We were blessed with sunshine in March. The minimum temperature was below average, with frosts on nine nights and the maximum temperature has been above average, resulting in an overall above-average temperature. It was the 3rd driest March here in the 55 years that I have been recording the weather, with only 9.3mm of rain. However, the heavy showers on March 23rd meant that some places locally recorded above-average rainfall for the month.

March has been a wonderful month on the farm; we’ve been able to drill all the barley, oats, peas and beans. The rain on March 23rd was very welcome; it made sure that everything received moisture. As I write this, the weather speaks of good warm sunny weather for the next 10 days; so different to last spring which was really quite wet.

We were held up several times because of rain last year and we didn’t get all the beans drilled until early May. That meant they were late being harvested and, as a wet autumn followed, we then drilled the wheat after the beans when it was really too wet to be on the field. Two months later, we had a big puddle there. This spring we had all the beans drilled by March 20th, so this should lead to a much earlier harvest.

We started planting potatoes on March 31st and, because of the dry weather, we’ve been able to choose which variety to plant first. As some varieties take longer to mature than others, we need to plant those first. Although it has not been a cold winter, the frosts we have had have left us a good frost mould. By that I mean our soil, which has some clay in it, has been broken down into fine particles by the frost.

None of the crops we grew last year are in demand; wheat and barley prices have dropped by more than £10 a tonne over the last month and potato prices the same, so again we are price takers rather than price makers. It’s not very exciting to sell our produce on a falling market.

This drop in grain prices is due to a surplus worldwide. Normally, we have wheat and barley to export, but as we had a poor harvest last year, this resulted in an increase in prices to start with. Our flour and our animal feed millers soon saw there was a surplus and chose to import the cheaper grains.

This has meant that grain farmers have had a poor harvest with poor prices, and with a future of farming without subsidies, prospects for many farmers are not looking rosy. Beef and sheep farmers have found the last 20 years difficult and many have given up. This has resulted in rising prices for beef and lamb, as there is less availalble, giving them a better income – which they need as they are the ones that must work seven days a week.

Red Kite

Spring is in the air. I saw a Swallow fly over the Wildlife Garden on March 29th and a Blackcap was singing in the Vine House Farm garden the day before. This is the first time I have heard a Blackcap singing in March and the first time I have seen a Swallow in March.

Over the years, the birds feeding in the garden have steadily reduced – whilst they are no less interesting, they have become more individual. A few years ago, when I came out of the house in the half light on a spring morning, the air was full of Blackbirds singing. Two years ago, I could make out four singing Blackbirds and this year there are only two singing. We don’t have a cat, but there are plenty of cars going by on the main road and I saw a dead female Blackbird on the road last week. I make sure my garden birds are fed well all through the spring and summer – but where have they all gone?

Many people might say I have been farming for wildlife, but I only have 10% of my land put down for wildlife and how do I expect wildlife to recover if I only farm 10% of it for wildlife? But if every farmer farmed 10% for wildlife, this could offer a different picture.

Some farmers say they can’t see why wildlife is declining, they aren’t doing anything different to what they were doing 20 years ago – but what they are doing is cumulative. Sixty years ago, there could have been a billion, or indeed many billions, of weed seeds in the soil waiting to grow when the right conditions came along. When those conditions were met and the weeds grew, we killed most of them with chemicals and, in many cases, we didn’t let them produce any seeds at all and so now there are vastly less seeds in our soil to grow.

Wildlife ate the seeds in the soil, wildlife lived on the growing plants, insects sipped the nectar in the flowers, big insects ate the little insects, small birds ate the insects and the seeds and big birds and animals, the meat eaters, ate the small birds.

These big birds have a surplus of food such as the reared game bird which, as it hasn’t been brought up by its parents. It makes an easy meal for them, quite a lot of it via road kill. As these meat eaters have had a surplus of food, they have increased in numbers. Some of them we see, such as the Kite and the Buzzard, and marvel how they can soar and glide. Other meat eating wildlife, such as the fox, the badger and the stoat, have all increased at the expense of others.

As well as all the chemicals and animals, we have the motor car, our household cats and glass windows around us all helping wildlife into the steep decline.

Despite my gloom spring is on its way, and it is such a marvellous time of year! There are still lots of things to bring us joy, such as hearing the birds singing, seeing the first butterfly, cowslip or primrose and of course the first Swallow that will have flown all the way from South Africa.