tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161 2008-05-22T01:02:49Z Andrew is the Daily Post’s Rural Affairs Editor and is the Farmers Union of Wales’ current Farming Journalist of the Year. Movable Type 3.31 tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161.47523 2008-05-21T18:13:43Z 2008-05-22T01:02:49Z

SOME 23,000 visitors attended last weekend’s Royal Welsh Smallholder Festival, around 2,000 less than last year. I was slightly surprised: when I visited on the second day, the place was packed to the rafters, with thousands of red-faced punters hauling...

Andrew Forgrave SOME 23,000 visitors attended last weekend’s Royal Welsh Smallholder Festival, around 2,000 less than last year. I was slightly surprised: when I visited on the second day, the place was packed to the rafters, with thousands of red-faced punters hauling vintage spades and clematis plants backs to their cars. Talk at the show was dominated by bluetongue, and the potential impact of vaccination on the year’s agricultural shows, including the Royal Welsh. There was also a whisper that Princess Anne will be opening the summer show at Builth, though the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society says nothing is confirmed. In place of the departed wool festival, it was good to see extra centre stage space had been allocated for the goats and pigs, two sections traditionally relegated to outbuildings. But pride of place went to the old boys who enjoy nothing more than spending their days under a heap of rusting metal and tinkering away with the nuts and bolts of gone-but-not-forgotten items of agricultural machinery. Some 150 petrol heads proudly paraded their vintage tractors and other machinery around the cattle ring. Some of these vehicles are worth tens of thousands of pounds but few are willing to part with their pride and joys. A few conked out, their engines overheating in a great gushes of white steam. It's not my cup of tea, but you have to admire the enthusiasm of men who carry a permanent whiff of gasoline and diesel about them: they are, after all, preserving an important slice of agricultural history. One thing all exhibitors must have in common is deep pockets. Not only is the price of livestock feed soaring, the cost of getting animals - or tractors - to events is becoming prohibitive. How long before we begin to see a severe drop in exhibitor numbers if fuel costs continue to escalate? tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161.46155 2008-05-07T15:34:28Z 2008-05-20T10:35:04Z

THOUGH I say it with gritted teeth, it was good to be back in Nefyn for the opening agricultural show of the North Wales season. It’s in a great location, is sound underfoot and has accommodating section secretaries (my thanks...

Andrew Forgrave THOUGH I say it with gritted teeth, it was good to be back in Nefyn for the opening agricultural show of the North Wales season. It’s in a great location, is sound underfoot and has accommodating section secretaries (my thanks to Anwen and Gwen, as always). So why do I always regard the event with a certain dread? To get to the show means a trip along the length of the A55. Every year, on the journey home, it’s a recurring nightmare as you go bumper to bumper with thousands of caravans and cars with duvets stuffed against back windows. The only solution is to go cross-country on the back roads with all the other locals. Slower, but at least you get home before daybreak. On Monday, sea fog rolled across the Nefyn showground before dispersing by lunchtime. Show secretary Eirian Hughes was delighted: the fog encouraged holidaymakers to attend her event rather than disappearing off to the beach. The inter-breed sheep final was bathed in bright sunshine. Short-sleeve weather. It was warm but everyone breathed out frosty clouds - quite eerie, really. Sheep judging at Nefyn is an intimate affair. Visitors are free to mingle with exhibitors in the sheep lines and inspect the different breeds on show. As I watched, two people with dogs wandered up, quite oblivious to the panic setting in among the sheep and their owners. One elderly woman strolled casually amongst the sheep, her collie making the animals recoil in alarm. Several exhibitors shook their heads, others tut-tutted. We may have the Countryside Code but it seems many dog owners still don’t realise that mutts don’t mix with sheep. tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161.45654 2008-04-30T16:58:24Z 2008-04-30T17:02:06Z

A FEW people have asked me why the annual Wonderwool Wales festival has been split from the Royal Welsh Smallholders Festival, Builth Wells. The two events were, after all, a perfect fit....

