SURVEY OF FARMS
Although Belford
is a markedly rural community very little mention of the agricultural activities
was made in the last survey. Many of the farms shown on maps of the area have
been combined and farmers frequently work land some distance from their principal
site. Farmers also employ a lot of contract labour and machines for working their
land. It was noticeable that their principal complaint was not the weather or
crop prices, a farmer's traditional scourge, but form filling for the EEC.
Belford Mains: 845 acres, Robson Urwin & Co Ltd
A mixed farm rearing cows and calves, ewes and lambs with some cattle fattened
for market. They also grow wheat, barley, forage kale, swedes and silage. The
farm utilises its own tractors, combine harvesters, loaders and balers. Its two
employees work "agricultural hours."
The principal change since 1970 has been the amount of form filling.
Chesters: A. Nixon
Chesters Farm is now run under a tenancy by A. Nixon of Swinhoe Farm. Previously
it formed part of the McLaren farms group until 1985 when it was purchased by
the R.M.C. Group of Coldharbour Road, Thorpe, Egham, Surrey.
Detchant: 400 acres, J. R. Jackson (including South Meadows)
Detchant is a purely arable farm growing wheat, barley, rape, peas and oats. Its
4 staff work a 40 hour basic week plus overtime when necessary. Detchant has diversified
by letting holiday cottages and running a pine stripping service. Their equipment
includes 5 tractors, 1 combine harvester, 5 trailers, 2 forklifts, 2 power harrows
and 2 rollers. They also have a grain drier and a public weighbridge.
Since 1970 they have stopped rearing livestock and to make best use of their arable
production have built a new grain plant with storage capacity for 8,000 tons.
EEC membership has brought with it the dreaded I.A.C.S. forms and maps but Mr
Jackson comments that he has found membership has helped to support agriculture.
Elwick: 840 acres, J. R. Reay & Sons Ltd
Elwick is a mixed farm rearing beef cattle and sheep; growing wheat, barley and
swedes. They also let holiday cottages.
The equipment inventory includes tractors, combine harvesters, grain drier, pick-up,
balers, a forage harvester, mower, diet feeder, ploughs, power harrow, combination
corn drill, swede chopper/feeder, straw chopper, trailers and a muck spreader.
The four employees work 8.00am - 12.00noon; 12:40pm - 4.40pm with overtime at
busy times.
Mr Reay has noted many changes, moving towards more arable and more sheep but
fewer cattle. In 1970 the cattle raised were Herefords or other British breeds
but now they are the much larger Charolais and Limousins. The use of more fertilizer
and sprays has contributed to wheat and barley yields up 60 % and overall the
farm produces about double the 1970 output. The machines and implements are bigger
and more powerful and the crop of forms is also much larger. The introduction
of set-aside over the last 3 years has changed some work patterns and the increased
mechanisation with items like forklifts and big balers means there is less manual
work.
Greymare Farm: 530 acres, Christopher Leyland
This farm lists grass as its principal activity. 160 acres are devoted to a timothy/ryegrass
mix for their haylage feed activities. The other land is used for grazing 780
mule ewes and 35 cows during the summer. Greymare also has an active peat cutting
business and runs the Haymax bagging service to produce animal feed. These mixed
activities employ 2 men on the main farm; 2 men full-time and 8 casual for Haymax
and one full-time for peat operations.
Although Greymare keeps several of its own tractors and trailers, it hires others
during the summer for Haymax operations. They have a specialised digger for peat
cutting, packing and heat seal machines. They also operate a pick-up truck.
The diversification to Haymax and peat, started since 1970, has raised the employment
potential for the farm. Mr Leyland comments that as pure agriculture the farm
would only support one family but with the Haymax and peat ventures it now supports
five.
Low Middleton: 490 acres, Mr McDonald
This mixed farm grows wheat, barley and oats and raises cattle and sheep. One
full-time and one part-time employee work from 8.00am - 4.30pm with overtime as
required. The principal change since 1970 has been managing the farm complicated
by the Belford bypass running through the middle of it.
