Archived News

25th January 2016

As well as farming, Laurence also spends many hours up and down the country on behalf of Red Tractor Farm and Food Assurance and the National Farmers Union.

Laurence is a director of Red Tractor Farm and Food Assurance and is the combinable crops and sugar beet sector chairman.  He has recently given talks for Red Tractor in Exeter, Warwickshire and at Plumpton College, Sussex where he provided a lecture and slide show to the Level 2 and Level 3 first year agriculture students including food traceability, usage and trust of the Red Tractor logo.   There is a lot of interesting information on their website  http://www.redtractor.org.uk/   

Here is an extract from the Plumpton news and events page:   Red Tractor was established in 2000 and is now the UK’s leading farm and quality food assurance scheme.  The scheme was launched by the food industry to promote clearer labelling and ensure food originates from a trustworthy source.  Many products now display the Red Tractor logo which confirms that independent assessors have checked food or drink meets comprehensive standards, from farms to fork.  The standards cover many areas including traceability, food safety and hygiene, animal welfare and environmental protection.
Lecturer Catherine Daw said ''We have linked this visit in our classroom lectures about farm assurances and food production within the Red Tractor umbrella logo.  We thank Mr Matthews for his stimulating lecture.  He has also generously invited students to visit his farm in Surrey.  We are keen to accept his kind invitation which offers another College opportunity to broaden the student experience.”  You can read more about Laurence's visit and Plumpton College here http://www.plumpton.ac.uk/news/red-tractor-comes-to-plumpton-college!/210

We are pleased to continue our link with Plumpton College which Laurence attended as and agricultural student a few decades ago!    It is now the nearest college to us which provides agricultural courses. As well as hosting farm visits for groups of Plumpton students over the years,  we also provide summer or middle-year work placements for students as we are currently and  have also employed post graduates.    

We look forward to welcoming the students to Manor Farm for their visit next month.

We had a beautiful start to the day here and I was greeted by this group of Belted Galloways which have continued to graze on the lower slopes and old parkland at Landbarn long beyond the summer grazing we undertake each year.

Thousands of years ago when hunter-gatherers began to lead a more settled life trees were cleared along what we now call the North Downs and livestock began to graze here.   Nowadays landowners such as the National Trust along with Natural England are working to maintain the rare chalk downland habitat that remains, by undertaking grazing to prevent the coarse grasses and scrub becoming dominant and following the natural succession to woodland.

Chalk downland has very thin topsoil  overlaying the chalk, giving rise to a springy grassland which is poor in nutrients but species rich.    The combination of grazing, summer drought and winter frosts on the poor soils over the centuries has resulted in no one species becoming dominant; with up to 45 different of plants and mosses per  square meter, some of which are only found in this unique habitat.

The conservation grazing that our cattle undertake for The National Trust is helping to bring areas of downland back into favourable condition for many downland plants and butterflies such as the Adonis blue  butterfly.

In February at the AGM following the 2016 NFU national conference, the NFU council members will vote for NFU President, Deputy President and Vice President of the NFU.  The seven candidates who are standing for the three positions are visiting each region and this afternoon Laurence attended the hustings held for the NFU South East Regional Board.   Each candidate had three minutes to speak followed by seven minutes of question time.

When the hustings were complete in the south east, the candidates travelled down to the south west for this evening's hustings.

Back on the farm we were lifting fodder beet before the heavy rain which is due tomorrow.  The beet grows well on the sandy soil and lifts clean, so it's proving very popular with livestock owners across the south at the moment.

We take a whole farm approach to farming and conservation, integrating wildlife and habitat management across the farm holding and so it's wonderful to see and hear the abundance of flora and fauna this maintains and increases.  Whilst areas of the farm are more suited to certain species including Lapwings, it has been exciting to see an increasing flock of this bird with three names; also known as green plover and peewit due to their distinctive call.

Today I counted over 60 feeding in our fields and then taking to the dramatic skies to wheel and turn.  Beautiful.

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