I’m avoiding the village pub. Since Clarkson’s Farm I constantly get asked: ‘Are farm economics really as bad as that?’ They’re worse. For anyone who is not a multimillionaire TV star with vast tracts of prime Cotswold acres, the figures are grimly red. Half of British farmers earn £10,000 or less annually, which is why so many have gone into yurts or yoghurt. My own diversification is scribbling. Presently, any spare moments I have are spent at my kitchen table, checking the proofs of a book I’ve written in defence of sheep. Sheep provide food on the plate and clothes on the back, and when farmed properly promote biodiversity. They’re also able to pick out Fiona Bruce from a line-up of celebrity photographs (really).
Christmas is coming, and my geese are getting fat. While many people dream of a white Christmas, I am hoping for a mild one. The thermometer on the barn wall needs to be above 6°C, the temperature at which grass grows, so our geese can plump up. Anything less than six degrees, and they shiver off weight (and the profit margin). Only some of our geese are going the way of all goose flesh, namely Christmas lunch. This is a relief, since plucking geese for the table is hard labour with feathers on. Our birds are mainly layers, and I await a golden egg.
Every afternoon, I herd the geese out on to the wheat stubble, to glean free grains and forage the wildflower seeds. This is sustainable, old-fashioned goose-herding, but it comes with its dangers. Driving along the lane earlier in the week, I was hailed down by a neighbour who stuck his head through the car window to say: ‘You’ve got some geese on your stubble! Can I shoot them?’ I explained, to his disappointment, that they are domestic Toulouse, not wild greylags to be killed for sport.
Livestock farmers get a lot of stick for the role of their belchy, farty animals in climate change.
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