Kettleburn: 280 acres, Hector Hutchinson & Son
This mixed farm raises cattle and sheep alongside its fields of barley, oats and
turnips. Since 1970 they utilise 80 acres from Detchant and 40 extra cattle.
Ross Farm: 1950 acres, Ross & Outchester Farms Ltd, Mr Sutherland, Outchester
Farm
This combination of two local farms carries out a wide range of activities. The
normal complement of 125 suckler cows and 270 mule ewes is augmented during the
winter by 400 calves, 200 cows and 325 ewe hoggs. Wheat, barley, oil-seed rape
and grass for silage are grown. The large site is run by 5 full-time and 2 part-time
staff on a 39 hour week with the usual overtime at peak seasons. As well as letting
holiday cottages, this farm is unique in cultivating oysters!
They note many changes stating with some asperity:
1. Control by the Common Market system for support of agriculture is a very artificial
and unsatisfactory state of affairs.
2. Greater awareness of environmental issues.
3. Reduction in labour requirements.
4. The introduction of oil-seed rape as a major crop. (the pungent golden fields
are inescapable.)
5. Improvements have come from:
a) Yield potential of crops from breeding new varieties.
b) Chemical control of disease in crops.
c) Range of medicines for animal welfare.
d) Design and reliability of farm machinery.
6. There has been a reduction in the range of advisory services from the Ministry
of Agriculture.
7. There has been a reduction of capital expenditure on farms.
South Farm: 140 acres, G.G.Birdsall
South Farm is now limited to raising cattle, having converted half its land into
Belford Golf course whose activities are listed elsewhere in the business section.
This venture was started in 1993.
Sionside/Plantation Farm: 650 acres, R. Brewis
A mixed arable farm raising suckler cows and sheep alongside winter barley, spring
barley and turnips.There is only one full-time employee but regular use is made
of staff from Chester Hill. The farm has a loader/tractor but again most operations
are done with equipment from Chester Hill. Silage, sowing, fertilizing, spraying
and harvesting were noted. Mr Brewis notes that most cattle are now Continental
cross breeds rather than the traditional English breeds prevalent in 1970.
South Meadows: 40 acres, George McLaren-Brown
This is the smallest farm in our survey run as a tenancy to grow corn and haymax
feed. No additional staff are employed to work the farm with a Quad and trailer.
Storage is listed as a diversification. This is another part of McLaren Farms
split into three by RMC after they purchased them.
Swinhoe: 1100 acres, J.M. Nixon & Son (Includes part of Bricksheds and
Chesters farms.)
A mixed farm, its livestock is described as suckler cows with followers carried
on until finished and breeding ewes with lambs carried on until finished. The
crops are winter wheat, winter barley, spring barley, oil-seed rape, peas and
rape. Two full time employees work 39 hours with overtime and run tractors, combine
harvester, fork lift and grain drier. Implements are plough, combination drill,
rollers, balers, muck spreader and forage harvester etc. Once again diversification
is to holiday cottages.
The farm has expanded since 1970. In 1984 it took over part of Bricksheds Farm
and in 1995 part of the Chesters. The number of employees has reduced as tractors
and implements have increased in size and power over the years. Peas and oil-seed
rape have been introduced into the crop rotation.
West Hall & Craggy Hall: 375 acres, J.O.Riddell & Son.
Run on the familiar pattern of a mixed farm, cows and sheep produce fat cattle
and lambs. Planted crops include winter barley, wheat, spring barley, beans, silage
and hay. The farm is worked by 2 full-time and one part-time employee who work
50 to 100 hours a week. They use 6 tractors, a combine harvester and a grain store.
Plough, corn drill and large trailers complete the inventory. West Hall also has
holiday houses.
The farm was originally bought in 1923 and has remained in he family. Since 1970
new sheds and a grain store have been built.
25 Years of Farming Change
Picture the winter landscape of the area 25 years ago. Dominated by the brown
colours of ploughed fields waiting for the frost to break them into a fine tilth,
changing from dark wet soils of January to become almost white in the spring sunshine
inviting a fleet of tractors to cultivate an easy fine tilth as a seedbed for
malting barley. There would be many fields of grass often carrying sheep. Perhaps
an occasional field of bageys with sheep grazing over fenced off areas and a few
cattle munching on hay put out to on a rare piece of clean ground. Probably the
sight of a draining machine creeping along reclaiming fields not cultivated since
the depression of the 1930's. The harbinger of change.
