Farm Diary November 5

Trains don't need such excuses these days. Leaves, wrong kind of snow etc: that's the serious stuff, which will delay you for half a lifetime! Lorayne and I caught the train to London the other night, and as it was just after 5.00pm of course there was not a single person in Haslemere to sell tickets. Some of the ticket machines are outside in the driving rain, and the queue to use the ones inside means you miss your train.

I did what I usually do; queue up until the train comes and then run with or without ticket. We ran over the bridge to platform 2, only to see the train doors shut, and although it stayed there for at least 30 seconds more, there was no way in.

We were not the only ones frustrated to miss the 'fast' train (slower than it was 10 years ago!) to London, and five minutes later hopped on board the 'stop at every station' slow train. As we boarded, the guard came past and I called out for tickets, only to hear a voice behind me offering to 'help'.

We were both fined 20 each (separately), and subjected to several minutes interrogation, and demands for personal details such as date of birth etc: Given our experience on the night so far, and that there are no toilet facilities at Haslemere currently, and that the waiting room was locked up for the night, I was less than friendly! The journey took almost two hours due to rail works at Wimbledon and 'stacking' (whatever that is). Public service? Do me a favour.

We thought we could pour concrete on this farm, but you should see these boys on the building site! They've just poured 42 cubic meters of 'sacrificial' concrete. No, it's nothing to do with religion; it's to construct clean working areas around the tanks that they are about to build. After the work is completed they will be covered with soil. This is beyond a dairy farmer's comprehension. It is clever though, because now that there is a huge figure of eight in concrete, they will travel with two 'scissor platforms' around the towers as they are constructed. A further 600 cubic meters of concrete is now out for tender. This week a very tall crane will arrive, which will be used for all material handling, which is so much better than wheeled or tracked vehicles; this meant more concrete, as a hugely strong re-enforced concrete pad was poured for the crane to be firmly attached to.

The cows think all this activity is great, and do all they can to interfere. A worker put his lunch bag down, and a cow who was feeding through the barrier at the time, suddenly turned into a cross between a giraffe and an Amazonian frog; reaching out and gently lifting the bag with her long tongue, taking it back into the shed, where the contents all fell out into the slurry! The men in charge of planning all this took their maps into the shed, only to find that whilst cows can't read maps, they quite like eating them. The milking group in the bottom shed now have to be walked up past the maize silage pit, and all sorts of other tempting areas that are strictly out of bounds for them. Needles to say, it is not straightforward.

Lord Hunt, the new Minister that straddles both Defra and Decc (Dept: for energy and climate change (nothing to do with Ant and Dec!)) visited the farm last week. As he is involved in Defra with responsibilities for 'sustainability', he found it interesting to see our milk production operation, and the beginning of our energy production operation. We talked about food security and energy security, both of which are suddenly very important as we are pretty much dependant on other countries for both, and government wants to make sure it does not become an overdependence. He is a very nice man, intelligent, thoughtful, interested, and following in the footsteps of Lord Rooker and Lord Bach, will hopefully be a friend to agriculture. As Deputy Leader in the House of Lords, he is an important figure in Government.

The news in Europe on Blue-tongue is not good. France, who have been battling rather unsuccessfully with (type) Btv 8 (same strain as we have in UK), and also Btv1 in the South which has moved north from Spain, have suddenly found Btv 1 now in the north west tip of the country (Brittany), which is a great worry for the UK and may well result in farmers not only vaccinating for Btv 8, but also for Btv 1. In Holland (where they also have Btv 8), they have had an outbreak of Btv 6 a 'vaccine virus strain'. Although this has only been found in four animals (so far), it is puzzling. The vaccine (which is a live virus modified vaccine) is used for BTv6 and other serotypes in South Africa, and is not registered for use in EU. All animal movements out of Holland have been suspended whilst investigations continue. Again this virus is now very close to the UK.