Andrew Forgrave A FEW people have asked me why the annual Wonderwool Wales festival has been split from the Royal Welsh Smallholders Festival, Builth Wells. The two events were, after all, a perfect fit. “Now I’m going to have to make two trips down south instead of one,” wailed a grumpy smallholder. Wonderwool Wales was staged last weekend, alongside a new event, the Big Wales Mouthful. Both were arranged by Glasu, the Powys rural re-generation agency. Some 5,000 people made the trip to the Royal Welsh showground, including the mother-in-law en route from organising the Wool Cup at the Jacob Sheep Society’s annual knees-up. Glasu launched Wonderwool Wales three years ago with European Objective One money. Initially the event was twinned with the Royal Welsh Smallholder Festival, traditionally held in mid May. Co-incidentally or not, festival attendances rose 20% each year as coachloads of knitters, felters and stitched poured in. With the EU cash due to dry up, Glasu had to make a decision for Wonderwool 2008: either squeeze more money from the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society, hand over control to the society or break away and establish a standalone festival. Talks lasted several months. Glasu was unwilling to hand over control because it didn’t feel the society would “do justice” to the festival. In turn the RWAS said it could not split gate money because its ticketing systems would not allow it. So Wonderwool was on its own. Glasu insists the split was perfectly amiable and the RWAS offered an olive branch by twinning a new folk dance festival with its smallholders event. Most smallholders are sniffy - “dancing?” - but at least the clog and bells brigade are happy. tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161.45049 2008-04-23T18:25:57Z 2008-04-23T18:28:38Z

ORGANISERS OF last night’s Producers’ Forum in Mold should have checked their diaries before proceeding with the event: for goodness sake, didn’t they realise a Champions’ League semi-final was being played?...

Andrew Forgrave ORGANISERS OF last night’s Producers’ Forum in Mold should have checked their diaries before proceeding with the event: for goodness sake, didn’t they realise a Champions’ League semi-final was being played? No matter. Duty called and, as it transpired, the meeting was thoroughly constructive. Five speakers were lined up and, with apologies to the others, I was particularly struck by the final address - even if Chris Morris did go on a bit when everyone was eyeing up the buffet. He’s one of four partners at Farm Renewable Environmental Energy (FREE), a start-up company which was hoping to build an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant at Richard Tomlinson’s dairy farm at Holt, Wrexham. The plans have been scuppered, thanks to one of the “three Ps” that every putative AD developer dreads - politicians, planners and power companies. In this case it was Wrexham’s planners, who took a dim view of plans to import food waste from the industrial estate (including, bizarrely, 25 tonnes of unwanted mayonnaise each month). Instead it looks as if the plant will have to be sited on the industrial estate, despite the extra carbon this will generate. The plans go before councillors in the next few days. I’ll spare you the science, but Chris convincingly expounded AD’s merits - especially when compared with energy producing alternatives such as wind power. Yet it was apparent that the three Ps have yet to catch up with the technology. For example, Mid Wales AD pioneer Clive Pugh has just installed a second AD plant at Bank Farm, east of Newtown (the first was put in place 17 years ago – long before most people had heard of global warming). All he needed to do was connect his digesters to the national grid so he could sell surplus electricity. For this he had to install new three-way cabling through under-ground pipes. Easy, thought Mr Pugh, I’ll pull them through with my tractor. Not so fast, said his power company. We'll do it with our special Bobcat. The Bobcat duly arrived on a trailer (a month late) and got stuck in a field. So Mr Pugh attached his tractor and dragged the Bobcat which dragged the cables. Mr Pugh was billed £36,000 for the work. tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161.44492 2008-04-17T15:17:09Z 2008-04-17T15:22:17Z

MONTY has been in touch again: the last time he called, four years ago, Special Branch interrogated me in a dingy basement at North Wales Police HQ. Since then the Animal Liberation Front has been strangely silent. But this morning...

