Bluetongue Virus - To Jab or not to Jab…. That is the question.

Something rather bizarre’s been happening over the past few days. The sun has emerged, and for a blissful weekend it actually shone upon the righteous. That is the annual Langdon Beck Sheep show, which not only managed to take place this year, but it was also bathed in warm sunshine.

This is a traditional show in the finest traditions of the Northern Hills. Two hundred sheep and a `Bouncy Castle’. What more do you need? These are uncertain times though. Disease is never far away, and this year’s `plague de jour’ is Bluetongue. Unlike the foot and mouth virus, which knocked last year’s show on the head, Bluetongue is primarily tackled using vaccination.

Langdon Beck Show

At least that’s what the veterinary authorities would like to happen. Farmers have other ideas though, and many of those I spoke to at Langdon Beck had only vaccinated the stock which would be sold at this autumn’s sales. Of course there’s little point in vaccinating the fat lambs which will be going to the slaughterhouse in the next few weeks, they’d be dead – at the hands of the slaughterman - by the time the vaccine could take effect. There is according to vets a case for vaccinating the breeding stock which is staying on the hills.

Many farmers argue that at this time of year it’s impossible to gather in all the animals from the fells because there’s too many, and anyway the weather’s starting to get colder. Remember this is `Nine months of winter and three months of bad weather’ country. A lot of the farms take the view that the `vector-free’ period when the midges which carry the virus stop flying – and even die off, will be here quite soon.

The vets aren’t so sure and told me that a `Indian Summer’ could carry quite a risk of the disease re-emerging. There’s also a rumour circulating amongst the farmers that the vaccine can cause fertility problems amongst the ewes. Vets dismiss this saying the vaccine’s dead not live so there shouldn’t be any issues with it. Also there’s the cost. At fifty pence a dose, that can add up to more than a hundred pounds for even a small upland farm. But as one of the local vets told me that’s peanuts compared with the cost of treating even a couple of sheep which get the disease.

Pigs might fly....?

For as long as I can remember farmers have complained that they are ill used by the people they supply, whether it's the supermarkets, the processors, the wholesalers. Farmers are and have been under-valued by just about everybody. In many ways they have had some justification for this, and although at times it might seem like synchronised whingeing, it has to be said that the retail environment is very competitive... cut throat perhaps. The main purpose in life of the supermarket buyer is to get the produce his or her bosses sell... from the field to the checkout with the greatest possible profit, or margin possible.

This is what buyers do, this is what supermarkets do... it's capitalism. This would be all fine and dandy if it had been a relationship of equals. It isn't though. The retail sector is dominated by about four major players, with Tesco in the lead, followed, by varying degrees of proximity by Sainsburys, ASDA, Morrison and some of the smaller rivals like the Co-op, Waitrose and in the bargain basement Aldi and Lidl. There isn't a huge scope for choice and it's getting narrower. The Co-op recently swallowed rivals Somerfield.

In the past farmers allege that the supermarkets have had an unfair advantage because farmers haven't had anywhere else to go. But there has been a change, a correction in the balance. Perhaps one of the turning points for this has been the change to the subsidy system which brought an end to the payment of subsidies....sorry support payments..... to farmers according to how much food they produce, but according to the area of land they manage.

This has removed for instance the necessity for farmers to produce a crop on every field. This was the whole idea of the reform of the common agricultural policy. Farmers wouldn't produce every bit of food the can, they would instead produce only what they could sell to the market.

In the case of farmers in England, a range of about a dozen different payments linked to the area they cropped, or the number of animals they have in their fields, was rolled into on Single Farm Payment. Off course the combination of a payment based on the area of land farmed, and a complex computer system to administer that new system was a recipe for disaster, and a cock-up of biblical proportions ensued. That was then, and after a couple of years of chaos, the system has now calmed down a bit.

Throw into the mix a genuine contraction is some sectors, for instance a sizable number of pigs seem to have been lost from production in Holland and Denmark, as has happened here. UK Pig numbers have fallen from over eight hundred breeding sows in 1999 to about four hundred and fifty thousand now... and you have the makings of a shortage of supply.

In the `Good?' old days, all the processors and supermarkets had to do was to wave the `import' stick to get UK prices tumbling. That isn't possible now, and there has been something of a change on the part of consumers. Shoppers now want to see the `Union Flag' on their packets of bacon. The net result is that even if retailers and processors wanted to squeeze the UK farmer, these days when it comes to pigs their options are somewhat limited. The result of this is that the price of meat at the checkout has increased by over 17% according to the latest Consumer Prices index from the Office of National Statistics. Bad news for the Treasury and the Governor of the Bank of England who is now having to write letters of explanation to the Chancellor, explaining why inflation has gone above 2%, so often now that a fresh stationary order will be required.

In the case of Beef, this is complicated even further by the growing affluence of countries in the Far East. There has been a massive increase in demand for instance from China and South Korea, combined with drought problems in Australia, this has increased the demand for UK beef exports. This very interesting graph of prices shows the massive increase in both beef and pig prices year on year. The jump in the price of lamb is more measured. This is partly due to the fact that demand is more sedate, and supply has remained high since the problems with Foot and Mouth disease in 2007. However there could be a price increase next year, after research from the Scottish Agricultural College discovered that there has been a fall in sheep numbers in the Highlands. The other bluebottle buzzing around the ointment is cost. Over the past year there has been a massive rise in all manner of inputs, from oil, to soya, to wheat and barley. Some of those have now stabilised or even come down (wheat and oil)... but other continue to go up. In a way this year's poor harvest conditions may have helped livestock farmers. because so much milling wheat is of poor quality it will have to be sold as animal feed. This will mean the price of feed based on wheat could well fall... See once again the `Farmer's Weekly' graphs.

