Parlez vous francais?

I have finally booked some foreign travel, not on my own this time,but en masse with all 5 kids, 1 Farmer and my 80 year young dad. This will be quite an adventure! We are off to the Dordogne, an area I have always wanted to go to, looking at duck farms. The planned visit is to see Mylène et Yohan Guicheteau at Val de Chanedière, which just happens to be a cousin of a friend of a friend, or something complicated like that. They run a diversified farm a bit like ours with farm visits, holidays and canard production.
What i have always admired about the french is the way they are not frightened to know how their poultry is reared and slaughtered. It amazes me that websites for Foie Gras production and Poulet de Bresse show you with great pride and detail all the gory bits. We sometimes have customers that visit us and really like to understand all our process but I am unsure that having a website with it on would help my marketing much. Obviously Foie Gras is not organic and is seen by many as cruel, but i feel that we need to look to have an opinion
I am hoping not just learn about the help new entrants get in France, but how to preserve Duck and increase not just value but shelf life. At Val de Chanedière they produce canard Foie gras and then Confit with everything. Nothing is wasted even the Gesiers is made into a delicous confit (that's giblets to all you uneducated!!).

The other week We had a brief visit from the family that will act as my translator and they bought us some tins to try. They were a real treat, perfect convenience food and I am now counting the days to our big trip. I was left a bit embarrassed during their visit by my lack of French. Being obsessed with farming from an early age I never saw the use of learning it at school and so far that has not been a problem. At college we had some good French friends and we spent three days at their wedding not understanding much but getting along just fine (it may have been the muscadet.) Since then we have had French Agriculture students on the farm for the last 11 years and my french has still not improved beyond describing the anatomy of a poulet and canard (Nevil can do it in polish and Latvian too!).
So in the true spirit of the Nuffield Scholarship i have bought myself learn french on the computer and sit here trying out weird phrases as I try and do the wages. More fun is the school program that Elsa found for me which is a game with aliens speaking french. I've got 6 weeks to go.......

Farming: The Next Generation 18th May 2010

In the lovely peaceful settings on Stoneleigh Park this conference jointly organised by Fresh Start and Easton College had the aims to look at;

‘Who are the next generation of farmers?

What is being done to ensure they have the tools and support to become established as business men and women who have a real impact on UK farming?’

So did it achieve those aims? Now I love the idea of conferences, it’s a day out, the food is normally good and it is a chance to meet lots of jolly interesting people with lots of interesting ideas. However quite often I come away and feel that it’s missed the point or failed to deliver what it set out to do.

This conference was no different, the company was good and the ideas and motivations excellent, but I do feel it failed to really get to grips with the problem. But what is the problem? It really is such a big subject a weeklong conference would likely to be needed. The most important thing is it happened and that is part of the first steps. Several speakers suggested succession planning for farms will take 15 years; maybe it will take 15 years for the industry to come up with a plan how it is going to deal with the recruitment and retention of youngsters.

There was certainly some interesting speakers that are worthy of noting! Luckily I booked to attend the meal the night before, so I was privileged to listen to Sir Don Curry as the pre dinner speaker. Although not all farmers agree I have always thought the Sir Don speaks a lot of sense and his food and farming report after foot and mouth helped us decide the direction our farming career took. He has recently headed a report into the importance of council farms and he told us his concerns about the vulnerability of the council estates in the current economic climate and how he had just issued a press release condemning Gloucester Councils decision to terminate tenancies and sell farms. His solution to the lack of farms to rent for new entrants is to work with estates and landowners to create opportunities.

The first speaker during the day was Dr Matt Lobly from Exeter University who for many years has been collecting farm transfer data both nationally and internationally. He showed us some very interesting slides, that in his interpretation said, yes there is a problem with farmers making some sort of succession plan, but the problem in the UK is not half as bad as most other countries. An interesting point he pulled out was the small number of daughters be included in the plans. He talked about the ‘Succession Effect’ where a succession plan drives the business forward and stimulates expansion. He also quoted a government survey from 1979 that showed concern that farming was in danger of becoming closed shop which created lower levels of innovation and less business dynamism.

The other Inspirational speaker was John Baker from Iowa State University and he runs the Beginner Farmer Centre. He set out how they are dealing with the same problems in Iowa. Sorting out succession plans, matching new entrants and farms and the tax breaks that now available to get these things moving. And it seems to be working, but from the figures we saw earlier there were greater problems to sort out.

Other interesting people to note include Denis Chamberlain MBE who is the chair of fresh start and is committed to the next generation, Richard Longthorpe a pig farmer that is driving the Agriskills forum forward to try and improve the skill levels and professionalism in farming, Mike Mack a recent Nuffield scholar who is keen to get a national Mentoring program going, Henry Cator from RASE who is also farmer and land agent and the case studies that included Christina Hope that runs a village shop from her parents farm and David and Lizzie Otley who trade as Blue Welly farm and produce pork for direct sales and hog roasts and would just like 10 acres in one place to make a living form.

