I’m a farmer, ask me anything

[AskAFarmer]

As title! :)

Lonely thread!

LOVELY not lonely

See your point about fb groups (theres a lot, some public, some closed) sharing locations.

Love this thread! I ALWAYS buy British where I can. I am in Scotland and there is a restaurant that sells Argentinian steak. To people in Scotland. This annoys me

I wish more could be done to promote the fact that we have generally high welfare standards on ours farms - even compared to the EU!

Did you grow up on the farm? Has this always been your life?

Good to hear your viewpoint. Its the idiot minorty that spoils it.

It definitely is!

So that's what you do with all your spare time, enter lambs in to competitions? Excellent.

Pretty much 😂

I wish more could be done to promote the fact that we have generally high welfare standards on ours farms - even compared to the EU!

Me too! We definitely do!

Did you grow up on the farm? Has this always been your life?

I grew up in a farming community but not on a farm. I’ve always been a country girl though, even if I had been born in a city or something I think I’d have been drawn to the countryside.

Please start a blog... Blog, blog, blog! This is amanother MN blog I'd love to see - been nagging @ChocDee to start one for yonks!

Idiots
Dimwits
Daft
Uninformed

You really don’t like people with an alternative point of view, do you? Or those who challenge you.

A lot of what you’ve said is very interesting, but your sneering attitude is very unpleasant.

Oh SHIT I did it again!!! 🤦🏽‍♀️ Sorry sorry sorry sorry!

Just add it to the list

OP, I walk through fields a lot and always stick to the footpath but on a couple of occasions have veered off slightly due to a) ewes and lambs all resting by a gateway, I went through an adjacent field to avoid disturbing them b) similarly walking through a field with new born calves and cows, dipped through a hedge to avoid antagonising them. I spent both times worrying that I would be yelled at for trespassing from a distance but wouldn't be able to yell back my reasoning. Is that acceptable in those circumstances or not?

@AskAFarmerbecause of the traditional country saying: 'there's two things you never see: a dead donkey, and a farmer on a bicycle'.

Untrue. We used bikes to get around our land, and never owned a quad or ATV. We had a land rover, briefly, before it blew up. I used a 15yr old skoda as a farm vehicle for 6/7yrs.

A lot of what you’ve said is very interesting, but your sneering attitude is very unpleasant

Why o why come on threads with an aggressive attitude like this.

is free range/organic food unethical because more expensive production and lower yields means that good food (meat particularly) becomes the preserve of the rich rather than freely available to all?

No, because low impact methods ate often cheaper than high input - we can blame supermarkets and overproduction for this. Supermarkets can be picky about what they take, and the shape/size of low input produce is often small and variable, so they wont take it. This means the only farmers that can survive the mass market are the ones that scramble to produce the biggest, quickest etc

what's your view on deforestation caused by soya beans production, OP? According to the WWF soya beans are the 'second largest agricultural driver of deforestation worldwide'. As you know most soya beans are produced for livestock feed.
*
Weeping.* I work in the animal feed industry and there is a huge amount of work around sustainable soya beans that don't impact as your implying - so do your research before you get on your massive oversized soap box.

Can you say the same for the soya milk you probably put all over your cereal in the morning!

Great thread Op! Britain farming rocks!

Slightly tangential point, slightly not.
I went up to Adam Henson's farm and he has a lot of rare breeds. I also saw a 'sheep show' about which sheep were popular through history. I really brought it home to me that if we did all go vegan there wouldn't be any cows/sheeps/pigs/chickens because his place illustrated that once a breed isn't 'useful' or the highest yielding it stops being bred, on the whole. Same with fruit & veg.

OP, do you have any 'pet' animals? I remember one family on This Farming Life having a dairy farm (think it was the ones with the pink milk but can't remember their names) and one of the blokes having pet pigs which seemed even more work!

So based on this, my vision of rural areas in the future is pretty bleak... a pastiche of rural life for well-off people seeking a naice lifestyle - without any of the inconveniences of needing to make a living in the countryside. And actual farming being done by large-scale agribusinesses, who have no stake and no interest in rural communities, and who either mechanise their operations or employ itinerant workers. Not really a question, more wondering if you've seen this happen down your way (I'm talking about Scotland). That's a pretty bleak picture. I'm in Scotland too and yes it's happening in dairy but not so much in sheep and beef. We go to the Highland every year and it's the same old families showing their livestock (including us). Even in the dairy world the old families persist. The Brewsters, Lawries and Armours to name a few. They were there when my GF was milking his Friesians in the early 20th century.

So based on this, my vision of rural areas in the future is pretty bleak... a pastiche of rural life for well-off people seeking a naice lifestyle - without any of the inconveniences of needing to make a living in the countryside. And actual farming being done by large-scale agribusinesses, who have no stake and no interest in rural communities, and who either mechanise their operations or employ itinerant workers.

Yup, its already well in progress. When i first got into farming with misty eyed dreams of a 'family farm' an older farmer said to me 'the family farm is dead, it just doesnt know it yet'. At the time i frothed and raged at this thought. 14yrs on, i see he was 100% correct.

How vigilant do you have to be in relation to animal rights activists?

I have a Facebook friend who is quite a militant animal rights activist and she and her friends currently seem to be targeting farmers including a 'project' that encourages people to go and photograph dairy farmers at their homes and disrupt livestock auctions.

It makes me very uncomfortable as I live in a rural area and have farming friends but she very much thinks all farmers are evil abusive killers.

Please can I just say that this is the most interesting thread I have read since joining MN. Thank you OP!

I would definitely read a blog if you started one, OP

I'd read a blog by the OP too. And a book.

Do it!!!

Or a radio programme! OP doing an AMA on R 4 with people ringing/texting their questions.