Archived News

6th March 2014

New Friesian x calves have been coming in over the last ten days which was perfect timing for a coach full of children from St. Jude’s school, London who visited Manor Farm on Tuesday. 

About two thirds of the group visited us almost four years ago; one very hot day in June. 

After the appalling weather we were having even two weeks ago, I was thrilled that they brought some spring sunshine with them again!

The children are in Year 4 now and taking part in the Country Trust Food Discovery Project; experiencing life on a couple of different farms in spring and summer, growing their own food and cooking with it, as well as other British produce.

The children learnt about cattle, pigs and hens and collected a dozen eggs to take back to school to use in their Food Discovery lesson on Friday: I look forward to hearing what they cook.

Last week Laurence attended the NFU annual conference as the delegate for Surrey and chairman of the SE Crops Board. The NFU Conference encompassed the Economics, Business and Science of farming with sessions on everything from Horticulture and potatoes, combinable crops, poultry and dairy through to flooding and implementing CAP reforms.

After the conference closed Peter Kendall stepped down as the President of the NFU, after serving for 8 years.

Voting takes place every two years for the NFU leadership.

Meurig Raymond was voted in by a strong margin as the new President of the NFU, Minette Batters became the NFU Deputy President and Guy Smith, the NFU Vice President.

Laurence had a further two NFU meetings yesterday in London:  The Assured Food Standards (AFS) meeting reviewed the standards for the whole combinable crops industry and set the assured standards for the next three years for combinable crops. 

In the afternoon Laurence chaired the SE Combinable Crops Board.  The Agenda included E-passports which will come in to replace paper passports, the market report, CAP reform and Agri-environment schemes and Guy Gagen NFU Chief Policy Advisor spoke to the Board about National combinable crops.

Two years ago we were selling our spare straw, much of it bought for Welsh farmers who grow comparatively little arable. This year the wet weather has caused a higher moisture content generally in cattle sheds and we have used up all our straw; having to buy an extra 370 large bales in from Hampshire.