Northumberland - Carron Craighead

Strawberry Day 2003

• Children’s strawberry tennis tournament – overall winner receives a strawberry cup.
• Final to be played on school sports day, strawberries to be served to parents and pupils all day.

Programme for 2003

26th May

Northumberland County Show

March News

The Northumberland branch is helping launch The Northumbria Larder, which is being officially launched on the 30-31st March and Northumberland are doing stir frys from 9-5 pm both days. We will also have The Farmhouse Breakfast boards on display this is going to be held at the Baltic Square beside the New Millenium Bridge.

The Reivers Recipe Book will be on sale at the WFU stand at the Royal Show in July.

HSBC "Back to Business" Conference
Penrith 25 Jan 2002

Firstly may I say that, in spite of applying within the specified dates, I was disappointed to find that my application for two places at the conference was initially turned down because the Conference was over subscribed. However a few days later I was contacted again by HSBC to say that because the response had been so great Rheghed were providing a another room which would be linked via video link so Pat Turnbull and myself duly turned up on the appointed day. My relief at being able to attend was short lived when it soon became obvious that the technology for the link was not working ! When the organiser finally admitted defeat we were quietly ushered into the cinema area where we had to stand. By this time Lord Haskins was more than half way through his speech!

Lord Haskins came over as being quite practical but somewhat economical on the facts, whether through ignorance or on purpose, I cannot say. He was quite honest in saying that Farmers formed an insignificant portion of the electorate in this country. However he failed to identify that the opposite is true in the Republic of Ireland where one of his son's farms. Lord Haskins was crediting the profitability of his enterprise to membership of the Euro rather than the fact that the Irish Government is much more "Farmer friendly" that any of our Governments will ever be !!

He made much of the need for "immigrant labour" for labour intensive enterprises such as fruit and vegetable production inferring that strawberries in Lincolnshire had not been harvested for lack of people to pick them!. Pat didn't get a chance to speak but questioned whether this was strictly true, she speculated that it was much more likely that the low price being offered for the strawberries did not justify the high cost labour which would be high cost no matter what the origin of the people picking them! I am not into horticulture but I would imagine that she is near to the truth, I would welcome your comments .

When questioned by members of the audience Lord Haskins didn't really seem to have any better grasp on the idea of "modulation" than I did( And I had none at all until my sons tried to educate me after the conference!) and consequently didn't answer the questions very satisfactorily. He is great on urging us to co-operate and get closer to the market which is ironic considering that he ,personally, did so much to destroy the Milk Marketing Board which for all its undoubted failings did put an element of certainty into the market so that producers could plan ahead.!

The speaker for RSPB, Frances Winder, was a substitute for Vicki Swales and did an excellent job at short notice. Whilst trotting out the old chestnut about pesticides etc being responsible for the decline in farmland birds Ms Winder was much less anti farmer than many of the speakers I have heard previously. She went to great lengths about the need for access to advice for farmers re environmental matters and the need for sustainable agriculture but like everyone else (except Ben Gill ) she never qualified what she meant by "sustainable"! Sustainable is the buzz word at the moment ,I sometimes think if I hear it again I will scream. If a thing is sustainable, be it tourism or agriculture, it has to first be economically viable something most speakers fail to mention!

After lunch the speakers agreed to do their talks twice, one in each of the rooms as the relay system had been totally abandoned. After I had listened to Ben Gill I had more confidence in his leadership of NFU and a greater understanding of the difficulties NFU face in trying to negotiate on our behalf. He urged everyone to unite behind NFU to give it some clout . His recommendation was that we co-operate to sell and to buy. He especially recommended that we must all respond to any consultation by DEFRA , In the case of the one on Nitrate legislation which is currently circulating he urged us to create a third option , that of creating no areas of Nitrate restriction as there is no scientific proof that nitrates harm the environment . From what Ben Gill and Steve Ellwood of HSBC both said it would seem that we are falling between two stools at the moment because we are within the CAP and not part of the Euro we are suffering price wise and suffering from Europe dominated legislation. Ideally we would like a big reduction in legislation to help agriculture survive.

I came away from the conference slightly less depressed than I have done from previous "Foot and Mouth recovery" seminars but still convinced that Bureaucracy swallows up a very large percentage of the money which the general public perceive as being allocated to farmers, which is grossly unfair but sadly the trend in other fields too, thinking of Tourism for example.

I hope that this brief oversight of the proceedings is helpful for others contemplating similar conferences.

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