So quite a mix of ideas, some of which has given me some thoughts where to go next. But the whole event has left me a bit uneasy that still farmers are not yet ready to embrace the next generation, but I’m hoping that this maybe just the start on something that will contribute to the future success of our industry

Working out what to do next

The farmer and I have spent many hours pondering how to go about the rest of my Nuffield study. It seems like for the first time ever I am going to need a PLAN!
One of the things that made me giggle in USA was the management talk and the Gettysburg leadership training. When you are a self employed farmer you don't bother much with the latest inspirational talks or 'in' words and sayings. There is no office politics or team work, we just get on with it or the ship sinks! At Gettysburg we were told we needed to Innovate, Adapt and Overcome. We even had Abraham Lincoln turn up to reinforce the message!
Maybe Higher Fingle farm needs to be stop being so cynical and then we may find we are more successful. So in this more open frame of mind We have tried to get some Key words outlining Organic Ducks Great Adventure.

INSPIRE,

This is easy after talking to lots of new entrants (including my favourite one from Sunderland)and asking the question why? the most common answer was 'I want to farm.' Now that is a pretty farmer type answer but when you pull it about a bit the main reason was some real desire to work on the land. This desire was sometimes (as in my case) inspired when very young, but often in the teenage years when choosing their options at school. So on this basis I need to look at HOW to INSPIRE people to go into the farming industry.

New entrant, Dora 7 want's to be a 'Horse Farmer'

ENABLE
Not so easy this one, the educating and training youngsters with the skills required is fairly straightforward. We have got some great land based colleges in the UK, but we seem to have lost sight of practical skills training so checking out the new Diplomas and the Fresh Start Academies may show me some interesting things. The hard one is enabling a new entrant to farm on their own. Currently I am excited to find out about CSA's, Equity share farming and countries where land use is more tightly controlled.

SUCCEED
This is the one we have yet to sort out! If we want new entrants then we need them to succeed and survive when the going gets tough (because it always will!) You can argue that the financial support is there in the form of tax credits and other social security help. From our experience the practical and mentoring support is missing in an industry that by it's nature is isolating and lonely. Thinking about organised support networks we thought about Farm Crisis Network, but why wait fo a crisis, maybe this is the mentoring and practical advice that we could have done with at times.
The other main theme here is what is success? I think we need to look at aiming for successful retirement which is how, in most industries much time is spent planning for.
Mick Ayres Builder Retired at 75

Fresh Start (another Parish post article)

View from the Farm!
This month as well as trying to do the end of year accounts, I have been trying to get to grips with what is happening with new entrants in the UK. To make things more complicated different approaches have been taken in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland which reflects the different subsidy systems in each area. The one thing they are all agreed on is that farming needs new entrants and that they need some support to succeed.
I had the opportunity to talk to the national coordinator of Fresh Start, an organisation that was launched in December 2004 by Sir Donald Curry and aims to secure future for farming in England by a whole raft of measures. To make life easier these are listed below:
• Promoting an entrepreneurial culture amongst the next generation of farm business owners
• Promoting the use of generic business planning and management techniques.
• Promotion of farming as an attractive career option for new entrants.
• Development of a ‘matching service’ that will link potential new entrants to those wishing to reduce their involvement or wishing to retire.
• Development of a national mentoring capability for all new/growing farm enterprises.
• Practical support for a continued professional development culture to be adopted by everybody working in the industry.
A year after the initiative was launched the concept of Fresh Start Academies was launched. These Academies run across the country and typically involve training in business skills, mentoring and then identifying opportunities through a matchmaking network.
To date around 30 Academies have been running at different times and a number of graduates had managed to secure tenancies. But all these academies are run on a shoestring with some areas managing to secure some funding from local sources and most of the professional time being given for free. These professional include land agents, Solicitors, accountants, consultants and land managers. DEFRA have backed the initiative, however currently it only has provided funding for the next three months, even though the development of new entrants was part of the food strategy announced by Hilary Benn back in January. This funding is enough for administration and employment of a national coordinator for 20 hours a week, not many hours to cover the whole of England.
So is it working? Well I believe the academies are working but they are not yet making a big difference to number of new farmers. So far the matching of opportunities seems to be treated with suspicion in the UK, although it has had some success in USA and France. Inspiring new entrants seems not approached yet, but in the coming year there are to be some work with careers advisors and teachers. Then there is the money, in my experience it is the biggest hurdle and nobody seems to be even talking about the low interest loans and loan guarantees that are available in France.
So where do the farmers come in? Well there are farmer stakeholders involved with the academies but they are outnumbered by those professionals and farming as an industry is not contributing anything in the way of money. I believe that unless farmers themselves get involved in the initiative then it will not result in success. Who better to mentor a young farmer than a local neighbour and what a difference lending a piece of equipment or helping out when things are going wrong makes when you are struggling to get a business of the ground. Thinking up a way of organising that such of help could take some time!
This Article was published in Drewsteignton Parish Post in May.