Wednesday 8 May 2013

Just say NO to neonicotinoids


The first time I used a neonicotinoid on the farm was when British Sugar offered sugar beet seed with a seed dressing called Gaucho which contained imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid. It was a bit of a revolution as far as I was concerned because the threat of Virus Yellows carried by Myzus Persicae or the Peach Potato aphid hovered over our beet crop in it’s early growth stages and an infection could result in serious damage to the crop’s yield potential. 

The solution before Gaucho was usually a succession of early forays before bees were foraging into my beet fields with the sprayer and an insecticide to deal with the problem, or even a dusk spray if early morning bright sunlight or frost mean’t that the spraying in the morning might risk damage to the young beet leaves, but also avoiding bees at work.

With Gaucho all those unsociable hours could be avoided by having the seed ordered with the neonicotinoid dressing and to top it all, because Gaucho was a seed dressing and not a spray, bees were now protected from any spraying which might have formerly strayed into foraging hours. Result! Or was it?

I do remember having a conversation with my agronomist at the time about how the neonicotinoid worked and he told me that when the aphid fed on the sugar beet plant it also took up some of the chemical which disorientated it and made it stop feeding. By stopping the feeding it then prevented the aphid from transmitting the virus and hey presto, no Virus Yellows. As the plant grew the chemical remained in the plant which continued to offer protection. At the time I was entirely focused on the positive (or should that be negative) effect that this wonder drug had on the aphid, but I didn’t for one minute think about what effect that the chemical was having on other insects visiting my crop. It’s this unbalanced focus that affects many of us farmers when we are endeavoring to get all the jobs done that we have to do in a day and we often fail to see the wider consequences of our actions until someone from outside of our industry points them. When that happens we usually throw our toys out of the pram feigning doom and gloom for the future of farming. 

That is where we are now with the proposed two year ban on neonicotinoids.

For me, when the whole neonicotinoid verses bee debate kicked off what my agronomist had said to me all those years before about the aphid on my sugar beet plant becoming disorientated rang alarm bells especially with the escalation in the chemical’s use since my sugar beet growing days. I’ve since listened to both sides of the debate, to all the convenient scientific arguments depending on who you are batting for and have come to the conclusion that all farmers should come to given our knowledge of how the chemical works. Neonicotinoids must be having an effect on our bees as well as other pollinators. My conclusion is not science based, it’s common sense based.

I applaud supermarkets and garden centres who have said; we don’t know if there is an issue here or not, but until we know that there isn’t a problem with neonicotinoids then we don’t want to be associated with the product. 

I feel that we as farmers have missed a massive public relations trick here. Instead of hiding behind the doom and gloomsters who apparently speak on our behalf in the press and media who have warned of impending yield losses and even more environmental destruction we should be standing up and taking a leaf out of the supermarkets and garden centres book and we too should be saying No to neonicotinoids.

By the nature of our ever changing job we farmers have always had to be incredibly resourceful. In my farming career I have managed to overcome various challenges; farming more land with half the amount of labour and machinery, overcoming the straw burning ban with a different approach to straw incorporation and weed control, addressing the decline in farmland wildlife species with the help of environmental schemes and more recently as an organic farmer bringing in as much diversity into my rotation to mitigate against climate change as well as naturally finding ways of addressing pests and diseases and ultimately rounding my nutrient cycle by providing the major elements for crop growth with the reintroduction of livestock onto the farm. 

Every farmer has a different story to tell and it’s usually more impressive than mine.

My point is that the banning of neonicotinoids does not necessarily mean more cost to farmers, loss of yield or more environmental damage but it will mean that we will have to think about solutions for ourselves rather than waiting for someone to provide them for us. Increasingly the concept of crop husbandry is being wrestled from our grasp by agronomists and agrochemical companies. We are becoming fearful and under confident of our own abilities resulting in us all running around like headless chickens every time a chemical ban is threatened.

We have always been a diverse and inventive industry and we should have the confidence to find solutions for ourselves and if saying No to neonicotinoids means that we gain more customers, achieve more resourceful farming community and save our bees along the way, everyone is a winner. 

