At the age of 58 one starts to look to the future. Times past would have said only seven years to retirement. Farming is not that sort of profession though. Another five years more sounds practical and still provides time to see the world and enjoy what life has to offer – possibly with still keeping an eye on what is happening down on the farm.
With this in mind I have a wish list of projects to complete. Sea buckthorn is of course a primary one, but I have to remember what initiated it.
Last Thursday I was on top of the sea wall looking down as a benign tide lapping up against the bottom of the wall that protects our land. It is November and winter is coming. That means storminess and the potential of surge tides. On the coast we all tend to have tide tables that indicate what the tides are throughout the year. Our local ones are produced by Harwich Harbour and therefore one takes them as accurate. Reality is though that these are only guide figures. Across the year atmospheric pressure and wind impact upon these predicted tides and create conditions which can build an extra metre or so of tide height with considerable regularity.
Last winter a tidal surge caused 65 breaches to walls along the east coast and an unlisted number of incidents where the tide came over the top of the wall flooding land behind.
Our farm along with many along this coast were ravaged by floods in 1953. Our walls were rebuilt to 5m high which has held them secure since then.
Climate change is a factor that you have to take a personal judgement on. It is easy if you are a politician sitting behind a city desk to say whether it is something you agree with or not. But when faced with the potential of sea level rise; increased storminess and more surge tides you take a more risk avert approach.
Surges are becoming more frequent; inland flooding has become a regular feature of our winters since the millennium. Ignoring the threat to the sea walls that protect your property is foolhardy.
It was with this in mind that I breached our sea wall at Devereux farm. This approach was to allow the sea to spread across some land in order to reduce the tide from building up pressure on our walls. The first result was appreciating the impact of salt water upon the land. It is a killer of all things terrestrial. It makes one appreciate the advice back from 1953 to get sea water off your land as soon as possible to prevent the sale penetrating the soil.
Breaching the wall has created a very interesting new habitat which is attractive to many breeding birds. In the long term future it may be that living with the sea we have to look to this marginal ground to grow salt marsh plants or shellfish. But I digress.
The real issue with this is one’s thought about climate change and the future. This week Mr Obama took his agreement with the Chinese premier to the G20 in Brisbane. He said that this generation has unlimited opportunities; against this he mention risks of security; disease; energy issues; climate change. Climate change that this president is prepared to commit to with three billion US dollars to help the Green Climate Fund. A commitment that is made at a time when at home his political rivals have approved the building of the pipeline across the US to take Canadian oil to Texas.
For me standing on my sea wall; just as a rice farmer in many low lying Asian countries I watch the sea encroaching. I have been fortunate to live through a life where I have not been asked to go to war, and the sea has remained outside my sea walls.
If climate change is driven by human emissions of CO2, methane etc then these agreements have a real value. When the US and China come together on a policy it is heartening, but how much faith should I have in it. Is it just a political statement that will be overridden by economic priority?
With all such lofty global issues you can only do what is in your personal power to do. Sea buckthorn I see as a crop that delivers a high quality nutrient food opportunity that is relevant in a hungry world. It is a crop that seems to be able to adapt to different environments. So in that I set part of my future. the sea walls have been there for centuries. It is up to each generation to maintain them, make them more resilient and fit for purpose. Being fit for purpose might now need to look to allowing the sea to over top the wall with the increasing risk of surge tides and building a means of dispelling the water rapidly back to sea. We live in an uncertain world but life was always about risk management.