All of this leaves farmers in an unusual positioin of power. The retailers are desperate to compete with each other on price, but squeezing suppliers isn't an option. In the case of beef the meat could simply end up going elsewhere. The ready supply of Brazilian beef which used to be used as a weapon to keep the price of the domestic product down is bogged down inthe fallout from their foot and mouth problems, and in that sense beef farmers really do have the option to have a much greater influence over the price. Many farmers are reluctant to excercise this muscle as the good times, such as they are, may not last. Many a combine harvester bought in the wake of last year's bumper crop has lain idle this year as the heaven opened.

The bottom line for farmers is profitability, and whether that can be sustained. Lats year pig farmers were losing about £25 per animal. This year it's a profit of £8 per pig. The big question they're all asking if whether that will be enough to re-invest in buildings and equipment, or whether their hand-to-mouth existence will continue to keep their farms on the edge of viability. In other words `Will pigs fly?'

Why sprouts are bad for you.

Basic facts:-

1) Cereal crops are grown because of the cereals they produce.
2) The cereals they produce are seeds
3) Put seeds into the ground and they grow.

All in all this has been a miserable summer, although the floods haven’t reached the same biblical proportions that they did last year, fields don’t need to be knee deep in water to bugger up the harvest.The problem this year has been a steady stream or rather showers of rain. Just enough to keep the ground soggy enough to prevent the machinery getting into the fields to harvest the crops. In technical terms it’s too wet for the machinery to `travel’.

And the grain’s wet too. This causes two problems, first of all the wet grain which is harvested has to be dried. Basically the farmers measure the moisture content when it comes in from the fields, and for it to be sellable it has to be reduced to about 15%.

This drying is done by putting it through a grain dryer.... a big cylindrical vat through which hot air heated by propane is pumped. Given the price of gas, which is currently at 34p per litre, this adds about £20 per ton to the cost of getting wheat to the point at which it can be sold.

Also most of this wheat is only suitable for animal feed, rather than bread or biscuit making, so that reduces the price to the farmer by about a further £40 per ton.....

The other big difficulty caused, both by the wet, and by not being able to get the crop in, is the danger of sprouting. This is where the ears of the wheat or any cereal crop fall to the ground and the grain, which is a seed, starts to grow again. The grain is largely useless, and because it has sprouted almost impossible to get back. In most cases where there are patched which have sprouted they just have to be left to be ploughed back in or `spayed off’ and killed with herbicide. The loss amounts to hundreds of pounds per field.

`The grass-like green shoots in this field is part of the crop which has sprouted'

However the biggest problem for many farmers at the moment is being able to get onto their land to put in next year's crop. The oilseed rape should be going in about now, and some of the farmers I've spoken to say they simply won't make the deadline. This is a nightmare for farmers because most have already bought, and will have to pay for, the seed, the fertilizer and the fuel to plant next year’s crop. In some cases they’ll be looking at less valuable crops like beans to fill the rotation gap left by a lack of oilseed rape

This year the harvest is a bleak payday on the land. Where they can farmers will write this one off to experience and get on with the job of trying to salvage what they can from a dismal summer.

Distressing times for Damsons

There is a small corner of Cumbria which is at the heart of a fruit growing tradition stretching back two thousand years. The Damson was probably introduced to this country by the Romans. It's a type of plum which is especially prolific in the former territories of Westmorland, annexed by neighbouring Cumberland in 1974 under the rule of Heath the merciless.

The Lyth valley, which rather unusually runs from the south to the north, rather than east-west stretching up from Morecambe Bay into the Lake District, is one of the biggest damson producing areas in the country. In April the trees, and there are hundreds of them both in the hedgerows and in orchards attached to many of the local farms, are white with blossom. Damson Day is a celebration of this blossom held towards the end of the month.

The crop of fruit is normally harvested towards the end of August and into September. This year however it's a washout. According to the Westmorland Damson Association, which exists to promote the use of this fruit the harvest is down by about eighty percent. The trees, have to quote Helen Smith the secretary of the association, `had enough'.

They were assailed by fierce easterly winds in the spring when the blossom was forming, this icy blast put the pollinating insects off pollinating. The blossom was blown off the trees and the fruit failed to form properly.

The result is trees which are are literally aging before their time, or at least they are putting on their winter clothes long before they should. The leaves are already turning yellow and some of the fruit which has actually made it onto the tree is small and shrivelled.

The prematurely yellow leaves are clearly visible on this tree

This is a bad year but it isn't a disaster, yet. There is a Cumbrian damson mountain, not yet on the scale of Europe's butter mountain in the nineteen seventies. In freezers in several location across Cumbria and North Lancashire with much of last year's harvest. Quite a lot of this was bought by the Westmorland Damson Association as a part of their policy of ensuring that in the good years like 2007, enough is stored away for the lean years like this one.

What would really hurt would be if this years freezing east winds returned next spring. Those who use damsons for jam, gin, pies and sausages will probably be OK for now, but would struggle to survive a second barren year. These Damson famines happen from time to time, but climate change watchers will watch with interest to see if this becomes a trend.