Cows behaving like teens

The weeds are dying in the maize fields (after spraying), but the maize needs more warmth and sunshine. Looking around, I see greenery in the hedgerows, roadsides, and in the woodland on a scale I have not seen before. So much honeysuckle; fighting for space and sunlight in the hedgerows and in the woods. This wet weather certainly promotes weeds too.

Our cows are out day and night; how about that? It is after all only the beginning of July! George has gone off for a month’s holiday, and as we are a little short staffed this weekend, I am helping out (at least that is what I call it); so this morning, being a lovely sunny morning I set off to get them in for milking on foot, no need for a quad bike. They were at the far end of the paddock, so I called them ‘Come on girls; come on’. They looked up, and I saw the expression ‘Who is this joker’? I walked over, calling as I went; instead of getting up and walking towards me as normal cows do, they ignored me completely, like teenagers in the morning; one of the few standing and grazing actually laid down!

I eventually got them all up, one by one and they gathered around, and although our cows have always been quiet and friendly, this was over the top. With a bit of persuasion and then shouting, they started off for the track, grazing as they went, taking it in turns to stop, so that I walked five times further than they did. Once they were half way across the paddock, I left them to wander in for milking, while I moved the electric fence, giving them their next break (meal) of grass; I looked up and they were all coming back! They heard the clicking of the reel and that meant more grass. I had to put the fence back up in the same place, and again struggle to turn them around and move in the direction of the parlour. I got them there just in time, the cows having delayed things further by developing a taste for nettles, docks, even goose-grass growing along the side of the track; anything to loiter and see me get frustrated.

After milking they returned to the paddock at a brisk pace, knowing they had a new break; I was almost caught out, and had to run to shut the relevant gates on the track (we have to open and shut again as it is a public right of way). Tim thought it was hilarious, ‘that is why we use the quad bike’, a lot quicker, the cows are used to it, and they don’t bother messing around ‘I thought you were the one who said cows like things the same everyday’. Ouch.

There is alarm in the dairy industry once more as a further cut of 2p per litre is looming on the horizon; with Robert Wiseman dairies already having announced a cut of 1.7p for August. This is the second major cut this year, at a time when costs are still rising (labour/fertilizer/feed), which is clearly demonstrated by the ‘average cost of production’ models. Milklink Co-op farmers are also getting an increase as a result of their merger deal with Arla. This is incredibly divisive, and brings great pressure on those farmers who are at the mercy of processors; processors, who in the main undercut each other in the market to such a degree that they then cut the farmers price (a) because they can and (b) the farmer is tied in by his contract by at least 12 months’ notice period in most cases. Jim Paice has promised to ‘do something’ about contracts; now is the time for him to show that he does have courage to match the rhetoric.

Paice said last week that reducing prices again will put dairy farmers under ‘needless pressure’; he warned (quite rightly) that the UK cannot continue on a downward spiral, when global prospects were looking up. NFU Dairy Board Chairman Mansel Raymond stated that ‘Farmers will be asking some serious questions about the process by which some milk buyers make pricing decisions. For too long, dairy processors have played fast and loose with farmers’ livelihoods; collectively failing to think long-term’. I went to the ‘Dairy UK’ briefing two weeks ago in London, where the Director General Jim Begg, spoke about everything under the sun, rather than address the real issues. The real issues being, why is British milk processing so poor and uncompetitive by and large, and now the good ones are being bought by large companies in Europe; will there be any British dairy processing left in a few years?

This column has criticised banks from time to time, for not lending, and being too greedy on margins. Now it seems that they have been fiddling interest rates, but much worse even than that, miss-selling protection packages to small business which they didn’t all need. It is suggested that some small to medium businesses may have been driven out of business by these complex packages, which were directly influenced by the interest rate! Now we all enjoy hating bankers, but we must distinguish between innocent, helpful and (in most cases) charming people who work in our local branches, and those who are in a very different type of banking, where it seems, but has yet to be proven, that excesses, reckless behaviour and even illegal practice has taken place. The media are looking for suitable scalps, and we are already forgetting their misdemeanours as the Levison enquiry drags on and there are new transgressors for us to rile against.

Politicians fiddling expenses, the rich avoiding taxes, phone hacking media tycoons, Cash for this, a text for that; where will it end? Those who have always protested against various causes are saying ‘We told you so; it is all rotten to the core’. Is it? It certainly looks as if those of us who have believed in our institutions and leaders are on the back foot, but what would we replace it with; what changes can we make to safeguard the nation against corruption and greed?

Step forward Nick Clegg; an elected upper house is what is most pressing as we grapple with serious financial difficulties, the European crisis, and all these other issues. What a waste of parliamentary time this is going to be. What a red herring! Whilst the Coalition government move from ‘U turns’, seamlessly to ‘handbrake turns’, we are asked to believe that changing the House of Lords will be an improvement. Come off it.

Gwyn Jones