Mad Farmers?

[John Fenna]

Is it that Farmers are going mad?
Is it that there are no traditional Farmers left?
Is it that Farmers have mutated into "Agri-businessmen" with no feeling for the countryside anymore?
Do Farmers learn nothing about rural life other than how to fill in subsidy aplications and how to drive around talking on their phones and acting like Clarkson on Crack?
Or is it that our village is blessed with a couple of in-bred, toffee brained pillocks, who just happen to own land?
The Blackberry harvest has been poor around here - the weather destroying the first main crop and the later fruiting being small and somewhat mis-shapen in the main...
One field was promissing a decent last picking with some decent fruit...
What happens - b******y farmer puts his hedge-raper over the whole lot, incidentally smashing through a blackthorn that was laden with sloes, just ripe and ready to pick!
The tree he took out with the hedge-raper was about 6" across at the point he used the machine to crush,tear and abrade it to death - so it was no accident!
The stuff he cut was simply dumped in the stream that runs between the field edge and the hedge.
The same farmer used the same machine to trash another blackthorn, again just ready for picking, on the side of the lane up the back of our house - not even on his property! (nor mine unfortunatly).
Up the other end of the vilage we have a farmer who owned a bit of woodland on the cross roads - mainly softwoods but with some good looking hardwoods as well...so he felled the lot and off it went for pulping and the woods are now (and have been for several years since he did this) wastelands of bramble (yeah I have picked all I could get at) and Fireweed with no replanting (except for a few saplings that seem to struggle - and it seems these were only planted as part of a court action against him as some of the trees he pulped had preservation orders on them!) or any tidying up/reuse of the land.
Farmers? Not in my book!
$£^%&$*! countryside bred vandals IMHO.
Now I have to travel a couple of miles to take advantage of the first decent sloe crop in years - and I am well hacked off!
I have numerous friends who farm - so I know not all rural landworkers are like this - but it does seem a growing trend around here!
Is it as bad elsewhere?

 

[tobes01]

These days, it's probably not even a farmer - just a contractor with a hedge raper who spends all his time doing that... Local guy here runs 4 farms, just him and one hand. He's very conscientious about his work, you can see he cares about the land by how well it's kept. Unfortunately that means he has to cut the hedges when it fits his timetable, not when it fits the foragers' - so I haven't seen a sloe in a couple of years now.

 

[swyn]

Unfortunately the latest rules on hedge cutting have yet again been changed. Hedges can now be cut after 1st September. Madness I agree, not good for the wildlife of foragers, but DEFRA tells farmers this and if you are unfortunate to have an ignorant one so the destruction begins.
One can only hope that this continuing method results in depletion of crop yields and him going bust.....
Perhaps you could discover who his agronomist is and feed some thoughts into his ear that way....You are well respected and may well be listened to! DEFRA may also provide some answers if you contact them.

I can picture the scene and it makes me wince and angry! It sometimes happens here too. I have relayed the shock from the local government sponsored/council wildlife group to my boss (the landowner) and this information in a diluted form may eventually reach the Agri-business farmers ears! One can only hope.

Swyn.

 

[launditch1]

I can completley sympathize with you here...One of my jobs on the farm is hedge trimming(or hedge raping as you put it!).Time and time again ive protested about leaving it later in year until they are cut back(imo in deepest winter when the foragers and the birds have stripped them)but this just falls on deaf ears and im told to bl**dy get on with it!!

Sometimes the hedges have to be cut back to allow machinery to get close to them or the growth will be in the way come ploughing or harvest time.

Thing is,with me,ive never been able to convince my boss that the hedge isnt "wild" or Completley overgrown"

I seriously think defra or or who ever it is should make it a rule not to cut hedges back until at least november or december.Theres nothing worse than a hedge thats been hacked to bits by the flails.

Just let it be known that were not all the same!

I care.

 

[John Fenna]

It aint just foragers who benifit from leaving the fruit trees and bushes until the fruiting season is over.
Wildlife of all sorts benifits as well.
The countryside is more than a place for farmers ("Guardians of the countryside") to make their money...it is a place where wildthings live as well!
To me "good farming practice" is working in harmony with nature, not crushing it flat and smothering it in chemicals and working to a man made timetable to maximise yield and profits. That is "Agri-business" which compares to "Farming" as a hand made Cegga axe compares to a Pound Shop hatchet!
We do have some organic farms by us...I will be seeing how the foraging goes up there this afternoon.

