Farm Diary October 22 2008

On Saturday we had two silage contractors running into Crouchlands, as we were cutting the last block of maize at Hascome which had been drilled late, and starting on the maize grown for us on contract at Southwater.

This created a fair amount of mayhem at the farm as umpteen trailers were flying in from all directions! The last 100 acres of maize was clamped in the field at Ripley on Sunday, so there was a great deal of sheeting up to do. With nearly 300 acres of maize in clamps at Ripley vermin is a worry and with several sheets of plastic over the clamps and soil all the way around the edges; covered then by heavy netted sheets, with some rat bait we should hopefully be alright.

It has been a good year for maize, with the constant rain making up for a lack of sunshine and warmth on the light sandy soils. The crops have been variable, and it has not been the bumper crop of last year, but I would say that the yield is certainly above average. Looking at the massive clamp of silage at Crouchlands, it does not seem possible that the cows are going to eat all this, but they certainly will, and no doubt we will wonder at some point if we have enough; we always do.

The last of the cows will be housed this week, as grass quality has deteriorated, and the ground is getting soft. I can never understand why the clay soils in this part of the world get soft in late autumn when there is no rain.

It is almost as if day length and warmth are needed in order to keep the weald clay dry, and without sufficient day temperatures, it all begins to go soggy. We have another cut of silage available on some fields, but nowhere to put it, so we have started topping the fields in order to set them up for next spring.

Making late October/November silage is only feasible if one is otherwise going to run out; especially with the cost of diesel these days. It is generally of low value.

Our work on the site at Crouchlands has been almost completed, and we are now waiting for the builders to arrive. The project in hand is to build two large concrete towers, which will hold all the muck and slurry produced on the farm. The towers are heated and have numerous agitators inside, which will promote bacterial growth giving off methane gas. This gas will be collected, washed, and fed into a large engine, which will power a generator, creating 'green' electricity which we will sell to the national grid.

Unfortunately, muck and slurry do not have enough energy to make such a large investment viable, so the maize silage at Ripley will also be fed into the towers, and this will stimulate much more bacterial activity, and therefore more gas.

The farm will only use around 5% of the electricity produced, and therefore almost all the power will go into the grid. Dairy farmers are well placed to run these bio-digesters, as the process is exactly the same as feeding cows, the large concrete tower being the 'rumen' or stomach of the cow.

The difference is that the cow functions by digesting the bacteria feeding on the fibre and starch, with methane being a by-product which she expels (and is blamed for contributing to global warming)!

Milk prices are still going up on dairy farms due to the acute shortage of milk being produced. With the country now heading for another record low in milk production, there is concern that critical mass could be lost, which will accelerate the demise of milk production, just as happened in the pig sector.

The Conservative party has challenged the government and Defra on its assertion that the UK enjoys a high level of food security. It was not difficult for them to show real decline in food production with pork down from 118% to 69%, fresh vegetables down from 70% to 58%, lamb from 95% to 82%, eggs from 95% to 81% and so on.

Is Defra 'fit for purpose'? Having admitted that Hilary Benn allowed the threat of direct action from animal welfare groups to influence his decision on tackling Bovine TB, giving up on a policy due to threats from extremists; a dangerous precedent for any government.

In addition Defra are alleged to have 'lost' over 20,000 cows in its Cattle Tracing system, and lost 122 laptops, 36 processors, 23 PDA's, 15 projectors, 14 mobile phones, 13 personal computers, 5 digital cameras, 3 docking stations, 2 answering machines, 2 Sat-Nav's, 2 VCR machines, 1 fax machine, 142 inch plasma screen, 1 Victorian desk, various car parts from official Defra vehicles and a host of other various equipment. You decide!