For the National Farmer’s Union website

Thursday 2 May 2013

Environmental Evolution


The first environmental scheme we undertook was way back in the dark ages with a pilot scheme called Arable Stewardship. If my memory serves me well it was trialled in two areas of the country, East Anglia being one and somewhere in the West for the other and it was the scheme that spawned what we now know as Entry Level Stewardship (ELS).

Since then we have been in ELS, the organic version OELS, and now as of this February we have entered into our second OELS agreement topped up with Higher Level Stewardship (HLS).  

As the HLS scheme is competitive to ensure that we came up with an application that was attractive, we and various advisors spent considerable time researching not only the farm's historical story, but also what it has to offer as far as existing wildlife is concerned to determine how we can build on and preserve that inherited base. Without going into too much detail the agreement focuses on four main areas: farmland birds, wood pasture restoration, the reintroduction of livestock and educational access.

Key options selected for farmland birds include grass margins, field corner management, cultivated stubbles and a large area of pollen and nectar mix. With the changes in the scheme’s options after 1st January 2013 I was able to use the pollen and nectar option on larger areas than previously allowed. Being an essentially stockless arable farmer the leguminous element of the mix enabled me to use it for a dual purpose, providing food for the lower elements of the food chain as well as under-sowing it in cereal crops to improve fertility in my organic rotation.

I did have some fairly lively debates with my project officer about wether or not a large area of pollen and nectar was conducive to providing worthwhile public goods. My argument went as follows:

On the heavy clay lands of south west Suffolk there is a huge lack of any over-wintered stubbles, those important sources of over-wintered food for farmland birds. This is due to the fact that trying to achieve a spring seedbed without having ploughed before Christmas to get some decent frost action on our "loving” clay soil (once it's stuck on you, it doesn't want to let go) it is pretty impossible to do so without doing a huge amount of potentially soil damaging cultivations. However, through the under-sowing of legumes for our fertility building we have around 110 hectares of over wintered stubble every year.

In fact, one fifth of the farm is under-sown with red clover which provides two major elements as far as the farm’s wildlife is concerned, over-winter feed for birds through the gleaning of cereal and weed seeds left by the combine harvester and from our run-down plants in our weeding tram-lines and then subsequently pollen and nectar from the legumes flowers. Our farm is an oasis in this respect sitting in the middle of some of the most intensively managed land in Suffolk, and we are going to improve what we do even more by no longer sowing just red clover. The plan is now to sow all our fertility building areas with a pollen and nectar mix to maximise their environmental potential which will be predominantly unfunded by the scheme.

As far as addressing the historical and archeological element of our application we are restoring two moated sites which would have been the entrances to the medieval deer park which was Shimpling Park. Recognising those entrances lead me into researching more about where the boundaries of the park were in medieval times and how it has changed since. This meant looking for wood banks, pollarded trees and pouring over as many historical maps as possible searching for boundary suggestions. My search took me to the National Archives at Kew as the farm had at one time been part of the Crown Estate where I found many clues as to where the park was. My most exciting find was a huge estate map of the farm on vellum with subtle colouring of the different land uses and also the then field names many of which still exist today. Interestingly the part of the farm that is Shimpling Park Farm is pretty much the area of the whole park then, meaning that it is likely that it’s entirety has remained in single occupancy for hundreds of years. While I have no immediate intention to try and recreate the whole of the park, we are under HLS going to restore 25 hectares of wood pasture which will also be the catalyst for the reintroduction of livestock onto the farm and the start of my journey to return to a mixed farm enterprise.

The really fun part of our HLS application has been the educational access part of our scheme. Since becoming organic we have had numerous requests to do farm walks which have become a major highlight of what we do. While I take around groups of adults be they farmers, locals or other interested groups, my wife Alice has been hosting increasing amounts of school visits. With no suitable indoor area to teach the children we have had to confine most of those visits to when the weather is likely to be fine. That will all change now with an amount of money we have been given through HLS that will help us convert one of our redundant farm buildings into a classroom with loos and washing facilities. As I write building has stared, and although the farm yard has been turned into a hard hat area, it is incredibly exciting to see redundant farm buildings being brought back to life with the expectation of hoards of young interested minds who we can share our farming story with.

Do you know what, it really is an exciting time to be a.....I was going to say a farmer, but we are so much more than that now, aren't we?

For the National Farmer Union’s website