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.

An Appeal on behalf of the Mikey No Mates Society ...

In a fit of egomania, I visited this site today, just to count the number of followers I have - its not that sad, is it? - anyway, it still doesn’t take long and I certainly don’t need a calculator (but thanks to all six of you that care). In an attempt to fill another few seconds, I looked at the post list. There are 31 days in July and I wrote 21 posts. I would often write two at a time. This isn’t bragging - all you have to do is try to read them to understand that this might not be construed as a good thing.

I used blogging as a special friend and told the blank page what I had learnt and what I was thinking. It was kind of a diary of my travels and it unnerves me slightly to hear some people have actually read them. In contrast, August has been a barren month so far, a month where the tumble weed blows and in the distance a bell rings in solitary, deliberate loneliness; barely audible above the sound of the desert wind.

I have nothing to say .... apart from that I have nothing to say ..... and I don’t have many followers. I could tell you about my testicle injury caused by a Wiltshire Horn traveling at what felt like the speed of sound. I could tell you my fat lambs did better this week than last. I could be a proper blogger and moan about the high heid yins in the Scottish Government changing the rules on SRDP the day after the deadline for submitted applications. I could even embarrass myself with the story of giving Reserve Champion to completely the wrong exhibitor in the Any Other Breed of sheep class at Perth Show (that WAS embarrassing .... obviously, I just ran away and left someone else to deal with it). But its not the same.

This is the “come-down” I heard about from some of the previous Nuffield Scholars. Its hard to adjust. To come home is easy but also very difficult. You find yourself desperately clinging on to the ideals you developed in six weeks of stimulation whilst figuring out how you could possibly enact them in reality and in the here and now.

If you feel sorry for me, maybe you are slightly saddened by my plight, all you have to do is become a follower. You would make a shallow, egotistical man desperate for reassurance, very happy. Its the electronic equivalent of a hug.