Farmer says 'being resourceful is a prime requirement of life on the farm'
Our columnist Anne-Marie Hamilton says that being resourceful is also a prime requirement of life on the farm.
“Government should ignore treasury advice and look at the wider picture for farmers,” says farming correspondent
Farming in the fields with Anne-Marie Hamilton, of Wood Farm, in Hail Weston.
Farming columnist Anne-Marie Hamilton laments the lack of internet connection in the countryside
“For goodness sake, ring me. Now” - sorry to disappoint you. This is not the desperate plea of a star-crossed lover who has been stood up by her beloved on Valentine’s night.
Farming needs a future in Cambridgeshire as well a glorious past
Six weeks from ear to shear. This old saying has caused panic in our household this year as much to our surprise, our winter wheat produced its seed heads in mid-May, and thanks to the wet and warm weather, the crops have been racing ahead and maturing very quickly.
Rural payments and a Cambs pheasant that’s finally found love
William Byrd may write about the ‘Sweet and Merry Month of May’, but in farming circles it means that it is time, once again, to deal with the dreaded forms from the RPA. The Rural Payments Agency came in to being in 2005 to administer what is popularly referred to as the Single Farm Payment, paid under the Common Agricultural Policy. Unfortunately, it was ‘blessed’ with the worst computer system ever devised by man, highly complex forms accompanied by a foot-high pile of A4 sized ‘guidance notes’, each of which superseded the one you had struggled through a couple of days before (but without the changes highlighted), and written exclusively in Civil Service-type language – just the sort of thing to tempt you into the farm office after a long day of physical work. Things have improved in the intervening years but it still only needs one tick in the wrong box or decimal point in the incorrect place, and bang goes any hope of financial help from Europe for the whole of the production year – hence the stress!
VIDEO: Notorious Hail Weston pheasant shows no signs of standing down
What passes for peace and quiet is slowly returning to Wood Farm following the excitement of the media circus regarding our terrorist pheasant.
The terrorist pheasant stalking the Cambridgeshire farm
Terrorists seem to operate in all shapes and sizes, and unfortunately we appear to have acquired one of our own here at Wood Farm. He is exceedingly cunning and crafty and spends hours peering through hedges and lurking in the undergrowth waiting for an unsuspecting victim.
