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The Meaning of Farming
Walking through the fields on a recent heaven-sent evening with James, I was suddenly hit by one of those questions which really forces the brain to explore more of its potential. 'What is farming, Dad? said he, the 'what' invested with all the forces of curiosity that only a nine year old can muster.
Fortunately for me, he expanded a bit on his original query, giving me a little breathing space in which to formulate a semi-credible response, and also giving me a pointer as to where I might begin. 'I know it's about making money but isn't it about looking after things as well?' (Perhaps we have a budding politician on our hands - observe the dexterity with which he asked and answered his own question. God forbid!). Unhindered by the flotsam and jetsam which clog up the lives and thinking of more senior folk, he had of course said it all. Despite the best efforts of economists and co-ops turned plcs, amongst many others, attempts to industrialise farming have thankfully not been totally successful.
Ask most farmers when they feel most content with their chosen profession and the majority will not respond, as the aforementioned anti-Luddites would have us believe, 'when the accountant tells me at the end of the year just how many more millions/thousands/hundreds/ tens (delete as appropriate) have been added to my account'. No, it's long odds-on that their reply will have something to do with the birth of a calf, a lamb, a litter of bonhams (why, oh, why isn't that m a v?) or a foal, the fresh growth in the spring, a cup of tea at the silage-making, a chat at the mart - there are so many more, and I'm sure you have one of your very own to add to the list. Mine is a quiet walk alone amongst the cattle on an evening when the days are still stretching out. Not a sound except those of nature, birds twittering, maybe the cry of a fox, the cattle munching the tasty new herbage, their almost silent movements as they try to pack as much into themselves as quickly as a child on Easter Sunday.
I remember the first time I had this almost ethereal experience of oneness with the 'looking after' of things. Standing quietly in a field of about thirty or so of my father's bullocks, they at first viewed me with some curiosity, perhaps even suspicion. I was not their usual herdsperson, being away at college at the time. Gradually their doubts about me subsided as it became apparent I was obviously not any sort of threat to them and they went about their bovine business. They edged a little closer as I stood stock still (now I know where that expression came from!), in the manner of any group of living beings, ourselves included, a few leading, most following. Then the most wondrous of happenings - the bravest reached out his long tongue and checked out physically this stranger in their midst. Through my sweater, I felt clearly the sand-paperish rasp as he gave a quick lick.
My arm shuddered slightly and he jumped back, but not too far. He was obviously satisfied that I had come in peace. The others, emboldened by the findings of their comrade, formed a rough circle around me, like a bunch of eager young footballers around their coach. We stood there on the crest of a wave-like hillock for some minutes, as the whole world seemed to freeze around us. In that moment, the phrase 'quality of life' lost its hazy abstraction and became something concrete, or rather pastoral. But the 'real' world beckoned and the bullocks and I soon returned to playing our usual parts in it.
Thankfully, I have had scores of such moments since in many different physical and meta-physical areas of my farming life. A value cannot be placed on them (imagine the Exchequer takings if there could be!) and they are what make farming much more than just a business. So, in a few less words than it has taken me here, I tried to confirm James' instinctive feeling about what farming is, though I think it was really unnecessary. Here's hoping his instincts are as sound about everything he encounters in his journey through life.
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