In time honoured fashion spring is now fully with us. The ground is drying up. Night temperatures are rising and all the sea buckthorn plants at Devereux farm are looking healthy. It is a time of year to look forward with good anticipation and confidence.
The referendum on Europe looms. We discussed it over lunch yesterday – Four people, four backgrounds – farming (me), international banking, commercial property, and engineering. The concensus was that for such an important decision there is just not enough tangible, quantified evidence being offered by either side. Factors like the European court of justice were an irrelevance as they were non political anyway. Leaving the EU, but trading with it still meant abiding by its rules and making funding contributions so leaving was not a panacea. EU regulates, but so does Westminster so as UK residents and businesses we are not going to be deregulated. But apart from all this still comes the issue that the world is both economically and politically unstable. The Chinese economy is faltering, the Middle East slides further into the unknown and will take at least a generation to rebuild. Migration is not just a political issue but a real problem. Oil is no longer a global golden industry. Climate change looms in the background. only if one can see well defined and clear cut advantages does one want to be taking The US elections pose more theatre than policy but as a principle ally for the UK, where will this take us. Changes in the Crimea and Ukraine portray Russia as a nationalist, not internationalist state. Libya; Argentina and the Falklands; the economy of Japan – there is little to find that provides evidence to say that being a small trading nation outside the EU is a great idea.
But this is a year to look forward to. Last week BBC Farming Today broadcast an interview from the farm which gave an opportunity to talk about sea buckthorn and its benefits. This came at the same time as securing some additional funding for the project. Try as one can, it is hard to achieve progress without sufficient funding. The lack of machinery has meant that every operation takes more time and effort. This reduces the time available for product and market development. Now comes the opportunity to mechanise all field work so that compost/compost tea applications happen more efficiently which will improve the health of both plants and soil. Weed control has been a huge problem through the summer which will become a problem of the past. Harvesting and processing needs to become HACCP accredited. With less time having to be tied to the field, product development will become a priority. now that really feels like this is going to be a good year.
This is all coming at a time when there are other changes impacting upon the farm. Our sea walls are vital to protect us from flooding. Since 2004 there has been as concept that the government might reduce funding the maintenance of these walls. They might even withdraw from them altogether. It seems somewhat bizarre that the National Coastal path is also being introduced onto these walls in the next three years. This whole issue would not be a concern if it were not for the unpredictable nature of climate change. This brings about a whole concept of risk managing the potential impacts. We could accept the potential 50% loss of land this might represent in the longer term. Alternatively the option is to make our walls more resilient to tide and flood incidents . Then, what form of sustainable enterprise we should be doing to make it worth maintaining the land assets.
The first step in this process was to undertake a planned breach of our sea wall close to the sea buckthorn. This allows the sea to flood over what used to be an old gazing marsh. The ability of the sea to spread onto this land takes the pressure off neighbouring walls when we have very high tides. This has worked at Devereux farm, but at our other farm on the Naze this is not possible as breaching would impact on a nearby yacht marina.
What is good about this is finding that there is a real spirit of co-operation to find solutions. Just this week our local council, together with the Environment Agency and Natural England worked together to give permission for the farm to build a novel structure of on-site built steel mesh baskets filled with granite rock. In an area that also protects local public open space the agency help was matched by the local community who provided free manual help to shift the 20 tons of rock into place. The whole project being pulled together and built within four days. As an example of real partnership it is providing a opening to solve how we are going to adapt to a less predictable future.
If this is to be a year to look forward to with good anticipation, it has certainly started off with some tangible results. I just hope that the June referendum continues in the spirit of reducing risk and increasing stability.
