lot of their all-encompassing power.  Being late affected our conversation - I was saying sorry all the time and he was busy thinking I was a bit of a pillock.

That said, he gave me a really interesting perspective on land price.  I still had the “3 to 5 times farm turnover = land value” multiplier, I encountered in Oz and NZ, etched bold in my brain - I’d almost convinced myself this theory should be enforced through Act of Parliament (or failing that coup d’etat).  The Professor had never heard of the multiplier concept (1-0 to me in my strictly controlled, narrow concept, mind game where he isn’t allowed to score).

Yet he simply pointed out the obvious - that farm land is so much more than farming. There are a lot of wealthy people in the UK; that there is a large demand for investments - be they gold bars; works of art or ..... land.  Land is emotive, a dream for some, a need for others, to play out expensive hobbies. Effectively the wealth to land area ratio in the UK is fundamentally divergent from "Down Under" and as such investment and leisure buyers have a significantly larger impact.  

Also the effect of subsidy in land price is significant.  I read somewhere that Alan Greenspan reckoned subsidy was capitalised to form 40% of the land value in certain countries.  My professor looked at it differently - half of the total subsidy given out in Scotland finds its way into the capital value of all land.  Broken down to an acreage basis this might represent around £1,000 for an arable acre. 

Then there is fiscal policy ... taxation ... relief from inheritance ... relief from capital gains. How much does this add to land value?  Also, the turnover of land is low and thus supply is poor.  But the professor said turnover of land coming on to the market has always been low - sitting at pretty close to 1% of the total area every year, for 150 years.So add to pure farming productivity - investment demand; leisure demand; subsidy distortion, taxation relief and restricted supply.  

The attitude of “you’re mad paying that much for land” has been described often, by those that it has been directed at, at the time of their purchase.  Without exception it is the “mad” ones that have been proven right. Increasing their equity and going a goal up in their own mind game with the nae-sayers.

But things are different now. In three years, maybe less, land price has as good as doubled in the UK.  Surely now it’s mad, surely buying farm land for solely farming purposes should have a special neurosis named after it.  Land purchase is now effectively beyond the reach of the typical New Entrant to farming - providing an enforced protection against such mentalness.

In a weird cycle, given the inflated demand for “safe” investments following the credit crisis, maybe the land market has caught the bug that caused the global financial problems in the first place and grown its very own bubble.  At some level of value you have to be “mad” to buy land. Yet the bubble still grows - taxation, subsidy, investment needs and emotional wants will keep the bubble cosy, warm and thriving in its very own padded cell. 

Michael Blanche in Apology Shock ....

“The Blogging Standards and Weirdness Commission has upheld an imaginary complaint against this blog in connection with recent posts.  Their findings found that interminable analysis of the writer’s own navel, obscure references to song lyrics aswell as a blatant and embarrassing desperation for followers, was against the original and defining purpose of this blog.

Furthermore the Commission has ordered the author to “get a grip and stop being a big Jesse” and “that any post must now have some relevance to Nuffield travel or study topic”.  The Commission, in its concluding findings, pointed out that “you have one shot ... one opportunity, you must capture it and not let it slip ..... word!”

In response to the decision, love hunk, Michael Blanche (41) said he was sorry and would not do it again. However some eye witnesses have reported he had his fingers crossed behind his back during his statement.”

The Farming Ladder, or rather lack of it, is a cause. A Nuffield Scholarship is an opportunity.  Furthering the cause through the opportunity is a once in a lifetime shot. From now on ... its serious (well, almost - as I slowly disentangle my fingers).  On Monday, I go to Aberdeen to get my theories on the UK land market totally dismembered by a Professor Emeritus. On Thursday, its to Devon to a Seminar on Tenancies (or rather lack of them) and to see the Amazing Lady of the Ducks and New Entrant - Rona Amiss (NSch).  From this day forward - let’s try and drop some bombs. Let’s try and get some rungs on the Ladder.

