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Exams didn't go too badly...hopefully. The proof will be in the pudding at the end of the month though. Shortly after exams finished I was fortunate enough to jet off to Wales for a weekend courtesy of NFYFC. While it doesn't sound very exotic its far enough south for a northerner like me and it proved to be a very enjoyable weekend.

We rode in the Snowdonian National Park followed by a canoeing trip round what proved to be a very wet and windy lake. I managed to stay on the horse and in the canoe which was quite a surprise especially as my horse was 'a bit keen' and our canoe had a good fill of water. After our outdoor adventures we had a meeting of the NFYFC Youth Forum on the Sunday and discussed issues which will feedback into the National Council. Its vital we get the opinions of our junior members back to the organisation and it was great to hear what issues younger members of YFC have. While our weekend proved very wet and cold it was great to spend time with likeminded people and I even managed a farm tour of a friends farm in Staffordshire just to finish the weekend off. 

Returning from snowy Staffordshire to a relatively mild Newcastle was very surprising...not that I'm complaining.

Lost in translation

I received a call a day or two after I returned from the team at BBC Farming Today who wanted to discuss what I thought was 'lamb prices'. I was eager to chat about sheep profitability and had plenty to say about it. However the woman I spoke to seemed slightly confused by what I was going on about. Was it the Northern accent? Did she actually know anything about farming? Was I speaking Chinese? It turns out that she wanted to talk about 'Land prices' and not 'lamb prices'. Luckily I managed to save myself some embarrassment and appeared on the January 31st edition of Farming Today, regaining some credibility. 

Following my return, we were lambing at work. We finished lambing after only a week thanks to all the early lambers being sponged and synchronised which meant some days were busy but everything has lambed quite well with mainly twins, a few singles and one or two triplets.

Thoughts on the "Cull"

I'm off to the NFU Conference and AGM towards the end of the month where animal rights activists will campaign against Caroline Spelman's decision to warrant a badger cull. While I'm probably very biased on the subject of bTB there is a no doubt it's a major problem for the agricultural industry. Living in Northumberland, we're lucky that most parish's are on four year testing and there isn't such a great problem up here as their is in other places 'down south'. It's questionable how valid the arguments of animal rights campaigners are though. Extensive research has went into bTB and its spread; Spelman would not warrant such a cull 'on a whim'. One organisations latest branding on the side of Newcastle's buses about animal exports look bad for our industry but I bet most of Joe Public don't even know what even happens with animal exports. Whether one agree's with topics such as badger culling and animal exports, its important to look at both sides of the story and portraying bad images of British farmers to the public, which generally aren't true, does British agriculture no good. 

At the end of the week I'm off to Carlisle to the Limousin Cattle Show and Sale. Hopefully I won't cause any disasters such as that with Farming today. As soon as I'm back  from Carlise I have to put on a pantomime performance for the Northumberland YFC round. I don't profess to be any singer or actor but I'm fairly confident we will put on a decent show.

Finally, my thoughts turned to Valentines day this week as much of Newcastle has been covered in red flowers and pink fluffy stuff. It is clear that St Valentine was not a farmer else it would not be on the NFU meeting night nor would it cost so much money. No further comment!

Click here to read Matty's previous article.

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