Farming is difficult whatever the political and social climate.

For farmers, Covid has brought the good with the bad. Speaking to a Kent farmer, I have realised what a dependent market farming is, on the political and physical climate. He told me that Covid has caused lamb prices to rocket to around £130 each, and store lambs (ones which are sold on to be fattened) to be about £100 a head. However, he went on to say the national breeding stock has decreased by about 10% and that sheep feed is now £300 a tonne, and over £600 a tonne for Nitrogen – which is used to vitalise the grass in Spring.

A big scandal in the British sheep trade is the depreciation in wool prices. In the 1970s, the farmer says, 1 fleece would have been worth about £14, and the wool check of a farmer’s flock would have paid the rent of a farm. Now wool probably won’t be enough to pay for the fuel to get to the wool depot.

As of 2020, it was worth 32p/kilo. The farmer said he sold around 500 fleeces in 2021 for only £80. Due to Covid the wool trade has nosedived because none of it was needed as no one was moving house – so no new carpets or rugs were wanted.

Farming is a risky business.

The fluctuating markets cause anxiety and possible financial loss for farmers. Speaking to the farmer, he said that the markets were affected by climate change and that there was “no guarantee”; that everything can go “pear-shaped overnight”.

Last year’s drought saw the grass incinerated to scorched, brown wisps, and the ground to become parched and cracked. This year, however, has been better with the more fruitful rain. But we will not always be so fortunate with the weather.

In Britain, I feel the agricultural sector is forgotten, neglected. The public focus a lot on diet, technology, environment, politics etcetera. What we do not pay enough attention to is where our food is coming from, and how it is being produced. Reading the recent bestseller, ‘English Pastoral – An Inheritance’ by James Rebanks, has made me understand how sustainable farming could change the environmental landscape drastically, and the importance of farming and the countryside to society. I urge you to read it.

The agricultural sector across the UK has decreased dramatically, as farmers retire, and as the country become increasingly reliant on imports. None more so, than with the recent controversy over the imports of New Zealand lamb. Older farmers have retired, and, not surprisingly, because of the increasing financial difficulties of farming, (I think) the next generation are not so keen to continue the family business. This country, so fertile, must try and get the younger generation back onto the farms, before we lose all autarchy.

Indeed, pig numbers in Kent have plummeted due to high revenues, whilst pig imports are flowing into Britain, whilst our welfare-friendly pigs are neglected and wasted, the farmer notes. Sausages, he says, are only a fraction of their true worth. Not only that, but he says that because of a shortage of abattoirs and butchers, pigs are being dumped in landfill sites for convenience.

However, farming is not all doom and gloom.

Yes, farming is difficult, but the rewards one gains are immense. Working with animals and being in the countryside makes one appreciate the good things around us. Not the new iPhone 12, but the freshly-tilled earth, or the dry, musty hay baking in the sun.  

The farmer said that he “love[d] the sheep” and that he has “always done it since I was a kid”, and that pigs, sheep and cattle are “all I’ve ever farmed”. He also told me he had pet sheep when he was a child, and that they were his hobby. Having worked on his farm, I have experienced the joy one gets out of delivering lambs in Spring, or the happiness (and cold) one feels on a crisp, February morning when you are shearing the ewes’ backsides, in preparation for the lambing season.

We must pay more attention to our farmers.

Before they are all out of business.