Archive for the 'farming' Category
August 28th, 2010 by Caroline Stocks
…Days of enjoyment to which everyone cheers.
Really? Obviously Damon Albarn hadn’t been to where I visited today when he wrote that song.
The sun was actually out for the first time in ages this morning, so we headed to the east coast to make the most of it. Sensing we’d have to move quickly to take advantage of the weather, we went to the nearest resort to Nottingham – Cleethorpes.
It perhaps didn’t help that the sun stayed out for about two minutes before it started chucking it down with rain, but it wasn’t quite the day beside the seaside I had in mind.
Still, it did give me a chance to play with my latest, favouritist iPhone camera app. Look, it even managed to make Cleethorpes look pretty (did I just type that? Whoops. Please don’t come chasing after me, people of Cleethorpes…)
The drive home took us through some cracking Lincolnshire farmland. Like the area around Gob of the Wash’s farm (and most of the county, in fact), the land was as flat as a pancake and looked pretty impressive under the dark clouds. There were a few combines out trying to make the most of the gaps in the showers too, but it looked as though most of the cutting’s already been done.
The landscape was given even more of a helping hand with a few wind farms. Controversial I know (sorry in advance, Bomber Harris), but I do love a good smattering of wind turbines:
August 22nd, 2010 by Caroline Stocks
If you were a small child and didn’t fancy the idea of eating carrots, what would be the one thing that would tempt you into trying them? How about a sinister, prancing carrot who not only claims to be a doctor, but also reckons he’s your bestest friend?
I wonder if this creepy character gave Roald Dahl his idea for the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?
Scariness aside, this was one of the great posters on display at the Imperial War Museum’s wartime farm and Ministry of Food exhibition. Kiwi Paul has taken time out of his UK tour this weekend so we decided to pop along to the exhibit, which coincides with the 70th anniversary of the introduction of food rationing and aims to show the role farmers played during WWII.
At at time when we’re concerned about food supplies and how to feed growing populatons, it was interesting to see how the government back then tried to get people to understand about the importance of reducing food waste, local produce and nutrition. Consumers today could probably learn a thing or two from some of the things the war-time government was trying to get across.
It was also interesting to see the number of notices trying to explain the concept of seasonality and food imports to the public. Consumers these days always get knocked for not knowing it’s not normal to get strawberries in December, but judging by some of the posters, it seems the public was just as clueless back then too. I’d be interested to know how much the Ministry of Food forked out on leaflets telling people at what times of year different veg would be available, and whether this kind of campaign would work these days.
Maybe today’s government would have to get people’s attention by replacing the camp carrot with Jamie Oliver instead…
August 22nd, 2010 by Caroline Stocks
When Farmers Weekly celebrated it’s diamond anniversary last year, we ran a poll to find out what readers thought the greatest farming innovation of the past 75 years was.
While the three-point linkage came out top, the mobile phone came in a close second as an invention which had revolutionised agriculture.
I’m pretty sure if we do the same survey for FW‘s 80th birthday, the mobile will have have jumped to first place – especially now smart phones are becoming less of a rarity on farms.
While I was in the US in July, I met loads of farmers who were doing everything with their Blackberrys and iPhones- from simple stuff such as emailing, to checking out the weather, trading grain and asking agronomists to identify which chemicals they needed for their crops by texting a photo over. One guy even had an iPad which he was using to map his entire farm and work out soil types and the fertilisers he needed. He also had all of his workers’ phones hooked up to the thing so he could know where everyone was on the farm at any time – very handy when he was trying to keep track of his grain trucks during harvest.
I’m always interested to see people using iPhones in innovative ways and finding apps that make their jobs easier – if only because I reckon it justifies my almost incessant praise of the things.
So, as I’m sure you’ll understand, it’s out of journalistic duty that I’ve had to upgrade to the iPhone 4 so I can find out for myself the ways the latest model can be used on farms.
Hopefully upgrading will also stop my Apple-obsessed friend, Mr Geography, from harping on about how amazing the latest iPhone is. Here’s a photo of him boring me to death about it for the 14,000th time:
Anyway, my phone arrived this week. It’s possible its arrival may have coincided with my lack of posts on here.
It’s all in the name of research. Honest…
August 4th, 2010 by Caroline Stocks
If I read one more headline about cloned cows being in the food chain, I think I’m going to scream.
Let’s get this straight, people. You haven’t eaten a clone. You haven’t drunk the milk produced by a cloned cow. Even if you had, it wouldn’t kill you, cause you to grow an extra arm or make your head spin in an Exorcist kinda way.
The cattle that have caused this week’s initial national media, storm-in-a-tea-cup are progeny of a cloned cow from the US (a cow, incidentally, created using the same genetics that creates identical twins in humans – nothing scarier than that). That means they are the children of a cloned animal, not clones themselves.
