Rural Evolution
Another farm year ends with Michaelmas on (29th September); other challenges come. Perhaps, nonetheless, it’s a season for optimism? Maybe this is always how it is in our ‘world’ and way of life.
That opening might seem a little ‘off key’ in this week when the spotlight in the farming world has been on the frustrations arising from Defra /RPA’s latest ‘window’ for SFI applications, but the consequences of that difficult day have yet to be appraised. We’ll keep that for another edition!
Meanwhile, the weather of 2026 has been testing, but actually not so different from any other. More rain (in the winter) and then … none at all for quite a few weeks – in the south of England it continues to be largely dry except for the morning dew. Prices and values rise and then fall in step with the passing seasons and their unpredictable weather. The swallows came back….and now they’ve set off again. And we still believe, even anticipate, that it will all come around again next year. That’s far from taking anything for granted; just our instincts and experience telling us that whatever has gone before must lead to whatever comes next – ‘El Nino’ notwithstanding.
I’ve no doubt we are witnessing a big change in England – and not only in the farming life. A cultural change as less of the population experiences or understands what many of us country people like to regard as ‘normal’. But they have their new vision, and we must have faith that the next, the young, generation will grasp this future and make it a success. It is of course a matter of opinion but some of us suspect that ‘Artificial Intelligence’ is a threat rather than an aid. I do hope the human elements: debate, ‘give-and-take’, compromise, consideration and tolerance, aren’t overwhelmed by the logic and order of a robotic program – amazing as it is for a machine to be able to calculate and apply new techniques that would take the rest of us a generation’s work.
Yet still there is scope for enterprise in our sector and we see it happening all of the time. How can these tender new shoots be given a chance to thrive? All too quickly, someone comes in seeking to control, or more likely commercialise in order to profit. Local football clubs might nurture a young player with talent until the giants of the game pounce and take him or her away– so also small businesses often get swamped by the ‘big boys’. And farms are also changing gradually becoming mechanised ‘industries’, instead of the small business with the personal touch that a family farm retains. The so -called ‘professions’, sadly, are heading the same way. Continuity and loyalty seem to count for little, in a context where profit is the only driving force. As an article in a recent Sunday newspaper rightly declared: - ‘Money is a terrible measure of people’s ‘worth’.
We at JWL still find the ‘personal touch’ works and is valued. Sometimes clients are surprised to receive it, but quickly and positively respond, and in consequence trust builds. Livestock farms practice it too – animals thrive in response to kindness and human support, and crops reward the hands-on knowledge the farmer has of his soil and climate, topography and even location.
Re-wilding may have its supporters but to be successful, even the ‘uncultivated’ environment needs nurturing by the personal touch. That’s why the beauty of the farmed landscape, as much as the produce it provides, should continue to be valued rather than taken for granted.
And at the same time the land and its farmers can and must adapt. Diversification has happened before and no doubt will continue to evolve – both in England and in countries around the globe. Everything goes in cycles and the continuity that land gives, especially in the hands of family farms, leads the way to underlying prosperity and peace beyond the global conflicts that bring stormy waters from time to time.
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