Mud, Sweat and Tractors

This is John Latham.

Although he may not look like it, he's a wheat farmer.

Most people wouldn't recognise me as a farmer...

That's because I'm not so hands-on as I used to be.

John farms 2,000 hectares in East Anglia, Britain's bread basket.

To do it, he uses the most advanced technology available.

This is farming as agri-business.

To understand how farmers like John Latham have come

to work in this way, we need to go back to the 1930s,

when his great-grandfather first started farming here.

Their story begins in 1933, when John's great-grandparents bought

a 25-hectare farm near Chelmsford in Essex.

Their home movies show just how much their way of life has changed

in three generations.

There were lots of horses for the heavy work,

and a small labour force.

John's father was born here in 1938.

This is him as a baby.

These home movies might paint an idyllic picture,

but the reality was somewhat different.

John's father takes up the story.

The start of the '30s saw the decline of farming in real terms.

I mean, the price of crops was desperate -

I think the price of wheat was anything between 24 shillings

and 30 shillings a quarter, which was a fairly low price, considering it

hit about 80 shillings a quarter as soon as the Second World War started.

So you can see the '30s were desperate times

and my grandfather and father found it very difficult to make ends meet.

They really were almost insolvent,

and the banks wanted to call the money in on the farms

and put us out of business.

But the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 changed everything.

The country could no longer import enough food to feed the nation.

3 million extra acres of land were needed to grow more crops.

To help this initiative,

combine harvesters were brought in from America.

One of them was sent to the Lathams.

My father got a wonderful Massey Harris 21,

which was a 12-foot self-propelled combine,

and it was a wonderful tool for its time.

In 1943, he did all his farms with that, he did 800 acres with

one combine, which was almost unheard of.

By the end of the war,

these new machines had made a huge difference to productivity.

In order to sustain this growth,

the government decided to pay farmers a subsidy.

It encouraged them to invest in new machinery,

and, together with new agricultural chemicals and plant breeds,

they began to farm in a different way...

This was the birth of agribusiness.

This was the world that John Latham was born into.

Each decade of his childhood brought bigger

and more sophisticated machines.

He could not wait to have a go.

When I was 12, are combine driver went off sick with glandular fever,

so I was put on a combine as a 12 year-old,

and I did the whole harvest.

I was just in heaven. That is what I enjoy doing.

By the time he took over the farm in the 1990s,

the government subsidies of the post-war era had ended.

John's strategy to survive was strength the numbers.

So he joined forces with other farmers to try to cut costs.

What we managed to do was bring some five or six farming businesses

together, and while they are still trading as individual businesses,

the actual farms are run as if it is one big farm.

So we have one combine that that is doing it the word that five or

six combines did five or six years ago.

By joining together with other farmers,

John has reduced his costs by one third.

As with the generations before him, he has had to find a way to

make farm pay, including the need to adapt to survive.

I think you have up visions that things stay the same,

you carry on farming the way you always have done,

but of course it just doesn't happen like that.

The rate of change has been very fast in so many ways.

But does he miss the way they farmed when he was a boy?

I do miss it, yes. I would be lying if I said I didn't.

There is something great about getting on a combine

and bringing in a harvest.

Come on, Gary. Come on. Go on!

Dorset dairy farmer Will is having problems with a bull.

Any suggestions on how to move a ton and a half of bull? Come on!

Called Gary!

But it is not only his bull he is having problems with.

Will has also had difficulties just staying in business.

Difficulties he sorted out by doing a deal with one of Britain's

leading supermarkets.

Will grow up on the farm with his two brothers.

That has him on the left in the red jumper.

And here he is four years old,

herding cows in the same red pullover.

He began his farming career early.

Growing up on this farm I think was good fun.

Great fun, really.

Quite a young age, you were always out doing something on the farm.

He took over the farm from his father when he was in his early

twenties, and over the next few years doubled the cows' yield.

My father was probably producing 4,000 - 4,500 litres a cow.

And we eventually got from 8,000 to 8,100 litres per cow.

Will sold all his milk to a processing company.