(In case you’re worried, these are ‘normal’ cows, not the ones related to the Yankie clone. I just thought you’d get bored and click away if I didn’t put a picutre on here)
The story then moved on when it was discovered 96 cattle have been bred from those initial eight imported progeny. This makes them the grandchildren of a clone – again, they are not clones.
I initially got wound up about this story because it was published by my favourite chip wrapper, the D*ily M*il, and any story in there tends makes my blood pressure go off the scale. But it was also written in such a ridiculous, dangerously scare-mongering way that I wanted to find the journalist who wrote it and belt him about the head.
The saga has brought up some interesting questions about our role as journalists at Farmers Weekly. We reported on the story as it broke and unfolded, but we did it in a way that was (I hope) measured and rational.
Continue reading “They’re not clones, okay?” »
July 28th, 2010 by Caroline Stocks
I haven’t written much on here in the last week or so as I figure you’d heard enough from me during my North American blogging marathon.
To use the time you perhaps would have otherwise spent perusing my site, perhaps you’d care to mosey on over to some other blogs, written by some of my lovely Nuffield chums while they’re on their travels.
Firstly we have Princess - she’s an agronomist from Hertfordshire who is currently in the US doing a course on soils. I can’t pretend to completely understand what her study is about, but it seems to be something along the lines of man-made fertiliser alternatives and burning bras. (This may or may not be hers, I couldn’t possibly start any rumours.)
Rona, my favourite Devon duck farmer, is currently in France checking out canard with her entourage. Rona and her hubby are first generation farmers so she’s looking at how you go about starting an agricultural enterprise from scratch.
Michael is the funny one of the UK group so I’m almost loathe to direct you to his blog in case you don’t come back here, but he’s just landed back in Scotland after a month in New Zealand and Oz looking at new entrants to farming. He’s into sheep, but regardless of that, I still think his posts are worth reading.
And finally the last of the British bloggers is Adam, who’s looking at how to improve public views about farming. He hasn’t started travelling yet, but he works for Natural England so you may want to go over to his blog to complain about your HLS application. I know he loves things like that.
If you have any more reading time left, a few the Aussie Nuffield dudes have blogs too, but they write in funny accents so they’re probably not worth bothering with. If you’re that desperate for something to read, the links to theirs are on my blog roll on the right of my homepage.
July 24th, 2010 by Caroline Stocks
I’ve just seen Lembit Opik – the asteroid-fearing former weather forecaster fiance, Cheeky Girl squeeze and Lib Dem MP - speak at a debate at the CLA Game Fair in Warwickshire.
“With a CV like that,” you’re no doubt thinking, “it’s perfectly obvious why the CLA keep wheeling him out to talk at these things”.
Funny, that’s what I was thinking too.
To be fair he obviously knows his stuff about farming and in the past I’ve been quite impressed with the way he’s argued for his rural constituents and promoted agriculture.
Sadly I don’t think I’m going to be quite as impressed with his foray into stand-up and his brand of self-pitying comedy.
“Every time I see a friend do well, something inside me dies,” he told the audience. “It happens every time I see Nick Clegg.
“I’m sure he’ll think the same thing when he sees me on Celebrity Come Dine With Me though.”
July 21st, 2010 by Caroline Stocks
Before I went off on my Nuffield adventure, the lovely Nick Padwick – Co-op farmer and FW Farmer of the Year – spent a week in FW Towers as guest editor.
Aside from seeing how many times he could get his mug in the magazine (I haven’t forgotten my promise to ‘decorate’ a copy for you, Mr P), Nick brought us some gifts in the line of mini plant pots to grow our own peppers in.
I had been out of the office for a few days so missed the initial planting ceremonies and was playing catch-up, but I hoped in my two-week Nuffield absence someone would have taken pity on my little seedlings and looked after them.
So much for the FW team having green fingers. This is what I came back to:
Funny how Young Rolf’s plants, in the pot behind, seem to be thriving, isn’t it? Just goes to show, you can never trust an Australian…
July 17th, 2010 by Caroline Stocks
This area of Ontario around Niagara has traditionally been a fruit-growing region. It has chalky soils, warm summers and less harsh winters in comparison to the rest of Canada because the lake, so it’s perfect for growing things like cherries, peaches and blueberries (or ‘bloobs’, as us in the know like to call them).
However, over the past few years farming in the region has had a bit of a revolution – farmers have discovered they can make a packet out of growing grapes and making wine and have diversified by the shed-load.
