We had no inkling, on the time, that farming would change into a front-page story. However even again in January, 2024 was shaping as much as be a essential yr for the sector. This, in any case, was the yr the brand new post-Brexit regime for farm funds would come into full pressure. Having trusted subsidies annually for merely farming a given acreage of land, farmers had been now being requested to decide to totally different schemes targeted much less on meals than on environmental targets.
This was additionally the primary full yr of the brand new commerce offers with New Zealand and Australia. The upshot of those offers is that UK farmers are actually competing with two of the world’s main meals exporters, who can export extra into Britain than they do at present.
On high of this, the winter that simply handed was a very powerful one, particularly for arable farmers. Chilly, moist and unpredictable – much more so than the standard British climate. It promised to be a difficult yr for rising.
With all of this in thoughts, we got down to doc what a yr like this really felt like for a farm – on this case Decrease Drayton Farm in Staffordshire. In some respects, this combined farm is sort of typical for elements of the UK – they rear livestock and develop wheat, in addition to subcontracting a few of their fields to potato and carrot growers.
A take a look at farming reimagined
However in different respects, the 2 generations of the Bower household right here, Ray and Richard, are doing one thing uncommon. Seeing the precipitous falls in earnings from rising meals lately, they’re attempting to reimagine what farming within the twenty first century would possibly seem like. And of their case, which means constructing a play centre for youngsters and what could be categorized as “agritourism” actions alongside them.
Picture:
The Bower household
The upshot is that whereas a lot of their day-to-day work continues to be conventional farming, an growing share of their earnings comes from non-food exercise. It underlines a broader level: throughout the nation, farmers are being requested to do unfamiliar issues to make ends meet. Some, just like the Bowers, are embracing that change; others are struggling to adapt. However with extra moist years anticipated forward and extra modifications due in authorities help, the approaching years could possibly be a unbroken curler coaster for British farming.
With that in thoughts, I might encourage you to observe our movie of this yr by the lens of this farm. It’s, we hope, a captivating, nuanced perception of life on the land.