Cringe 2 - The Redemption

Regular readers (.... I think that just means you Tim .... and maybe Caroline), will recall I once explained the cringe-to-the-max moment when I gave the Reserve Championship (of Any Other Breed of Sheep) to the wrong exhibitor at Perth Show. It took me a while to get over it but I now feel completely better after seeing some poor soul doing far, far worse .... live ... in front of millions ....  See Australia's Next Top Model and hang on in there until 54 seconds. Just to explain it starts with the not-as-pretty-one having just been announced as the winner .... 

Dry Your Eyes Mate ....

Well, did I "drop bombs" at the Wiltshire Horn Show and Sale? Eh ..... no! There were no explosions, no red rosettes. I got a yellow one - 3rd in a class of three (... that’s last, isn’t it?). A fifth for a gimmer. Out in the first round in another class.

The sale started bad but was saved by my best two tups going for 460 gns (for Furb - see previous post) and 520 gns (for Elvis) - actually these prices were (I think) the 2nd highest in each class; the 4th and 5th highest in the whole sale - but obviously I much prefer to concentrate on the negative. The final cheque should just about cover the diesel, the chocolate, the crisps, the fizzy drinks, the fry ups and the 6% of the sale proceeds I had to pay my sons - Seamas and Calum - so they would agree to come.

There were highlights - Kevin Beaty’s shepherd’s pie (complete with ostentatious mutton salami, sweet potato combo) at Carlisle on the way down; the Marshall Cook’s hospitality in Leicestershire and the, guilt exorcism-like, satisfaction of repaying Tim White for a fry up he bought me 12 months ago.

Despite the disappointment and the broken dreams, it was an adventure and we laughed as we travelled. Seamas and Calum were probably laughing for different reasons - I mean 6% would make me happy too.

Perhaps I should choose a different song in the build up to next year to get excited to, other than Eminem .... I'm thinking The Animals - "Don't let me be misunderstood" .... good intentions but poor delivery.

Let’s get ready to RUUUMMMBBBLLLE .......

"Look ...If you had ... one shot ... or one opportunity .... to seize everything you ever wanted ... would you capture it ... or just let it slip?".... For all you Eminem fans out there ..... "there’s vomit on my sweater already!". (If you know nothing of this song best to click on the link - otherwise the following will be even weirder than it is intended to be)

I've done this before - over estimated in my squidgy brain the importance of an event then magnifying it further through song lyrics. You eventually realise that you've got carried away and that no one else is really all that excited about it. When I occasionally ponder on it, usually in retrospect, this trait really makes me cringe .... a lot. But here I go again ... getting overly dramatic with Eminem by my side ... because the count down is on to the Wiltshire Horn Show and Sale at Stoneleigh .... 5.5 days, one shot. Yes, just to confirm - I am applying lyrics written about rapping, abject poverty and social exclusion to sheep!

Not having people laugh at my stock may not be all I ever wanted but it’s in my top five in the life wish list (such an elevated position suggests the term “life” is used in its loosest sense). This sale though is the equivalent of a crystal clear mirror being held up to your stockmanship ... so in many ways it is “everything”, it is pride itself.

Two years ago I won the shearling ewe section - Steven Wonder, the guest judge from Detroit was quite impressed. This will be my second attempt to sell at the sale, and this time its serious! I am bringing the daddy sheep down this time and humiliation is more likely than jubilation. I haven’t fed them anything, all they know is grass and clover. The fear, as a result, is they will be like Dr Evil’s Mini-Me and only come up to the knees of their competitors.

Below is one of the Shearling Rams that is going - Furb; looking out over the Firth of Forth .... FYI before the non-farmers ask .... no, that's not a pillow case hanging from his under carriage :

Next is Elvis. A Two Shear and my favourite. He is normally not this small, he is just very far away! He must have had a suspicious mind today ... I could go on for a while squeezing out Elvis song titles related to the situation but have managed to control myself:

Am I ready to "drop bombs"? I will report back after the event ... ("snap back to reality") ... between my fits of tears and valium consumption.

My Cheque Book and Me .....