Andrew Forgrave MONTY has been in touch again: the last time he called, four years ago, Special Branch interrogated me in a dingy basement at North Wales Police HQ. Since then the Animal Liberation Front has been strangely silent. But this morning Monty was back on the phone; and threatening mayhem in the Welsh countryside. The Assembly Government’s decision to plan a badger cull, as part of a £27m programme to eradicate bovine TB, has certainly prodded a hornets’ nest. People who had been utterly unaware of the alarming cattle welfare crisis in Wales have suddenly been roused by the prospect of badgers being culled. Almost certainly more will be killed on the country’s roads than in the pilot cull. But the culling policy is no less contentious for that. In an Assembly debate on the issue on Tuesday, Labour AM Lorraine Barrett warned that Welsh tourism would suffer and, judging by my email inbox, she may have a point. More than that, badger culling in Wales may herald the return of mainstream animal activism. Since the partial ban on hunting with hounds, many animal rights groups (as opposed to animal welfare groups) have been organisations without a cause, save the occasional laboratory protest. Hence Monty’s four-year silence. Now he’s back - with a vengeance. His ex-military crack squad of four ALF sympathisers (his words) say they will cut fences and destroy crops, starting in Carmarthenshire, the likely pilot cull area. They won’t harm livestock, of course. “We’ll hit them where it hurts most - in the pocket,” he said. “They’ll find it very difficult to get insurance.” But not all farmers support a badger cull - how will he know who to attack? “Don’t worry, we’ve got very good intelligence,” insisted Monty. Scary threat or empty bluster? Only time will tell. For the time being, said Monty, they plan to do nothing while the Badger Trust seeks a High Court judicial review of the Welsh badger cull. tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161.39840 2008-02-26T17:55:24Z 2008-02-26T18:05:23Z

IN THE darker corners of the forest stood a small wooden building surrounded by the whites of prying eyes. Were small children to stray too near, they'd be impaled on pearlescent tusks and reduced to bony piles by their ravenous...

Andrew Forgrave IN THE darker corners of the forest stood a small wooden building surrounded by the whites of prying eyes. Were small children to stray too near, they'd be impaled on pearlescent tusks and reduced to bony piles by their ravenous owners. Bloody hell. Yet Hannibal author Thomas Harris muddied their image still further, and in recent years they've been the source of medieval-type alarm-mongering following escapes from woods in Kent. It's as if the devil himself is at the door of civilisation in south east England. Last week the UK government decided the good burghers of Kent and elsewhere could tolerate this no longer. It is to allow selective culls, where local communities decide for themselves just how many wild boar need to be shot. There are few of the animals in North Wales, though CALU has promoted the animal as an alternative agricultural product. There was talk of a private woodland owner near Maentwrog starting up a herd and letting them run behind fencing, but I'm not sure anything came of that. But there are no wild breeding populations - the nearest are in the Wye Valley - so there will be no shooting round here. Up north we just shoot wild goats. Huntsman will pay £2,500 for a week's wild boar hunting on the continent, though in this case hunting is a bit of a misnomer. I remember seeing the heads of wild boar on the walls of the lowliest German bar: shooting them was no great achievement. Canadian huntsman thirst after the "savage nobility" of European wild boar Groups such as the Wilderness Foundation have repeatedly called for the introduction of species like wild boar as part of the “re-wilding” of Wales. It argues there is an economic justification as rural areas, bereft of farming, could support themselves through nature tourism and hunting. So perhaps one day we might see wild boar scuttling across the A470 with groups of red-faced huntsmen in tow. But don't bet on it: you can't get a bigger economic justifcation for culling wildlife than bovine TB, yet the government continues to obfuscate. Tomorrow sees the publication of an EFRA report which is expected to recommended the hotspot culling of badgers, but with caveats so onerous as to make such an outcome unlikely. Can anything save wild boar from persecution? Perhaps if they develop an ability to infect farmed animals with some kind of nasty disease...... ]]> tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161.39478 2008-02-22T16:38:45Z 2008-02-22T16:44:17Z

A SURPRISE awaited me when I arrived home this week. Not dinner - life was never that kind - but a large hairy Collie, its coat still caked with farm mud....

