Farmer Johnston

I met up with John Johnston on his farm last Sunday morning. Although I have a tenuous connection to the agricultural industry (my family own some farmland in the Punjab region of India!), I thought it would be sensible to hear from someone like John to understand the situation around farming and the rural economy in South Staffs.

Wrottesley Lodge Farm lies off the Holyhead Rd outside the village of Codsall and once formed part of the Wrottesley estate. Lord Wrottesley (No. 5) sold the great majority of his Staffordshire estates in the 1960s, moving to South Africa. The Johnston family came to the area in 1947 and acquired additional land formerly part of the Wrottesley Estate.

John took over the running of the farm from his parents and lives with his wife on the estate. The farm is a classic arable set-up, growing wheat, barley and oil-seed rape crops, with potatoes forming a stable ‘cash cow’. John also dabbles in livestock, with beef cattle and lamb fattening assuming the bulk of his interests. He used to grow sugar beet until the local sugar refining factories closed up.

We chatted for over an hour-and-half and I’ve tried to summarise our main points of discussion. We talked about the operation of the Single Farm Payment at length. John explained that most farmers would rather receive a fair economic price for their produce than rely upon the SFP subsidy, but this jarred with the current state of markets. Even when running at 92% operating capacity, John faces a skewed market. On one side, large supermarket chains bidding down the price of potatoes, on the other local farms struggling to organise co-operative arrangements with like-minded producers – a few concentrated buyers versus many fragmented sellers.

The current SFP regime will come to an end in 2012 – John was certain that farmers would continue to rely upon its successor, despite the backdrop of rising world demand for food. I was rather surprised that the National Farmers Union wasn’t playing a more active role in helping farmers in terms of marketing – it appears that the NFU will point to advice but stop short of helping farmers to organise themselves into sufficiently stable co-operative arrangements. As for the Labour Government – Margaret Beckett, the previous Sec of State at DEFRA, responded to this situation by declaring that ‘we can import all our food’.

We discussed the problem of Bovine TB, spread by badgers when they came into contact with animal feedstock and water sources. John explained that the farming industry had been long calling for a badger cull as the most effective way of halting the spread of the disease. The problem was that the Labour Government refused to act, probably for fear of startling its own political support base. Although trial vaccinations were underway, it didn’t seem that this would be as effective as a targeted cull.

We concluded our chat by discussing the situation around the younger generation and farming. Jim explained that while over 90% of his generation followed their parents into the industry, nowadays only 60% of farmers’ sons/ daughters made this transition. Interestingly, he cited the Conservatives policy on inheritance tax as a way of encouraging the younger generation to maintain stewardship of family farms.

We concluded our chat with a cheery handshake and I then walked over to the village of Codsall, enjoying the crisp morning atmosphere. In Codsall I spoke to several young adults about their job prospects, but that’s the subject of another post.