Today I went shopping. The Kelso Ram Sale brings me joy. 14 sale rings, over 5,000 tups, 8 hours, 1 me and 1 cheque book. I was after a Texel, one as bare skinned as possible. For 12 months I’d regretted not bidding further for the barest tup in the sale in 2009. Its index was good and it regarded wool like a a “reet hard” Geordie would a warm top on a January night out in the Big Market. I stopped at £620 to stem the flow of blood rushing from my nose. But since then I have often thought of that tup and wish I’d done things differently.

As someone trying to breed wool shedding sheep. As someone that wants the best of both worlds - wool shedding AND conformation. The trait in some Texels that is expressed through very little wool growth and even wool loss is very alluring. Given that nothing is scientifically proven - by scientists who know science - on what the genetic process is that prompts wool shedding, I’ve often thought of spending an insane amount of money on a tup to do my own trial. Is this trait in Texels similar to that of the Wiltshire? When the two combine will it help wool shedding and increase conformation? More realistically will it just end in disappointment? As usual, I don't know.

My friend and mentor, Willie Shaw (more of whom another time) has been after bare skinned Texels for years. He felt buyers at the fat lamb sales loved texels and loved bare skins. The problem is he has been ahead of the trend and now, in 2010, everyone is after them. It seemed, in a lot of instances, the skin beat the shape in bidders’ preferences - its now an official fashion and that means an inflated price. I am looking for bare skins for a different reason.

I had two on my wish list. One that was actually shedding its wool, was a tremendous specimen but had no figures. The other was very bare but with a decent index and from a highly respected flock (I suppose that deep down a “name” always impresses me). When viewing the latter, I was immediately drawn to him (only sheep men will not find this a slightly unsettling expression). Sometimes you just know. I paid £1,000 for him, smashing my own record for daft investments at too high a price. Here he is .... don’t laugh or, even worse, take pity. The other one on the wish list went for £3,500 ... so it could have far been worse.

PS Totally irrelevant story time - going round the sale you meet interesting people, telling interesting stories and extolling their very own perceived wisdom. Today an old shepherd was telling the story of when a good friend of his was angry at a chap who he had done business with. The shepherd knew the man in question and defended him by saying, “He’s half honest”. His friend retorted back in a short, profound tone - “You’re either honest or you’re dishonest - there’s nothing in between”. Welcome to my world of Calvinist guilt.

The Hermit on the Hill ....

What cows make the best spies? The ones that get past-ur-eyes’d! .... Drum roll; symbol clash; .... “Thank you very much, I’m here ‘till Thursday, try the veal and don’t forget the waitresses”.

You know your obsession with farming is acute when, after two hours of excellent comedic, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, entertainment, you are searching your memory for the corniest joke - just because it made some reference to a farm animal. Sadder still is that it bothers you that the aforementioned reference obviously lacks technical accuracy.

After a bit of day release to Edinburgh I have returned to being the Hermit of West Fife (remember: don’t ask, its very complicated) - unshaven, shouting at passers by, showering under a hose but only for special occassions and - most worryingly - talking to myself. Depressingly, my chat’s still not great even though I’m one of the few people that find me amusing.

Solitude and loneliness are too different things. I feel the former far more than the latter in the caravan but maybe that’s one of the less heralded benefits of carbon monoxide for you. (Also I cheat massively by going home at weekends). Solitude is a beneficial state and has seen me starting on the road of the Ryegrass Jedi, mentioned in a previous post. I’ve measured all the fields for pasture mass and done feed budgets as a result - ok, ok I am REALLY bored!

The calculations provided far more questions than answers. What growth rate can I budget on? What is the actual quality of the swards? Is there something wrong with my ruler - there seems to be more grass than I thought? How do I use the information to budget for tupping and for the winter and for the spring?

That’s the exciting bit (honest!). Whereas before it was a question of whether there was some grass or no grass on the day I looked; now the possibilities - that (almost) accurate planning for grass use can provide - seem endless.

For those non-believers, for those non-obsessives; I’ll end on another joke in an attempt to provide levity:

Me: Knock Knock

You: Who’s there?

Me: The Interrupting Sheep

You: The Interrupting Sh.....

Me: BAAAAA

Thank you, thank you very much, you’ve been a great audience ..... Michael has left the building.

The Law of Unintended Consequences .....

