Royal Highland Education Trust

[jac]

I was at Auchenchruive college with my 2 mares yesterday to help promote the connection between farming and food.. this may sound odd but in Britain this link seems to have been broken. The school kids got to see milking, buttermaking, sheepdogs at work and the beef sector. My job was to explain the importance of healthy soil and grass, also we told them of the growing importance of draft animals in agriculture around the world. This in itself is a major shift in thinking from the mainstream ag teachings..a few years ago horses and oxen would never have been mentioned…all for the good…
John

[FELLMAN]

Its really good that you did that, im sure the young folk really enjoyed themselves, i know i would have enjoyed that ! well done you, horses in agriculture and forestry cant be promoted enough at the moment

[mitchmaine]

Hi john, glad you got the chance to get your girls out to promote animal agriculture. It was a total shock to me to find so little horse powered farms in uk. And I still wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I thought true, maybe a country so small with such a large population would probably have to be as economical as could be to grow the most yeild per acre of whatever crop was sown. But then I had to stop and wonder why or if animal power didn’t provide the same yield and that the economics was really money and about one man being able to make a living on thousands of acres instead of hundreds. And then about all the jobs lost to all the people who could be making a living on a smaller scale. If the crops grown and sold are mostly for global trade for oil, say, then where does the real food come from. And if that’s an import, what is wrong with the picture. Too many unknowns here, but putting your own people to work would be an economic plus whatever the crop. Keep up the good work there and spread the word. If you caught one kids attention and ear that day, all was worth it.
mitch

[FELLMAN]

@mitchmaine 26036 wrote:

Hi john, glad you got the chance to get your girls out to promote animal agriculture. It was a total shock to me to find so little horse powered farms in uk. And I still wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I thought true, maybe a country so small with such a large population would probably have to be as economical as could be to grow the most yeild per acre of whatever crop was sown. But then I had to stop and wonder why or if animal power didn’t provide the same yield and that the economics was really money and about one man being able to make a living on thousands of acres instead of hundreds. And then about all the jobs lost to all the people who could be making a living on a smaller scale. If the crops grown and sold are mostly for global trade for oil, say, then where does the real food come from. And if that’s an import, what is wrong with the picture. Too many unknowns here, but putting your own people to work would be an economic plus whatever the crop. Keep up the good work there and spread the word. If you caught one kids attention and ear that day, all was worth it.
mitch

Agri subsidies was and is the problem here, i can never understand how so many British farmers just do not like horses lthe level of dislike is unreal considering they did all of the work not so long ago , it annoys me to hear farmers telling me how much they like sheep cattle etc but they HATE horses ??? its strange im beginning to think its because a horse never did or will attract sub, but then its not about the money is it its about animals and a horse/pony imo is a beautiful elegant useful animal that should be admired, sadly as a UK farmer i in a minority i fear 🙁

[jac]

Mitch you hit the food security issues in the UK right on the head. I think our food supply is in a really dangerous situation now… 100% dependant on oil and not enough skilled folks to do it any other way.. Your right Fellman regards farmers attitudes over here, even the ones that do keep draft horses only use them for showing in the halter classes or in the hitch teams {and those are on a wing and a prayer}…I know of some who will spend hours “exercising” a team in a light wagon then go harrow a field or spread fert ect with a tractor !!!!.. A student came up to me that day and was really excited by the aspect of new equipment and how this technology could help 3rd world countries feed themselves. His angle was what surprised me.. he said if we can make low tech, cheap and easily fixed farm equipment and with proper training for the farmers then they could feed them selves.. but he was looking to the future. He reconed one of the reasons these families are so big is because the farming is so manual dependant.. reduce the need for so much manual labour and you reduce the need for huge families.. was good to hear youngsters thinking this way…
John

[clydevalley]

I had the pleasure of accompanying John and the girls to Auchencruive and I must say both John and the guide were very interesting to listen to, very imformative.
The children were very interested in the talk and some of the questions were very sensible, I learnt a lot from the whole experience.
Children over here seem to think everything comes pre-packed out of the supermarkets so it’s good that these sort of educational events when the children are actually taken out and shown how things are done is the way forward in my book.
Despite it being a wet day not one of the children complained which is a good sign.
I myself was all systems go before that day, then I got a little dishearted at the physical side of things but John picked me up mentally and now I have ordered a field harness, having a hitch cart built and will be spending summer looking for implements to use on the farm.
I have a steep learning curve but that’s the exciting part. The gains, working the land in a peaceful, enjoyable way, bringing the wood home for my fire and spending time with my boy (Clyde.)
Liz

[Nat(wasIxy)]

@FELLMAN 26039 wrote:

Agri subsidies was and is the problem here, i can never understand how so many British farmers just do not like horses lthe level of dislike is unreal considering they did all of the work not so long ago , it annoys me to hear farmers telling me how much they like sheep cattle etc but they HATE horses ??? its strange im beginning to think its because a horse never did or will attract sub, but then its not about the money is it its about animals and a horse/pony imo is a beautiful elegant useful animal that should be admired, sadly as a UK farmer i in a minority i fear 🙁

You wanna try convincing people oxen are deserving of some kind of respect – all I hear is horse horse horse, they’re so pretty/worked so hard for us. Yet oxen put in thousands more years of work than horses? People just don’t care.

I’m a farmer and in general, don’t like horses. It’s 100% nothing to do with subsidy however, as I’ve never claimed any and never plan to. I grew up ‘horsey’ and went on to work in stables, but when I discovered oxen I never looked back! I think modern horses are spoilt brats, and I can’t stick driving past yet another weed-ridden overgrazed poached up pony paddock that could be productive ground. I find cattle much more beautiful than horses too – smooth, sweeping horns are a crown, horses have that long naggy face and long spindly nobbly legs 😀 Cattle are much neater to my eye.

Then there’s the people, and I think this is where the real issue is – the atmosphere I worked in on all the yards was abominable. Then there’s this weird attitude they have to the horses, like horses are some sort of sacred thing that should be worshipped by everyone else and have their every whim catered for – that gets people’s backs up.

I have to say the working horse community, naturally, is very different – more realistic and down-to-earth. The horses seem better behaved too. I am attracted to one breed of horse – the hackney. I’d like to see them saved from the brink and the old style, tough working hackney back. I wouldn’t describe my oxen as slow to work with but I do know that they couldn’t sustain a trot for 100miles, so if I wanted to do some serious travel, I’d need a hackney 😀

[Nat(wasIxy)]

@jac 26040 wrote:

.. A student came up to me that day and was really excited by the aspect of new equipment and how this technology could help 3rd world countries feed themselves. His angle was what surprised me.. he said if we can make low tech, cheap and easily fixed farm equipment and with proper training for the farmers then they could feed them selves.. but he was looking to the future. He reconed one of the reasons these families are so big is because the farming is so manual dependant.. reduce the need for so much manual labour and you reduce the need for huge families.. was good to hear youngsters thinking this way…
John

This is exactly my view and why I support Tillers International. We were in the same position as third world countries not so long ago – when quality of life improves, birth rates come down; our government is now trying to convince people to have more babies! So for me, the way to bring birth rates down is to get people comfortable.

[Author]

Posts