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How much longer will this marginal land be fit to farm?

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This is Cornwall --

I was going to have a right old moan about the state of livestock farming in the South West, what with the cold and late spring, carried-over woes from last year's monsoons, and now the horrible effects of Schmallenburg. But I see the proper journos on the team have already been on topic, making me a bit superfluous.

There is however something else still to address. While we've had the above to contend with, some of our cousins further North have just endured a huge late snowfall on top of everything. Badly affected areas include the Peaks, parts of Wales, Ulster, the Lakes, the Isle of Man, and numerous pockets within Scotland. It is widespread, but seems greatly variable. For some it was a few days of severe difficulties, with extra fodder bills, and some losses. For others it's been devastating. Ruinous. Stories are emerging within the industry of hill men in the north who've lost hundreds of heavily pregnant ewes, in drifts of 20ft. One man I've heard of knows he has 1,000 ewes out there, but can only find 200. Another has 1,000, but can only account for 100. The rest are buried under mountains of snow. Earlier in the winter, the ewes might've endured it better, but this close to lambing their metabolisms simply won't stick it. The fear is that thousands have perished, and emergency measures are being put in place to dispose of the carcasses. It will be a very bitter pill.

The bit I would draw your attention to is this. As reports hit the national news, there followed a volley from the anti-farmer critics, complaining that the cruel and selfish farmers should never have exposed their animals to the weather like that. Never mind the extraordinary insensitivity of such accusations, when honest decent people are facing such adversity, in very unusual weather conditions. There is also the empty headed viewpoint these people express, kicking stockmen when they're down, which offends me.

Critics sit in the comfortable position of not having to pay the rent or fodder bills year after year. Some have come up with the brilliant idea that lambing the sheep later in the year would be safer. Did it ever occur to them that we might've thought of that, and weigh it with the natural proclivity of the ewes, striking the balance as part of our business strategy for…well, for centuries.

Housing the sheep in such emergencies is another suggestion popular among the armchair experts, although where they are to be housed remains unclear. If this is the worst lambing weather since 1963, should we have kept sheds waiting these last 50 years in readiness? And moving stock to sheltered or lower ground isn't all it's cracked up to be either.

My dad told me of colleagues who did that in '63, when the drifts then covered the in-bye fields from wall to wall, smothering just about everything. It isn't as simple as some people would have you believe. Where the losses are likely to be heaviest is amongst those farming the highest ground. Clinging to fell ground that can do little else, they make sheep meat out of little more than moss and fog. The living is slim, and constantly hovers on that knife edge of viability. The rules are that you try to work with nature, because you certainly can't beat her.

The hostility shown by a vocal minority should be weighed against the dedicated stoicism shown by farmers involved. I know where my sympathy lies. If this difficult weather – is it three or four wet summers on the trot now? – is to be the norm, and we're also to expect a greater measure of severe weather through the winters, I'm afraid it won't be a few harsh words from some air-heads that drives generations of livestock farming from yet more marginal land.

Families can't live 'normal' lives tending those little farms, and have to diversify. Then they discover that they're doing a full-time job to subsidise a 'hobby'.

It also happens elsewhere in Europe. Where subsistence farmers evolved systems to exploit difficult corners of unploughable terrain, they created a myriad of subtle differences in breeds and boundaries and buildings. Letting this rich tapestry go – vanish – in favour of generic one-size-fits-all agri-business is wrong. Reported by This is 5 hours ago.

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