Farm Diary December 24 2008

Our water supply to one shed and the worker's living accommodation is not in the ground due to the site-works, this leaves us vulnerable to heavy frost, and the wrath of a gang of big Yorkshire lads.

Due to the building project, we have temporary slurry arrangements which would grind to a halt if the temperature fell much below the minus 6celsius we experienced two weeks ago. Pumping to the separators through a 'lay-flat' pipe means that if it freezes hard, we need to persuade the slurry to move along the pipe by walking on it! The pump is not man enough to move frosty, semi-solid slurry, and a fortnight ago we had a gang of us walking along the pipe in a row, using our feet, 'squeezing' slurry out the other end like toothpaste!

The cowsheds are of course centrally heated by the cows who do not begin use any energy to keep warm until it is minus 2celsius due to the fact that they produce excess heat. Once it gets colder than that we do notice that they eat more, with no more milk to show for it. I have just put thick plastic in the bottom of our feed-troughs, which has transformed the job of cleaning out any waste. A plastic shovel glides easily up the trough now, not that there is much left as the cows enjoy a nice clean smooth surface to lick clean! The concrete base in the troughs had become rough as the acid in the silage eats into it over the years, making it difficult to get really clean. Now it's a doddle and I wish I'd thought of it years ago.

Did you know that humans drank milk over 8000 years ago? Scientist say that cows and goats were milked 6000 years BC, some 2000 years earlier than previously thought. Dr Richard Evershed from Bristol University, examined 2,200 pottery vessels from sites in the Near East and South Eastern Europe, dating from the fifth to the seventh millennia BC. From fatty traces, he was able to show that milk was in use by around 6000BC; the earliest direct evidence to date.

Milking was particularly important in the Dardanelles and Turkey, pointing to regional differences linked with conditions more favourable to cattle; whilst in other regions, sheep and goats were relatively common and milk use less important. Evidence of milk use in Eastern Europe goes back to the sixth millennium BC, whilst in Britain there is evidence from the fourth millennium BC. No sign of soya 'milk' though; funny that although I expect that in those days there was no 'Food Standard Agency' either? We only have 72 dairy farmers in West Sussex, and unlike Hampshire who have a buffalo herd and East Sussex where sheep and goats are milked as well; we only milk cows.

At Christmas we tend to think of those less fortunate than ourselves. As we tuck into another helping of turkey, others in different parts of the world are not so fortunate. Lord Krebs, Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, who as Professor Krebs was former Chairman of the Food Standards Agency (how we long for those days!), believes that if famine-hit Africa is to benefit from new foodstuffs, Europeans must accept them too. GM technology offers the possibility of more food being grown in areas which are not productive at present, and more food overall without harming the environment '“ the 'double-green' revolution. Whilst all GM foods are carefully assessed foe health risks, no such measures are taken with conventionally bred foods.

We are now seeing a second generation of GM foods that could bring direct benefit to European consumers (where price and availability is less critical) such as GM tomatoes with enhanced anti-cancer properties or GM soya with fish oils; after all no one objects to GM medicine such as human insulin produced by bacteria. We saw Namibia's President (influenced by European media and pressure groups) in 2002, reject GM maize from the USA, even though his people were starving; maize that any of you who have visited the States, would have been eating every day!

As I have written before in this column, if only GM could come up with food that banished wrinkles, kept consumers younger or some other frivolous luxury; it would be instantly taken up. However, because we have plenty, we can afford to be influenced by minority groups, choosing to ignore science and the fate of others. Only when we accept GM technology, will it be available to those who need it so badly. Discuss.