Spring brings grazing cattle and cautious optimism to James Cossins, but not far beneath lies the mix of financial pressure, policy frustration and weather concerns that continues to test the resilience of modern farming
A lot seems to have happened since I last wrote at end of February, both on the farm and in the wider world. It’s the end of April, and at Rawston Farm we now have most of our cattle out grazing, which is a great sight.
Our main concern now is that there has been no significant rainfall since the middle of March. With the recent cold winds and morning frosts, the growth of the recently sown spring crops has slowed down. With maize being sown, we desperately need some warm rain. I know, it seems a strange request after all the flooding we had in the first two months of this year!
We have carried out our planned restructuring and have closed one of our two milking herds. We have moved half of the 150 cows to our remaining unit, and the remainder were sold, most privately and the remainder at Frome Market. There were many reasons for merging the herd. Having gone clear after four years of being closed with TB, there was at last an opportunity to sell some cows to join other milking herds, rather than the only other option which was to send them to the abattoir.
At the same time, our relief herdsman retired after 26 years with us.The milking parlour also needs considerable investment to bring it up to the required standards. The final straw was that an Environment Agency inspector told us that dirty water is now classified as slurry, and we were short of being able to provide storage for the required five months. On a tenanted farm, the investment required was in the region of £200,000, which was very difficult to justify.
Grants are available from the government, and we did apply for one at our existing dairy, only for the application to be refused after two years of back-and-forth, told that the proposed store was not large enough. We decided to build the store anyway, and the now-closed milking unit will house our beef cattle in the winter months, meaning we will not have to outwinter many cattle in the future.
All images:
James Cossins
Iranian ripples
In the wider world, the Iran conflict is beginning to have serious consequences on farmers and growers. Firstly, like everyone else who has had to buy fuel of any description, we have noticed the increase in price. The price of tractor diesel appears to have nearly doubled, and our tractors can use up to 300 litres a day – a combine harvester even more. It is a massive increase in costs for us. The price of fertiliser has also dramatically increased. Most farmers have already purchased most of their fertiliser for this year. The concern is what the price and availability will be for next year’s crops.
If the price of wheat does not increase next year, there is a real debate at the moment as to whether it will even be worth planting the crop this autumn, what with high fuel costs and uncertain fertiliser supply and costs. The consequences could be challenging for food supplies.
River walk
At Rawston Farm we recently held a river walk along the Tarrant with the expert guidance of Nicola Hopkins from the Farm and Wildlife Advisory Group and Matt Irvine from the Wessex Rivers Trust. It was amazing to see what life there is in the river. We even spotted some tiny trout in the stream, which was great to see. Everyone who attended, including a number of children, gained a great deal of knowledge of what life can be found in the stream.
Talking TB
In early April I attended a very interesting meeting. Hosted by Homefield Farm Vets in collaboration with the Dorset Grassland Society, Tackling TB in Dorset is a subject of considerable interest to all Dorset cattle keepers. Sarah Tomlinson, technical director of the TB Advisory Service, gave an excellent presentation of where we are with incidence of TB and how we can further reduce the numbers of cattle infected.
We have come a long way in the control of the disease, but there is still much we can do to improve the situation. Maintaining biosecurity measures and monitoring cattle movements are still key to the controls. The vaccination of both cattle and badgers is still on the agenda as a means of control. I believe that we should also be allowed to try out some of the new tests that are available to detect the disease at the very early stages within cattle – we cannot just rely on the skin test invented in the 1890s.
Let’s hope we get some rain soon. It would be widely welcomed among farmers, growers and gardeners. We don’t want another dry summer like last year!
