New Year Message

We were back at Hamptons for the annual New Year Message. Forty-two Rotarians and guests were present to hear Rotarian John Bucknell from the Rotary Club of Chelmsford Mildmay talk about “Farming in a Post-Brexit Environment”.

When John agreed to give the talk he had hoped that Brexit plans would be clear. However, events in Westminster the day before had made the future more uncertain than ever. He said people were still divided over whether Brexit is an opportunity to take back control or a cliff-edge to disaster.

John comes from a farming family. His great grandfather, grandfather and father were farmers before him and his son is carrying on the tradition. John talked about change and how farming has evolved to meet challenges over the years. Mixed farms have given way to specialist ones, either livestock or arable but rarely both. His great grandmother used to have 200 hens. Now the viable number for a poultry farm is 120,000. He said that farmers are split over Brexit. Arable farmers want to leave the EU because they are fed up with its laws and directives whereas livestock farmers want to remain so that they are not facing a 40% tariff on animal exports to continental Europe.

To boost their income farmers have started diversifying into non-farming areas such as horses and the conversion of agricultural buildings into small business units.

In the 1940s there was a saying “as rich as an Essex farmer”. When tenant farmers started going bust there was no shortage of farmers from other parts of the country moving in to take their places. He told us about Scottish farmers who would milk their cows in the morning then load them onto a train and milk them in Essex in the evening. Indeed one of our Past Presidents, David Fleming, father of late member Robert Fleming, moved from Scotland to farm what is now Chelmer Village. The Flemings sold the land to Countryside for development but photos of their farm can still be seen in their old farmhouse, which is now better known The Fox and Raven.

The number of farmers is dwindling and John joked that if farmers were pandas they would have started a breeding programme for them by now. However the message was essentially one of hope that, whatever the outcome of the Brexit process, farmers will adapt.

During the meeting, Philip Goodman thanked everyone who had taken part in the Christmas collections. A grand total of £1,062 was raised even though we did not collect at Danbury Co-op or the railway station this time.