Andrew Forgrave A SURPRISE awaited me when I arrived home this week. Not dinner - life was never that kind - but a large hairy Collie, its coat still caked with farm mud. Good points: they’re intelligent, friendly, loyal and, with a bit of training, can be taught not to dislocate your shoulder when on a lead. Bad points: they moult, dribble, slurp water over the kitchen floor and eat slippers (actually Jaffa eats rabbits too, which is bad news for Rosie if she ever gets out). But, so far so good. Jamie is well-behaved to the point of being slightly irksome, like your friends' scrubbed-up kids who always say “please” and “thank you” and behave far better than your own. He’s on a month’s return-if-not-satisfied probation but Gill has already fallen in love and India has become very possessive. I’m still trying to find fault - he has runny eyes, sneaks on to beds and only poohs off the lead - but, unfortunately, it looks as if he’s here to stay, if only so that Gill can use the immortal "the dinner's in the dog" line. Which could be a problem. A day after Jamie arrived, Gill remembered we have three days booked in a caravan on the Lleyn Peninsula in April. A quick glance at the small print confirmed the worst: no dogs allowed. She even called the site operator to beg special dispensation, as Jamie is a “very well behaved dog” - like he’d never heard that one before. It was no good. The alternative is to switch from our top-of-the-range, gold standard, pleated curtain, Sky TV, automatic-flushing caravan to the one at the back of the site that’s been there for 68 years and is OK for sheltering the goats when it’s particularly wet. Not an option, I insisted. Which got Gill thinking. Last night she revealed her solution - but it’ll only work if she can find a cane and a white stick. I think she was only joking......]]> tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161.38792 2008-02-15T15:45:15Z 2008-02-15T15:54:57Z

YOU have to sympathise with Richard Clegg, NFU county chairman for Cheshire: returning to his farm after an evening function, he discovered thieves had half-inched his pride and joy, a brand new Deutz Fahr tractor. Ever since he’s been looking...

Andrew Forgrave YOU have to sympathise with Richard Clegg, NFU county chairman for Cheshire: returning to his farm after an evening function, he discovered thieves had half-inched his pride and joy, a brand new Deutz Fahr tractor. Ever since he’s been looking for ways to increase security on his farm. But it’s not easy: tractors, normally worth £30,000 or more, are easier to nick than 1983 Austin Maestro and, dare I say it, marginally more desirable too. One of these is worth £30,000 and one is easy to steal The current trend is to fit alarms, immobilisers and trackers. The latter has the added advantage of telling you if Dai the farm employee is skiving in the bottom field when he should be working! Immobilisers are great for preventing crime but not so good for winning friends and influencing the great British public. Many a time has a farmer stalled his tractor at a junction and caused an outbreak of road rage as he frantically grapples with his immobiliser dongle. An alternative is to daub your vehicle with permanent paint or hammer in metal studs in the shape of your postcode. It may not prevent the theft of your trailer or quad, but it will help police track it down before it catches the boat. Next month, on Sunday, March 2, Meirionnydd YFC will perform such a service as part of its Marcio’r Metal scheme. Its young farmers will be armed with Metallite and silver studs at the CCF store, Llanuchllyn, Bala, from 1-5pm. Awel, the county administrator, tells me you can have anything you like painted or embossed on your vehicle. Postcodes and names are most common, though if you really want “Welsh stud” imprinted on your Kawasaki ATV, no one will stop you. Of course there two more options: if you’re weary of tractor theft, you can always remove one of the front wheels and leave it on blocks; or perhaps now is the time to consider carting big bales around on the roof of an Austin Maestro. ]]> tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161.37911 2008-02-06T17:51:03Z 2008-02-06T17:55:37Z

ONE OF life’s certainties is the ability of the UK farming sector to shoot itself in the foot....

Andrew Forgrave ONE OF life’s certainties is the ability of the UK farming sector to shoot itself in the foot. The merger, had it gone ahead, would have created a new £1bn giant that, for the first time, might have been capable of living with the big boys of the dairy world. After a decade of talking up co-operatives and strength in numbers, it seemed that UK farming was about to get something right. What makes the failure even more galling is that the competition authorities had given the deal the green light. Yes, the same people who, for the past 15 years, had bust a gut to emasculate the industry by fragmenting dairy groups. It doesn’t bode well for the lamb sector either: here’s an industry with, essentially, only two producers - Britain and New Zealand. Imagine what they could achieve if every farmer got together. But it’s often said that a farmer’s biggest business foe is his own neighbour: when you’re constantly peering over the hedge, it’s difficult to countenance co-operation. ]]> tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161.37683 2008-02-04T17:26:41Z 2008-02-04T17:29:41Z

EXPRESSIONS of concern, some of them sincere, have been pouring in for my battered and bruised wife, who is still nurturing a painful posterior following her unexpected encounter with an unruly sheep....