From the 1920s, milk had been sold in a variety of ways -

by a large and small processes, by retailers and by farmers.

And 80 per cent of it was delivered directly to the customers' doorstep.

But by the 1980s,

this supply chain was being revolutionised

by the increasing dominance of the supermarkets.

And by the late 1990s,

they were selling over 75 per cent of all milk produced.

The supermarkets used their buying power to drive down prices to

processors and dairy farmers alike.

They can go to a big processor and say,

"I need so many litres of milk by tomorrow, please deliver it,

"thank you very much, this is what you will get paid".

The consequences for dairy farmers were profound.

In 1994, there had been more than 35,000 of them.

By 2000, the number had almost halved.

Organisations like the Women's Institute

and the National Farmers' Union began to campaign

about their concerns for the future of Britain's dairy industry.

Through the WI campaign, the NFU campaign,

and a period of time when dairy farmers in particular were

being paid rock-bottom prices, there was an impression that maybe

the milk supply would not be there in the future.

And not only that, but provenance, I.E. where all milk came from,

how the animals were kept and how farms were farmed,

became much more important in the public's eye.

And therefore, the supermarkets in particular decided to

go for a dedicated producer group where

they knew exactly where their milk was coming from.

Will decided to apply to join the dedicated producer group

set up by Britain's biggest milk seller, the supermarket chain Tesco.

Its co-ordinator is Emma Rutter.

We have very much been blamed for what has happened in the past,

but we are out there to change and to actually say

when not basing it on what is happening in the marketplace

any more, we do realise we were part of that before,

but now we're going to guarantee your cost prediction

and your milk price will not fall below that.

And as well as a commitment to giving farmers a better deal,

the supermarket was also responding to public concern

about animal welfare.

I was hoping that maybe,

with Liverpool University and all the rest,

that perhaps we'd be able to get some work done on

specific issues within lameness.

As you know within the first year of the project

they were looking very much at lameness issues

because that was one of the key issues affecting farmers.

And also consumers tend to notice

the lame cows at the end of the heard coming in last

because they've been waiting for the cows

to cross the road, so it was both a consumer issue and a producer issue.

I think that could be extremely worthwhile, particularly

if we roll it out to the wider industry.

For Will, the arrangement with the supermarket gave him

a level of security that he had never had.

It even made him reassess the way he farmed.

I decided to go for a low output system - more pasture based,

and produce not substantially but a little less milk.

All round, it will be easier for me

and easier for the animals that I farm.

Including that bull, Gary.

Its harvest time in East Anglia,

but farmer Andrew cannot work in heavy rain.

The straw is absolutely sodden, it won't cut

and it gets difficult to rub the grain out when it's wet.

You'll just absolutely crucify the machine.

It's not just Andrew's time that is being wasted, but his money also.

A field of wheat like this

represents a huge financial investment,

and the longer it stays out in the rain,

the greater its chances of being ruined.

It's a frustrating time for Andrew and other farmers in East Anglia.

All this great technology we have, and innovation,

but we still can't do anything because the weather is not with us.

Looking outside now,

it looks like the middle of winter instead of the middle of summer.

The technology isn't working outside,

but fortunately for Andrew, it is working inside.

He and his colleagues are looking at what is

happening on the International wheat market.

The prices aren't fixed,

but instead go up and down in response to supply and demand.

Things aren't looking too good.

The price of wheat at the moment is dropping away.

Due to the fact the world is having the biggest harvest it's had

for many years.

That's the reality for farmers like Andrew.

While his wheat waits in the field,

its value is being decided across the globe.

At his office in Cambridgeshire

John Latham, another of Andrew's colleagues,

is also keeping a close watch on wheat prices.

The fact wheat is a global commodity means that we will always have

to have an eye on global markets.

But probably more importantly we have to be aware that we are competing in that market place,

so there are other parts of the world

that can produce wheat more cheaply than we are -

we have to adapt to that, we have to be competitive.

Until relatively recently,

British wheat farmers only competed in a small way on the global market

because for many years, they did not produce enough.