Niagara is now home to hundreds of vineyards, most of which have visitor centres where you can be plied with samples and get so sozzled you end up buying a few cases of the stuff. I don’t normally like wine but ended up getting out the credit card more times than I care to think about, though I think that was probably because I was so scared by the sommelier (he had a real-life twirly moustache and only started being civil when I asked about the soil structure of the farm) that I didn’t dare tell him I only usually drink tipples made from grain.
Anyway, one of the professors I spoke to at the University of Guelph earlier this week said Canada had a big issue with promoting regional produce and getting consumers onside with the local food thang, but I reckon farmers in the rest of the country could take a leaf out of these guys’ books. I’ll concede their success if probably mostly because they are lucky enough to have the tourist hot-spot of Niagara on the Lake and the falls nearby (think Windermere but with more sun, a Christmas bauble shop and a bunch of forts), but the diversifications are targeted incredibly well to the local population too.
The suburbs are mostly made up wealthy retirees and professionals who commute to Toronto and the farms have been turned into ‘Destinations’ for these people to go and spend their hard-earned cash. The farm buildings, tracks and crops are immaculate, the wineries are tastefully built and decorated and the majority of them have a restaurant attached to them so you get drawn in to eat and drink even more of their plonk over dinner. While most of the wine is shipped around the rest of the country and overseas to be sold, the farmers here do a bloomin’ good job of looking after their local markets (after all, the tourists are only around during the summer months), and they seem to be raking in the profits accordingly.
Enough writing for now, I’m off to crack open the case of ice wine. What do you mean, it’s only breakfast time? It goes great on cornflakes, hic….
July 17th, 2010 by Caroline Stocks
Heaven forbid that I would ever be accused of having a romanticised view of things, but I just didn’t expect Niagara Falls to be surrounded by a town that can only be described as as a cross between Blackpool, Las Vegas and Mablethorpe.
My hostess Sarah and her man friend, John, made the 90 minute trip with me from Guelph to the town of Niagara so I could do the tourist thing and see the waterfalls. It’s something I’ve always wanted to visit, and I wasn’t disappointed when I got my first glimpse of them – their size is incredible, the people who even contemplate trying to go over them in a barrel must be utterly bonkers.
For some reason though, I had got it into my head that the falls would be situated inside a national park, not at the side of a pavement on the edge of what felt like a tacky seaside town. Bored of the outstanding natural beauty? Well that’s just fine, pop over to the waxwork museum or spend some dosh at the casino. Apparently this town’s the honeymoon capital of north America – I just hope couples are going there for the view and not so they can get his ‘n’ hers maple leaf hats with their names stitched on.
The area we had to drive through on the way to the falls is rich agricultural land. The region’s always been known for it’s soft fruits and there were loads of roadside stores selling cherries, peaches and blueberries, which have just come into season around here.
The fruit’s dirt cheap too – Sarah bought bags of the stuff for about £8. And that’s even a considerable mark-up from the supermarkets – I bought a peach yesterday for about 15p, while bananas were selling at about 40p/lb. Apparently Ontario’s always had cheap food as it’s been a dumping ground for fresh produce – lorries start on the west coast of America, selling along the way until the ocean stops them from going any further. What’s scary is consumers still complain about how much this stuff costs…
July 16th, 2010 by Caroline Stocks
See what I did with the title there?
Nice outfit though, eh? One of those might come in handy when I’m in Australia trying to cope with the sand flies.
I was back at Guelph university yesterday to see some of the work that’s being done there with bees. Guelph has one of the leading apiary research centres in Canada – if not the whole of north America – and researchers there are currently looking at something called Colony Collapse Disorder.
Basically the number of honey bees has declined by about 30% over the past six years and with bees responsible for pollinating crops and helping to produce food, it’s important scientists work out why the little fellas are popping their clogs.
According to Janine, the ridiculously lovely and enthusiastic researcher who showed me around the centre, biodiversity loss, mites and disease and pesticides are all factors (it’s been discovered one pesticide was causing memory loss in bees, so once they’d found the pollen they couldn’t remember their way back to the hives).
I have to admit, the subject of bees has never really interested me much before (thanks, Comtesse), but spending a couple of hours with someone who was so passionate about their research – and who could explain what they were doing so well – completely changed my view. As with Mimi, the other researcher I met this week, it just goes to show the potential power of good agricultural communicators.
Anyway, I learned loads of stuff about bees, like how the queen goes out to mate for a few days then comes back to the hive and is able to lay 2000 eggs a day for a few years without ever going outside again, and how the colony decides when it wants to have a new matriarch. I also learned about how bees release a banana-scented chemical when they sting someone so other bees can smell danger and know where to attack, and how scientists artificially inseminate queens using this contraption:
But most-importantly, I learned how to make a bee beard. If anyone wants some instructions, let me know…
