From devastating tests to tax protests, James Cossins sees resilience and unity as the driving forces behind such challenging times in farming
Since my last column two months ago, a lot has happened, both in the wider farming world and also here at Rawston, where we have had the challenge of Bovine TB to deal with yet again.
With a recent test giving many inconclusive results we were encouraged by the Government’s animal health vets to carry out a Gamma Test – a blood test which is more sensitive than the skin test we normally carry out.
We have been under restrictions for nearly two years now, with the odd reactor but never any visible lesions when the cattle are sent to the abattoir. The hope was that it would find the one animal which does have TB but for some reason is not being picked up by the skin test.
So we duly had the milking cows and two stock bulls tested … and the results came as a bit of a shock. We had 47 animals testing positive, including one bull: that represents about 15 per cent of our entire adult cattle herd.
On probably the saddest and most emotional day in my entire lifetime of farming, we duly loaded up the animals onto two enormous lorries to go to the abattoir. On top of the sadness, the amount of milk sold the next day was considerably down, of course – most of those cows were in full milk production.
Results from the abattoir have shown that none of the cattle had visible lesions.
The sooner we can get a vaccine the better place we will all be in. I would like to thank both my family and my fellow farmers who have all supported me through what has been a really tough time.
That Tax
Nationally, the announcement in the Government’s budget regarding changes to inheritance tax has certainly got the farming family fraternity up in arms about what the changes will mean to family farms up and down the country. I think essentially we believe the Chancellor Rachel Reeves has got her sums wrong, and hasn’t understood that it is not just land values at stake here, it is the value of the businesses themselves – including properties, buildings and machinery – which all make up the running of a viable business.
I went on the protest march in London on November 19th with family members of all ages attending to show the strength of feeling there is within the agricultural industry.
Farmers for Action organised various speeches in front of a huge crowd near the Parliament building, and there were also a large number of food donations given from attendees to the food banks within London: these donations were gratefully received by all those involved. There was also an impactful march by young children on their pedal tractors, demonstrating the effect the tax changes may have on their future livelihoods.
The NFU organised a rallying call from their president, Tom Bradshaw, followed by smaller personal meetings with constituency MPs.
A group of local farmers met with Simon Hoare, MP for North Dorset, who is very sympathetic to our cause, and fully understands the implications to his rural constituency.
He reassured us that he would continue to lobby – especially the rural Labour MPs – around the significance of the proposed changes. Thank you Simon for taking the time and for listening to our concerns.
I believe there will be further actions taking place in the new year. The NFU, I am sure, will continue to put pressure on MPs for a change.
But I believe farmers may feel that is not enough, and that different actions may be needed. I just hope that we don’t lose the public’s support – we must remember they are our customers as well.
Looking ahead
As we look to 2025 the days are already slowly getting longer and spring will soon be here. Who knows what the weather will bring us, but I’m sure the British farmers’ resilience will pull us through whatever is thrown at us – and continue to keep feeding the nation.
