Damned if you do, damned if you don’t
Last updated 22:02, Tuesday, 04 March 2008
Every farmer in Cumbria faces Catch 22 situations from time to time – and Grasmere shepherd Peter Bland knows all about it.
That the saying implies a no-win situation where, whatever happens, there will almost certainly be an unsatisfactory outcome, may sound over-dramatic, but it can apply in so many ways to hill farming today.
There are indeed similarities to Catch 22, the novel by Joseph Heller set on a US base during World War Two. The aircrew are on the edge of breakdown; they must be mad to go on another mission but the fact that they realise that they must be mad means that they must be sane at the same time. They have to continue flying – truly a no-win situation.
Peter says there are lots of potential Catch 22 situations facing a young farmer keen to take over any Lake District farm that comes up with a vacant tenancy today.
He is careful to explain that this does not include himself; he was offered Knott Houses Farm, which came with its own flock of sheep, by a private landlord six years ago when he was 29.
He has also had help from his father David Bland, of West Farm, Thirlmere, which is just over the fell from the Grasmere hills where Peter farms 2,000 acres (including the craggy eminence of Butter Crag, scene of the Grasmere Sports Guides Races).
He says that he, his partner Joanne and children Natalie and Robert are in a relatively fortunate position.
But consider those young “lads and lasses” who are keen to be starting up on their own.
“There are young lads now that want farms,” he says. “They haven’t got a lot of money and the prospect can be quite frightening.
“They know that they will put themselves into a lot of debt, and it will take some getting out of. It can put some off, but it won’t deter everyone. Your young farmer who has initiative and determination is going to be on the look-out for a farm whatever happens.
“Hill farming is a way of life and your died-in-the-wool shepherd will accept the restrictions of having a tight budget in those early years. They are happy to live with the consequences.
“It’s not as black as it sounds. Money is there, the envelopes will still come through the door. You just have to weather that initial period when you are finding your feet.
“So I don’t think young ’uns need be afraid of getting in, because the money will come if they are prepared to work and to haul themselves out of that initial debt.”
Only now comes another Catch 22 situation, just one of the many quandaries facing farming today...
“They’re wanting to spoil the way we farm by having our sheep off the high fells in winter.
“This is happening with my sheep on the Fairfield range, which includes Nab Scar and Great Rigg Man, and with Dad’s farm too, which includes Helvellyn and Dollywagon Pike.
“They’re willing to pay you, even throw a lot of money at you to do this. And you might think: “Ah, all this money to remove the sheep!”
“So here’s the quandary. A young farmer with his own tenancy is likely to be intent to farm his Herdwicks grazing on the fell as tradition has always done.
“But now he is facing a choice which goes against the grain of all sheep farmers in Cumbria because they know the fells – and ground – will suffer.”
Such a drastic move, he says, will produce long, lank “white grass” which harbours mice and ticks and which “is good for nothing”.
“Yet,” he continues, “if you do take all that money to remove your stock, what does the taxman do? He takes it off you.”
Peter shakes his head, reliving his own experiences of this problem, and a conversation he had with a top ESA official who explained that the sheep need to be removed so that little plants can survive in the high coves on the fells.
“If you save a little plant like that who no one will see, but spoil a flock of sheep that’s taken a long time to build up, where is the logic in that?
“Yet Herdwick shearlings winter grand on the fell. They thrive. You wouldn’t know it had been winter when next you gather them. They don’t want to be down in the valleys or on the plains, which will also be costly.”
His own Herdwicks are his pride and joy. He lambs 1,100 sheep which, with followers, hoggs and shearlings, adds up to 2,000 sheep in all.
Herdwicks are his predominate strain, and he is reducing the number of Swaledales that came with the farm because, despite the fact they’re a good sheep, he finds them ugly compared with the classic Herdwick.
So high-quality are his stock that he sells his hoggs from Christmas onwards to Geoff Edmondson in Little Langdale. He has contracts with butcher Andrew Sharp, of Barrow, who sells the meat on to Borough Market, one of London’s biggest meat markets.
He also farms 35 suckler cows – Limousin crosses and Belgian blue friesian crosses – which he bulls with a Limousin bull, selling their progeny as store cattle at 12 months old.
He sees cows as a management tool, because “beasts look after the ground”.
“If you graze the ground with cows it gets mucked the same, doesn’t it?
And in these days of high inflation, rising prices and Catch 22 situations, every little helps, whether it is his bull, which he bought for the “burning price” of £600 from a farmer selling up or manure that costs nothing.