Recovering from my neediness for followers last week was a slow, painful process but I think I am better now. I have to thank “andreas” who represented the sum total of life beyond the hardcore half dozen and gave me an electronic hug. Now the followers are one stronger and we have the Magnificent Seven .... bagsie me being Charles Bronson’s character (you know - the one with anti-social behaviour issues, no chat but really good with a knife).

Life in the caravan - don’t ask, its very complicated - is a simple one with occasional carbon monoxide fueled moments of skewed clarity. Today I am thinking of the Scottish Government ... I’m so rock and roll, it hurts!

In Scotland we claim subsidy. The subsidy entitlements correspond to what individuals farmed 8 to 10 years ago (don’t ask, its very complicated). To claim subsidy you need acres to put on your subsidy form that no-one else claims. As the rules stand you can use land you will never even see, let alone farm (usually in the deepest, darkest north and covered in heather) to claim subsidy on. Some do this - about 4% of subsidy is claimed this way. Some of this 4% are claimants that have stopped farming altogether and receive an income because the rules enable them to. The term “Slipper Brigade” has been coined for this group and everybody is mildly irritated by them. Everybody except me, that is.

To risk this post turning into a glossary of terms the land that claimants never see tends to be referred to as “Naked Acres”. One of my favourite lines I’ve ever came up with (it’s a short list) was in a talk I did once, moaning about the Single Farm Payment: “... the armchair farmer, fiddling with his naked acres ...” ..... I suppose you had to be there!

Anyway, I digress. The front page of the Scottish Farmer this week had Richard Lochhead our Farming Minister saying how he was going to kick the Slipper Brigade’s ass, ‘cause he is well hard. Everybody is mildly irritated by the Slipper Brigade (N.B. except me) so this is easy popularity points. The proposal is to use undergrazing rules and implement these with rigourous enthusiasm - effectively ending Naked Acres. Minimum stocking rates will apply too.

Great! Everybody’s a winner .... though, actually, no-one really wins, more accurately, and only on the face of it, nobody’s a loser for once - except the Slipper Brigade and, apparently, they deserve to have their testicles wired to the National Grid. All the rest can take momentary satisfaction in the Slipper Brigade’s mild disappointment. They got money for nothing and if they can’t be dragged through the streets by a fast horse whilst everyone else throws eggs past their sell by date at them; or if they can’t be sent to Guantanamo now its shut; at least disband Naked Acres.

This is all very well. But I worry. I worry that the pressure release valve of naked acres, is now firmly shut. I don’t know the percentage of land offered for rent on the open market each year, but I suspect its less than 4% of the total land area. Lots of active farmers rent naked acres to claim a proportion of their subsidy. In the clamour to claim all entitlement to subsidy, I suggest the demand for seasonal land will be increased hugely. I suggest rents will increase significantly as a result. And where does that leave New Entrants, trying to get hold of land in an already highly dysfunctional land market? ..... Nowhere to go! People without stock may well get stock again - just enough (and who cares about quality!) to be over the stocking limits, thus taking opportunities away from those that are farming for production not subsidy.

This is where I have to own up to a vested interest. I was lucky enough to get some subsidy. I just can’t get land - that I actually farm - to claim it on. Believe me, I have tried really hard. So I have to fiddle with naked acres too. I produce but I never see the land I claim subsidy on. I will stand tall with the slipper brigade, brothers in arms, bracing ourselves for the punishment that’s due to us. A punishment undertaken by those that wanted the farcical system in the first place but feel its time for a new, improved farcical system to distort markets a bit more.

I read somewhere that Thailand was thriving agriculturally and one commentator, in all seriousness, put this down to having a crap Farming Minister .... he did nothing. Yet, this enabled Thai agriculture to progress, unhindered by government tinkering.

Wouldn’t it be great if things weren’t very complicated? If central government stopped tinkering? They mean well, but never consider the Law of Unintended Consequences. By solving one wrong they create two other wrongs in its place. We have fast multiplying armies of wrongs thanks to subsidy. They march, bayonets fixed, toward the centre of efficient agriculture with killing on their minds.