That all changed in the 1970s, when a combination of science,

technology and plant breeding ushered in new varieties

of dwarf wheat that increased output considerably.

Since then, British wheat production

has trebled to around 14 billion tonnes a year.

And most of it is sold by dealers in trading rooms like this one in Lincolnshire.

And then it went down to about 25 and it closed around 35, 38.

I mean, it was all to do with the Fed bailing out.

..Liverpool market is December 260.

This is a centralised trading desk,

all wheat that we sell, we sell through this desk.

So we are selling from Aberdeen down to Cornwall.

The world's biggest wheat producers like Russia, the Ukraine, Canada

and the US dominate the market.

128, won 28. Between 128 and 130.

The size and quality of their harvests determine the price

the UK from a gets paid within Britain and abroad.

The UK produces a surplus of wheat,

so we have to be a competitive exporter.

Our main market is Spain, and it is the export market that sets

the prices that the farmer ultimately get paid.

-That's what we're looking for.

-All right, cheers, goodbye.

-Good man, thank you.

-The global marketplace never sleeps.

And there is no rest either for Andrew Tetlow.

It's past midnight, but the rain has stopped

and he needs to make the most of the dry spell to get the harvest in.

It's a juggling act when we go with the forecast as it is,

it looks like we will have to take every chance we've got.

Its upside-down, whatever it is.

And a leg tucked back.

Got some fun and games.

This is always a tense time on a dairy farm.

Nick and Chris Gosling are helping a cow give birth.

I think it's front...

Upside-down.

They are expanding their herd of pedigree Guernsey cows, but only

a few years ago they were on the verge

of giving up farming altogether.

She's still alive, or he. Calf's just bitten me.

What saved them was becoming organic.

We may have to do a proper calving

Nick grew up on a farm in Wiltshire. That's him as a young boy.

To go out with dad was a thrill.

I used to ride around with him everywhere.

I was just his apprentice, really.

And Chris, his wife, joined him in 1981.

As soon as we were married,

I was taught to milk and looked after the calves.

fell in love with this farm.

In those days, the family farmed in a conventional way.

They used chemical sprays

and fertilisers to help their crops grow.

If the cows had problems, they used antibiotics.

And they managed to get through any tough economic

times by processing and delivering their own milk door to door.

Farming goes in dips and troughs, highs and lows.

And whenever there was a trough, the milk rounds pulled us through.

And then went the good times were on,

we had the good times and the farm.

In the years following the Second World War,

80 per cent of milk was delivered in this way.

But things changed dramatically as the supermarket chains began

to dominate the high street.

By the late 1990s, they were selling 75 per cent of all milk produced.

With their enormous buying power,

supermarkets could control the price paid to farmers for their milk.

By 2000, it had dropped from 25-17p per litre.

Less than the cost of production.

Nick and Chris Gosling's Wiltshire farm faced bankruptcy.

By 2002, they'd had enough.

We actually had the heard up for sale.

And we were going to probably have to close the processing plant

and rent the buildings out.

And my wife and I sat up in bed one morning

and realised that we were only one month away from selling,

the brochure was ready to go out to the public,

and we suddenly thought, gosh,

we do know what else we can do other than dairy farming.

So I said, well, I'll give it one last chance

and try to find someone who wants our milk.

The plan to become organic was hatched.

I've always tested Nick, ever since we got married, that we

should be organic.

But it was his decision, his commercial decision, to go ahead.

We were actually given a grant, and things didn't change overnight.

It took us three years to become organic.

The farmers who farm organically will not used drugs or other

chemicals on their livestock.

And with the land, they will tend to fertilise naturally by a crop

rotations, seaweed additives, things like that,

rather than using insecticides and chemicals.

As the time has gone on, even Nick,

who can be quite cynical about these things,

he has actually decided that organic farming is the right way to go.

And he does prefer it.

In the way that we treat the animals, the way we treat the land.

On the land, I find it fascinating just to see how rotations work

and how you can control some of the horrible weeds that

I used to know this farm had, like black grass,

by just changing from a winter to a spring rotation.

