Weekly Meeting

11th February 2021 1^st Zoom Meeting – James Fisher – Farming and Brexit

Prior to our guest speaker President Derek gave Club some feedback on a District meeting he had attended: 314 boxes given to refuges; Nicki Allot spoke about increasing membership: 1.Increasing impact on the local community 2. All the volunteers that had emerged with Covid, could well be interested in joining a voluntary organisation 3. Why do members leave 4.Increase the ability to adapt.

Mike C updated us on John S’s hospitalisation moving to get additional physiotherapy.

Our Speaker James then joined us and explained that his career in farming had been fairly steady evolution, but the next 10 years?? He had been asked to cover: 1. the impact of Covid 2. The impact of Brexit 3. Environmental issues

First comment re Covid was that he was quite delighted to know that farmers were classed as “essential workers”, but it had created hardships in the livestock business.

We then had some interesting history, relating that he was born in Shelford as the eldest son of the eldest son, which had happened through 13 generations of the Fisher family since 1636! He would be handing over the farm to Adam, his eldest son and hopefully his grandson would continue for two more generations. Personally he had worked in the States, until his visa ran out, then back to Clitheroe on a dairy Farm, before returning to Shelford.

We then had some background about The Crown Estates, big land stakeholders, owning everything in Shelford but the Pub, but also Bingham, Tythby to the Vale of Belvoir. Initially it was owned by Lord Carnarvon, but his energy was diverted to Egypt, Howard Carter and Tutankhamun, the rest is history ending with his death and the death duties issues.  This was exacerbated when his son died fairly soon afterwards and the Carnarvon Estate could not afford the death duties, so the Queen took over in 1930 and rental was then paid to the Crown on an acreage basis. Crown Estates has been a good Landlord sympathetic to the tenants and the environment, who has done well with all the development in Bingham, but more recently has sold some of the estates to invest in Regent Street and Oxford Street, but with the impact of Covid may not have been a sensible option?

James moved farms in 1984 to Newton, taking on 400 acres, but also ‘contract working’ a further 2000 acres. Crops of wheat, sugar beet, potatoes, oil seed rape and 3 acres of Christmas trees (for the last 30 years, acquired through Paul Hope)

He briefly explained about whet and the World market, based on the Chicago grain exchange.  Their potatoes are solely for crisping with KP Crisps, the British Market preferring ‘white’ rather than darker crisps.  However, this is not good environmentally having to store 15 000 tons of potatoes at 11 degrees C until May/June, as the temperature affects the starch/sugar balance and hence the colour when cooked!

Oil seed rape is used for vegetable oils and in the lubricant industry, but has suffered because the insecticide used has been banned 3 years ago, due to its impact on the bees.

Sugar beet is probably down 20% this year and it is processed locally at Newark, mainly into syrup.

Technology is greatly assisting in future developments, with tractors controlled by GPS, both planting and artificial fertilizer spraying.  Robotics are not far away, together with the use of cameras. The impact is that 2 men can handle 2000 acres compared with 200 acres in the past.

The European Common Agricultural Policy has been quite good for Britain and the value of the pound has helped.  The Government promised that farmers would not lose out with Brexit and are proposing a new “Environmental Land Management scheme” covering tree planting, hedges and wild flower margins, but the details have yet to be announced.

He feels that farmers will struggle although wheat and livestock will travel tariff free, currently there is chaos at the ports with paperwork, but that should get sorted.

On the environment we have all the discussion about Global warming, but on Wednesday night Scotland experienced the coldest night (-23 degrees C) since 1953, following two very wet, milder winters.

CO2 emissions are quite high in the farming industry, but electric tractors are limited at present, but have a future.  Severn Trent are using Bio digesters to generate 17& of their energy needs.

Solar panels have been seen widely on rented farmland as The Crown Estates are not permitted Feed in Tariffs.

His final plea was “please buy British food”, we follow the rules, it all has passports and can be traced with full security, which cannot be said for Europe!

Various questions and comments came from the members well fielded by James and finally Adrian gave a glowing Vote of Thanks for the excellent presentation, suggesting there was potential for further talks from James; followed by the usual thanks from everyone!                                                                                                                       AR