 

[tobes01]

Btw I've also noticed that the field margins have all been ploughed up round here, and in some areas they've had to prune the trees to get the tractors right up to the edge. I assume that the payouts for margins have dropped low enough that it's more profitable to actually farm the whole field?

 

[John Fenna]

And I have yet to find a Farmer around here who restores the surface of Rights of Way after ploughing!
I have just returned from foraging along a RoW in a local Organic farm - 2 3/4 lbs of sloes and 2 1/2 lbs of blackberries so not a bad result!
I have left pleanty for the wildlife (I have short arms...) and only taken whar I can use myself (my freezer is full) so everyone is a winner....by working in harmony with nature, not over exploiting it and just being REASONABLE!
I even picked up a bit of firewood - part of the tree the Agri-businessman had trashed off the tree on the lane - waste not, want not...

 

[troy ap De skog]

i think there should be some laws/ guidline on when they can cut headge and how... even better, making them lay them properly once in a while ....
as at the moment the hegdes are full of fuits and small birds and insects that should have a right to live in the place that we have forced them to live in , since we cut the forests down....

well thats my inner nagging hippy delt with for tonight..

 

[Tengu]

How about the local conservation group who ran a hedge laying course in the spring to attact workers?

 

[Cobweb]

Oh John
I'm annoyed on your behalf.

Move over 'ere, the farmers are good old boys who pick the hedges along with everyone else.

 

[Tadpole]

Every couple of years the local council hedge the local cycle paths, always around this time of year and always when the apples almond wild rose hips rowan sloes bullaces and hazel/cobb nuts are ready, but before the tree rats eat them.
It’s a no win situation, the tree rats normally eat them before I get a chance to pick, or the council come along a cut ‘bout 6 foot of good growth back leaving ugly stumps, and shredded limbs prime for infection and dieback.
Its bad enough we have rubbish years for berries naturally without the council coming along and destroy the good years as well.

 

[jojo]

A lot of "farmers" like to project themselves as "custodian of the countryside", but judging by the damage they cause and the amount of farm rubbish left around fields, tracks, very few of them seem to know much about farming that also respect the countryside. They're in it to make money. I have no doubt that not all farmers are like that. But those big agri-businesses, I don't think they care. It's the same around here, they regularly massacre the hedges, I won't even mention the junk And the politicians and Brussels need to take a large amount of the blame for all the damage. I'll keep quiet now...

 

[BigShot]

John - a perfectly reasonable rant, I think.

I really do DREAM about having a parcel of land to keep - if it ever comes true I'll have as much hedgerow as I can manage to lay, well tended (after getting advice and help from those in the know about such things) and kept in the best way I can to benefit foragers (myself included) and the local beasties. It'll all be organic, with plenty of habitat for predatory insects and the likes.

So while there might be a scary number of these "custodians" who are about as useless and clueless as they come - rest assured there are people like me who will try to get their hands on land in the not toooo distant future and will be managing it in the best way possible for all and sundry.




For those complaining about councils butchering hedgerows - that should probably be much easier to deal with. If you can find a few locals who feel the same way - find some photos of the hedges in their prime - then take some with the butchered hedges - write a proper article for the local papers (an actual article means they can just publish with minimal editing rather than working from a press release and getting it all wrong) and get as much pressure on the council as you can to commit to changing the way they deal with hedgerows to work around fruiting and the likes and to do it in such a way that they avoid disease and death. All of the above can be presented as environmentally conscious (benefitting wildlife - even better if it benefits native wildlife and better still if some of it is endangered in some way) and as community minded (benefitting both foragers and people who enjoy the look of it in bloom and fruit).
It may be worth getting a local politician to comment for the article too - also try to get comments from known local community organisations like the bird watchers, heritage society and so on.

It should be a lot easier to make councils behave themselves than idiot "farmers" who rape the land instead of working with it.