We chose to go organic originally because of financial reasons,

but the more we have got involved with the organic movement and

farm organically, the more we realise that working with nature does work.

Farming organically is much more fun, it's more interesting.

I'm working in a stress-free environment,

you notice that with less stress on the cows, they are healthier.

We've noticed that all the way through,

and they are easier to manage, they do as you want.

I've changed my ways of farming and how we treat animals.

On certain things, you can treat their care without having to

use antibiotics and drugs that do tend to have long-term effects.

The goslings have made a success of organic farming

and their future now looks assured.

-Just as it does for this cow and her calf.

-Job done. One live calf.

This is Harold Cooper.

He's been farming wheat in East Anglia since 1982.

Today, he is celebrating his 90th birthday along with his son

Ashley and nephew Oliver.

We're here today to celebrate and give thanks for this hugely

long life that you had an to applaud everything you've achieved.

Over the course of Harold's lifetime,

government agricultural policy has changed dramatically.

After the Second World War, new policies

and government subsidies encouraged farmers to grow more food

which would be made easier by the use of new technology and science.

Harold first learned of this at a lecture

he attended by a leading agricultural scientist.

He said that in a few years'

time we will all be growing two tons of wheat per acre.

And I foresee in the future that you will be able to grow perhaps

four tons an acre.

Well, I will never forget this, because hardly anyone believed it.

Which was not surprising, since British wheat farmers were

growing around half that amount in those days.

Yet the scientist was right.

Over the next 40 years, British wheat production trebled.

One of the ways this was achieved was in the use of new

agricultural chemicals.

Little was known of their potentially toxic effects.

This is Harold's nephew Oliver aged 13 in 1958.

He remembers vividly some of the first herbicides which

we used to control weeds.

One of my memories as a child was a chemical which was

a very yellow liquid, I'm sure it got very high toxicity levels.

But many of the products we used were quite nasty by today's standards.

You could smell some products

when you came in that were being used as herbicides in those days.

My father's generation had probably been the most exposed

generation in all in terms of actual physical contamination on their

hands, their skins, their eyes.

And it was only people like Oliver's father that were affected.

Gradually, evidence began to emerge about the damaging

effects on wildlife and the environment.

One of the most notorious was DDT, a man made insecticide

developed to kill a whole range of agricultural pests.

The ecologists were pointing out that DDT produced thin

shells in the eggs of the birds at the top of the food chain,

the raptors, things like peregrine falcons.

So a question began to rise

- are these pesticides actually always a good thing?

And the answer was, actually, No.

The government took action, and in 1984, DDT was banned.

This was followed in 1985 by the Food and Environment Protection Act.

The first in a series of regulations to control

the use of agricultural chemicals.

And it wasn't only chemicals which were having a detrimental

effect on the environment.

The post-war drive to produce ever more food

left its mark on the landscape to.

If you've got a big combine harvester you don't want it to make

a field to put it in.

So farmers tended to get rid of a lot of their hedgerows.

Likewise, if you can get paid a lot of money for producing wheat

and you've got a boggy bit of land, then you want to drain it.

The effect on wildlife was stark.

Populations of birds,

insects and wild plants began to decline sharply.

As evidence grew, government policy shifted towards reducing output.

From the 1990s onwards, schemes like Set Aside,

and Environmental Stewardship, were reduced which paid farmers to

take land out of production and increase biodiversity.

Harold Cooper's son Ashley was keen to sign up.

In total, we have about 10 per cent of our arable acreage

now in environmental schemes of one sort or another.

And what this means is we have six-metre margins planted with

a variety of grasses, and in some cases wild flowers around each field.

I've been able to replant the wood that my father removed.

I'm very lucky, because I love it,

so it is added enthusiasm to my farming career.

It's almost a complete reversal of farming policy

since Harold's career began 75 years ago.

No wonder he finds the future so hard to predict.

I find it terribly easy to look back

but awfully difficult to look forward.

# Happy birthday dear Harold

# Happy birthday to you. #

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