LAST week I attended a farm sale near Mold. This was probably the first time I have done such a thing since my own farming career stuttered to a halt over the last five years.
The particular tragedy in this case was a young farmer who had been unable to establish a successful career in dairying.
The silver lining is that he can now establish a more financially rewarding career elsewhere, but it represents just another nail in the coffin of what now appears the demise of the farming industry in this country.
Jonathan Owen, 28, with partner Emma Hill, of Pigeon House Farm, Hope, near
Wrexham, who sold their dairy herd at Mold market
When I went there I was still haunted by my own failure to make the most of a farming career. I could never have believed that I would be the one who would be forced into premature retirement (but then again I could not have predicted the obstacles that would be put in my path by my own family).
There is more to ending your farming life than purely financial considerations: you live and work in the same place and you are a member of a relatively small community.
Fortunately my children had departed the family nest. My daughter has just won her David-and-Goliath legal challenge against her employers, British Airways, about her working rights and how much time she needs to look after her children.
My son has departed to the Orient to teach in a school there, but what a relief it is to me not to have to think about financing a career in farming for him.
However, it does bring to an end of the family connection with what was my farm which had been in the family for more than 100 years.
I don’t suppose the government could care less about the personal tragedies of farmers who have to give up farming.
It probably just thinks about the tax payers’ money which is no longer being “squandered” in paying subsidies to farmers.
I was reading the other day that this country had a trade deficit of £84.3bn last year, which means that for every man, woman and child in the UK, imports of goods exceed exports by more than £1,400.
It did not reveal just how much of this deficit was in food products. In the good old days of farming when most food was produced on British farms, we did not have to look such a financial disaster in the face.
