Farm Diary - January 20

IT was quite a surprise to find another two inches of snow on the ground last Wednesday morning, and it added to the problems on the roads.

British rail and the County Councils were still expecting people to put good money into their parking machines, whilst they made no effort to clear the snow; a disgrace.

Pavements this winter have been no better; with the added problem that the society we live in now deems it 'risky' to clear any snow in front of private or commercial premises, in case someone slipped.

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Maybe this is why our roads and pavements are not cleared; too risky?

It took until this last Sunday for our milk buyer to get back to normal and send us the usual farm tanker, which means we can put our new milk pump away for the time being.

Overall things have gone well considering how bad the weather was, and at least we didn't have to throw any milk away.

We have a few burst pipes appearing now that things are thawing out, and quite a lot of clearing up to do, where yards and feed areas have been frozen. Pumping dirty water is a big job again as all the snow melts, and the rain at the weekend was quite heavy at times, adding to the volume.

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We managed our feed and straw deliveries before and during the bad weather, making sure the cows had no change in diet during the cold snap, and milk production has been largely unaffected by it all.

The cows in their 'hotel', with plenty of food and water, clean beds etc: wondered what all the fuss was about! They got very cross if a tanker came and milking was late, or if milking had to stop whilst a tanker was filled.

They like their routine, and are happiest when the same things are done in the same way at the same time every day. Changes affect the milk yield; so it's best to pander to their needs (demands?).

Any births can be detected at quite a distance as new born calves steam away in the cold air as they are licked clean by mum. Healthy weather for calves and all stock, but I'm not so sure about the men!

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The men from the Philippines built a massive snowman, but soon succumbed to frostbite; a new experience! Very painful was the remark, especially when the natural instinct is to run to a hot tap, making it a lot worse.

The lads from Eastern Europe of course don't consider such weather anything other than 'autumn'! They tell stories of National Service in the Russian army; digging holes in the snow to pitch your canvas tent, wet and frozen feet every day, with sub zero temperatures for weeks at a time.

The sheep have almost all gone, and some hay and minerals had to be fed to the in-lamb ewes to keep them going during the worst snow. The store lambs managed to dig around and find areas under the trees where there was grass to eat, and nibble at the buds on young trees overhanging the fences.

Now that the snow has disappeared, the grass after a spell in the dark and protected from frost is green and fresh, but the land is completely waterlogged as the rain and molten snow runs off into the ditches.

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There are branches down everywhere after the heavy snow clung on to them, snapping many of them off.

n The EFRA Committee after much lobbying from the NFU had the former bosses of failed farmers Co-op Dairy Farmers of Britain in front of them last week.

The trio gave evidence, admitting to generous 'remuneration packages', also that with hindsight that the Co-op had paid too much for the ACC business.

They all denied that they had done anything wrong (heard that before somewhere recently?), and that due diligence had been carried out properly.

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I'm afraid that the EFRA Committee has done a poor job here, just as they did when they investigated the retailers, and ended up looking for the 'missing 10p'.

Predictably, and reluctantly the Labour Party has also announced that it is in favour of an Ombudsman to police the code of practice between suppliers and Supermarkets. Details are sketchy, short on detail, and we will need to look carefully at how this may work.

Supermarkets are extremely angry, predictably threatening any one who will listen with higher consumer prices, which of course is patent rubbish.

They have invested huge amounts in lobbying against any political party introducing an Ombudsman, but failed to modify their behaviour, in their arrogance believing that they are so powerful that no political party will tackle them.

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That may be true, but the general public still decide what goes on in this country (only just I hear you say!), and if the public are sympathetic, having understood the issue rather better than politicians very often, then political parties crumble very quickly, citing democracy as being the tradition of this great country!

As this column has stated in the past, supermarkets do not care whether food is cheap, expensive, home produced or imported; all they care about is that it's the same for their competitors in the high street.

Such an attitude is potentially destructive to all suppliers and agriculture, and not exactly caring for consumer needs.

Time and time again they are caught pulling the wool; look at the promise that the increase in VAT would not affect prices on the day.

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They were caught putting prices up before the 1st of January (profiteering) so that the VAT increase was already covered before the time for it to go up arrived.

The juggling of prices with offers and confusing labeling is not assisting consumers in any way, it is there to hoodwink the general public that a better 'deal' can be had in one store or another.

At least with an Ombudsman, suppliers will have protection at times from some of the ruthless and ruinous practices employed by supermarkets.

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