Andrew Forgrave EXPRESSIONS of concern, some of them sincere, have been pouring in for my battered and bruised wife, who is still nurturing a painful posterior following her unexpected encounter with an unruly sheep. Any more sitting solutions are very welcome. ]]> tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161.37164 2008-01-29T18:33:24Z 2008-01-29T18:41:25Z

IN hindsight it was probably not a good idea to venture into the domain of the devil ram. The psycho beast had already (twice) smashed his way through a steel gate and left a permanent indent on a friend’s...

Andrew Forgrave IN hindsight it was probably not a good idea to venture into the domain of the devil ram. The psycho beast had already (twice) smashed his way through a steel gate and left a permanent indent on a friend’s kneecap. ]]> Somehow she managed to crawl back to the farmhouse. Returning there, I followed a line of mud into the kitchen, where I found Gill sprawled on the floor, in obvious pain. The doctor diagnosed a broken cocyx and, due to the force of the initial impact, severe whiplash. So now she’s out of action for eight weeks and I’m both Mummy and Daddy and chief dog walker and bloody animal feeder. It took me four days before I dared crack a joke about it and still haven’t summoned the courage the mention the size of ladies’ rear ends. Her best friend sniggered when she heard the news, partly because she didn’t believe it. And it’s true, it’s the kind of thing you used to see in the Beano, with the butted victim being hurled over several hedges. She’s a bit better now. She still can’t sit down, or even bend, so I have to tie her shoelaces like a geriatric nurse. Gill’s parents are now back from Australia, worrying about the size of the looming compensation claim. Of course I reckon she should have grappled with Josh’s horns and wrestled him to the ground, rather than feebly rolling into a ball like a big girls’ blouse. I haven’t told her that yet either.]]> tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161.35333 2008-01-09T17:27:52Z 2008-01-09T17:43:29Z

EVER wondered how far chickens walk in their lifetimes? If you don’t know the answer, don’t fret: it's been reliably calculated by staff at Clarence Court, the free-range egg producer, and is given below....

Andrew Forgrave EVER wondered how far chickens walk in their lifetimes? If you don’t know the answer, don’t fret: it's been reliably calculated by staff at Clarence Court, the free-range egg producer, and is given below. Fancy one of these? This is the same outfit who brought us its much-lauded “Fancy a farmer?” match-making campaign, featuring photos of love-lorn dairy men and women on its bottles. It worked both as a PR exercise and as a love-finding exercise: I gather two North Wales farmers are now dating American ladies! Its next venture, apparently, is a match-making service for dogs. Or something. Another gimmicky press campaign was launched this week by the Soil Association, which was worried about increasing imports of foreign organic beef at the expense of its UK equivalent. As organic imports climb, so do carbon emissions and the Soil Association compared the climate costs of Welsh and Argentinian organic beef. Focusing on a Tesco store in Hertfordshire, it calculated a 1.5kg joint of Argentinian beef clocked up 320.6g in emissions from road and sea - more than eight times the 38.5g transport emissions for a similar joint of Welsh beef. This means that a Tesco customer buying a joint of Argentinian beef once a week, instead of a Welsh one, will generate annual emissions equivalent to powering a fridge 24-hours-a day for three months. Or keeping a television on for an extra four hours-a-day for a year. The same applies to all meat imports, one presumes. An important point made using useless trivia. Which brings us neatly back to walking chickens. To find out how far they wandered, Clarence Court staff attached tiny counters to hens’ legs and collected results over a 16-hour period during which the chickens which were free to roam a five-acre field. Freedom to walk but not walking to freedom The average bird took more than 7,000 steps - nearly half a mile. The Paula Radcliffes of the hen world made an amazing 16,245 steps. After estimating the average hen’s step at four inches, the budding researchers arrived at a lifetime walking figure of 1,460 miles. At that rate it would take 68 years to walk around the world! Useless but brilliant. ]]> tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161.35318 2008-01-09T14:58:03Z 2008-01-09T15:00:40Z

WANT TO know why Westminster is refusing to pay up for last August’s foot-and-mouth bungle? Or why farming is being made to pay for animal disease outbreaks it may not be responsible for?...