Now the enlarged fields are green with autumn sown crops. They are striped with
tramlines - unsown markers for the frequent tractor journeys through the crop
applying fungicide and straw strengtheners. Often the only grass left in the landscape
is on land too awkward for the plough to work so the sheep and cattle are wintering
in the steel and asbestos palaces of the extended farmyard. There they thrive
on a carefully formulated ration including by-products of the scotch whisky industry,
American soya bean meal and molasses all bulked up with straw. Their health is
greatly improved by the development of better vaccines and medicines. The stockman'
s cupboard now resembles a small pharmacy.
In the early summer the countryside is brightened up by the vivid yellow of oilseed
rape fields, a crop hardly grown 25 years ago but now satisfies the nation's desire
for cooking oil and margarine. The farmer uses it in his rotation as an important
break crop to be followed by a productive crop of wheat. It breaks the cereal
root diseases which build up but does not build up soil fertility in the way that
grass breaks used to. However, this is made up by heavy applications of fertilizer.
Come harvest time the machines are giants compared with 25 years ago. Sitting
in the open air on the old machines, the driver was at the mercy of the elements
but was aware of every bump and growl of his machine and could respond to that.
The modern operator sits in his air-conditioned comfort and has warning lights,
alarms and monitors to tell him how the machine is working. He will often be in
contact with his trailer driver over a radio and call him in to unload grain.
Often this will go not to the farm but to a massive central store such as the
co-operatively owned Coastal Grains.
Now there is much less manual work on the farm. The forklift truck shifts big
bales of hay, straw and even shrink-wrapped silage from the fields in the summer
and feeds and beds the animals throughout the winter. Deliveries to the farm come
in big bags or on pallets and men no longer feel that twinge in their backs on
seeing a load of fertiliser arriving at the farm.
We've been through an era where surplus straw was burned in the fields after harvest
but the great palls of smoke hanging in the air, blotting out the sun, dropping
ash on washing and in gin and tonics led to public outcry and the banning of the
practice. The modern harvesters are fitted with diesel guzzling choppers which
mean that the plough can directly follow the combine. This will often be pursued
across the field by a cultivator combined with a seed drill, moisture is conserved.
Thus in two passes with tractors the stubble field is transformed into moist brown
earth sown with winter cereal. In a warm autumn the field soon greens up.
No longer is the farm worker setting his garden at the weekend; more likely he's
off in his smart car to wheel the trolley round an out of town supermarket. His
housing is now smart with central heating, his neighbours no longer his co-workers,
quite possibly they are holiday makers. It is these temporary visitors who are
the most likely human figures to be seen walking through the landscape often as
part of a brightly anoraked group of ramblers in pursuit of the next wooden finger
pointing them on their journey back to the car. After their fortnight it's back
to their urban lair.
The farmer spends increasingly more of his time in his office surrounded by fax,
modem and computer screen. He's drowning in a sea of regulations, rules, form
filling and record keeping. Europe is awash with food. No longer is he needed
to cultivate every possible acre to fill the nation's hungry larder, but rather
he is paid to keep a tenth of his hectares out of production possibly reverting
to his grandfather's tradition of a fallow or maybe he'll be growing crops as
industrial raw material. The changes that have occurred in the industry in order
to satisfy the nation's need for food and in the environment and the welfare of
intensively kept animals.
A.D.J.B.
An alternative view from 1895 describes: - '.... the very ne-plus-ultra of turnip
and barley soils, seated in the perfume of bean and clover blossoms at the elbow
of that ancient and erudite chair of agriculture, Belford... for utility and ornament...
the prophetic mind beholds in all these the future Cirencester of Northumberland,
inculcating other ethics than the childish invention of parliamentary crutches
for the tottering steps of the infant farmer.' The Pall Mall Gazette, commenting
on this advertisement, speculated at some length on what this seat of learning
actually consisted of and went on with some justification that 'ordinary men would
seem out of place in such a spot.'
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