Andrew Forgrave WANT TO know why Westminster is refusing to pay up for last August’s foot-and-mouth bungle? Or why farming is being made to pay for animal disease outbreaks it may not be responsible for? You only have to look at Defra’s latest financial shortcomings to realise why it’s keen not to hand out compensation to pesky Welsh farmers. Last night it emerged British taxpayers had already paid £63m in EU fines for failing to meet the statutory deadline for delivery of the 2005 Single Farm Payments in England. The National Audit Office has already disclosed that Defra has set aside some £292m to cover future fines. The Treasury is likely to pay for these fines by cutting Defra’s budget. In turn Defra will make savings by forcing farmers pay for diseases like foot-and-mouth .... even if they’re leaked from government-licensed laboratories. Meanwhile, in a written reply to the Commons, environment minister Jonathan Shaw admitted the number of staff earning £100,000 or more at Defra had more than trebled in the past five years. In 2002, eight people were on such salaries, last year the figure was 25. Is it really a good idea to swell department’s waistline when its frontline services are being substantially cut? tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161.34843 2008-01-03T16:09:06Z 2008-01-03T16:19:28Z

OH DEAR, I’m in trouble with Morgan Parry, head of WWF Cymru. This morning he fired off an angry missive to the letters page after reading today’s Farm & Country....

Andrew Forgrave OH DEAR, I’m in trouble with Morgan Parry, head of WWF Cymru. This morning he fired off an angry missive to the letters page after reading today’s Farm & Country. Mr Morgan’s letter is reproduced below: “WHAT an extraordinary piece of one-eyed reporting from Andrew Forgrave (Daily Post, January 3). “Presented with the results of a survey which clearly show that 81% of farmers believe the climate is changing, Andrew turns the story on its head and reports that “one in five farmers does not believe the world’s climate is warming”. “Readers who were not put off by Andrew’s claim that “farmers are sceptical on climate change” would have discovered that the survey tells a very different story. “60% of farmers are taking action on their farm to combat climate change and 70% believe that these changes offer them business benefits. “There is a tiny minority of sceptics in every profession, farmers and journalists included, but the facts are clear and evidence of climate change is regularly reported by those who work on the land. “Farmers who pretend the climate isn’t changing will go out of business. Farming journalists who present the views of the sceptics as if it was the majority view are helping them do so.” ]]> tag:andrewforgrave.welshblogs.co.uk,2008://161.34742 2008-01-02T16:10:58Z 2008-01-02T16:16:03Z

WHAT lies in store for 2008? One thing’s for sure: if you aren’t already heartily sick of reading about climate change, prepare to reach for the vomit bag....

Andrew Forgrave WHAT lies in store for 2008? One thing’s for sure: if you aren’t already heartily sick of reading about climate change, prepare to reach for the vomit bag. View over Maentwrog by Mike Alexander In reality they’ve still go some way to match government but it is clear that conservationists have a growing power base in the countryside, if not in land ownership then in policy making. This, in turn, has push a finger in the dyke of intensive agriculture. Everyone is now more habitat aware. Wildlife is gradually returning to areas where conservation is practised. And we all applaud that. Could this process now go into reverse? It’s no longer the domain of woolly-minded farmers that climate change and growing global food demand is set to spark a fresh crisis in food production. The end of the era of cheap food was a recurring theme in late 2007. Suddenly intensive agriculture is back on the agenda. Even GM food is back in vogue (at least with Britain’s former chief scientist Sir David King). In the coming rush for food production, we’ll need all the land we can get. Setting aside tracts of land for cuddly animals could seem rather retro. I suspect the emerging debate over conservation vs food production will be one of farming major themes in the next few years.]]>