Thriplow Farms Annual Reports
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2011 - An expansive and expenive year
The year was notable for the expansion of the farm by 100 hectares and dry conditions which reduced our yields by fifteen per cent. The new land, which is in Barrington, is only half a mile from the north end of the farm on the west side of Rowley’s Hill but thanks to the village of Foxton, the A10 and a level crossing, it takes at least fifteen minutes to reach it from the grainstore. The soil is heavier than the rest of the farm and suffers from much worse blackgrass but it is level and easy to farm. It consists of a single block of land amounting to ninety five hectares and small chunk of five hectares surrounded by houses which one day might be developed. In about twenty years we should be able to make profit on it, but in the meanwhile we shall have to sit back and forget that this small chunk of land cost more than the entire two thousand acres with fifteen houses and a full range of grainstores did less than twenty years ago. Read more » -
2010 - The year I will try to forget
I suppose it would be more than a bit dishonest of me to claim that my stroke on November 4 was the not the most surprising event which had ever happened to me. It was. And now I am trying to get rid of it. The only really important irritation which I am still trying to get overcome is a failure to memorise people and lists which I should have remembered like peas in a pod. All the other problems of the stroke sufferers have, I am happy to say, have passed me by. Read more » -
2009 - Fasten seatbelts for a bumpy ride
In 2008 we made more money than we have ever made in my farming lifetime. The wheat yields were big, the prices higher than ever and the costs relatively low. This year we shall lose more money than we have ever lost. The wheat yields were average, the prices were down by 40% whilst the cost of inputs doubled. Indeed the cost of fertilisers actually rose by 300%. Put these two years together, divide by two and you have two average years. Read more » -
2008 - A harvest from heaven; a harvest from hell
A year to remember and a year to forget. I have never known anything like it since I started farming thirty six years ago. We produced more wheat than we have ever grown before, and we sold it at a higher price than we have ever done before. So it stands to reason that it was a wonderful year. But it was not. Read more » -
2007 - Making a sow’s ear from a silk purse
Does anybody out there actually read these Annual Reports? I must assume that they do not and thus nobody will be surprised if I start with a small re-cap. Two years ago in 2005 I whinged “The price of our main product, wheat, remains static at around sixty pounds (per tonne)”. Last year my final tear-jerking peroration read: “Yet today this particular farmer is a reasonably happy human being. He still has some wheat in the grainstore and thus would be even happier if the price of wheat reached £100 per tonne.” Read more » -
2006 - The odour of sancity
This year has been as good as last year was bad. Not only was our harvest the third biggest on record but the price of wheat has risen by 25%. So much for supply and demand. But perhaps even more exciting than the harvest was the fact that we have achieved the nearest thing to sanctity available to British farmers - short of converting to the organic religion and thereby qualifying for instant sainthood. Such is our holiness it is very probable that we shall soon be secreting the odour of sanctity*. To understand the significance of this phenomenon it helps to have a profound knowledge of both the common agricultural policy and catholic theology. Read more » -
2005 - Pessimism personified
Agricultural economics, along with chiropody and the paintings of Cy Twombly, is the most boring subject in the world. And if it is boring to a farmer like me, it must be doubly so for the rest of the human race. So brace yourselves for a dollop of tedium. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was invented over fifty years ago for two big reasons (and lots of little ones). The first biggy was to ensure that never again would Europe be vulnerable to U boats sinking our food supplies as they trundled across the Atlantic. The second was to make peasants richer and thus less likely to vote communist. Don’t laugh. In the 1940s nearly half the Italian and French peasants did actually vote communist. Read more » -
2004 - The price of wheat halves (almost)
For those who do not keep these annual reports in a perfumed velvet folder beside their bed, I should remind you that last year’s headline read THE PRICE OF WHEAT DOUBLES (ALMOST). Such is the volatility of the market these days that the price has since dropped by nearly fifty percent. It is, therefore, fortunate that we enjoyed the second largest harvest ever at Thriplow. However, as you would expect of a farmer, I prefer to stress the pessimistic and overlook the optimistic. Read more » -
2003 - The price of wheat doubles (almost)
It was a year full of extremes. Some nice, some nasty but all totally unexpected. First was the weather, which these days we can conveniently blame on global warming but I suspect was simply the result of random meteorological chance of the sort which must have happened many times over many millennia. When primitive man experienced a ludicrously cold winter or a stifling summer (as he surely did) he cursed the gods. Today we are somewhat sceptical about divine intervention in such matters but instead have global warming to blame. Read more » -
2002 - Aro ergo queror
The second-best wheat harvest ever, record-breaking yields of sugar beet, very good oilseed rape, all of which combined to make a great year. Right? Wrong. We shall probably lose money. Of course I don’t expect any non-farming readers of this report either to believe this or to feel remotely sympathetic. For the last thirty years (most of which have seen unparallelled prosperity for farmers) the National Farmers Union (NFU) has been shouting from the rooftops that British agriculture is in trouble. Now that this really is the case, it is hardly surprising that nobody believes them. The fairy story about the little boy who cried wolf should be pinned up above the desk of all farming leaders. Those who have been reading these reports for the past twenty eight years know that I have never complained about my lot. Au contraire. Read more » -
2001 - Inspissiated gloom
was how Doctor Johnson characterised the nocturnal atmosphere in Macbeth. He could equally well have been describing the way this farmer feels today. We lost money this year (i.e. from the crop grown in 2000 but sold in 2001) for only the second time in my farming lifetime,† and the outlook for next year looks even worse. Regular readers of these Annual Reports will attest to the fact that I am not congenitally pessimistic. Unlike many (most, actually) of my profession, I am happy to admit to the good times. Which is why I should be believed when I say things today are very difficult indeed. Read more » -
2000 - Rain, rain go away, come again another day
Fifty years ago we used to chant this at school. Today, as I stare out of the window onto ponds which litter the farm in places where I have never seen water stand before, the jingle has a slightly sinister ring to it. It is also rather poignant because I, like most farmers, have my own arsenal of folksy, meaningless (but somehow very reassuring) aphorisms. I am particularly proud of one of these because I happen to have invented it myself. On our light drought-prone land we need moisture quite as much as fertiliser. Hence my cheerful refrain, “We’ll never go broke if it rains”. Today, after the wettest autumn which has ever been recorded, it is time to admit that I got it wrong. Read more » -
1999 - Best harvest - worst prices
A miracle happened at Thriplow this year. It was called harvest. We enjoyed the sort of yields which come only once in a lifetime. For this we are grateful and gobsmacked. Read more » -
1998 - Another horrible year
When my old nanny was angry she would sometimes mutter under her breath "Go to Jericho". Fifty years later, I would like to take up her suggestion. The town of Jericho today is a dusty settlement on the west bank of the Jordan, surrounded by Palestinian refugee camps. It is also a place which farmers should be thinking about this year. The reason is simply because it was in Jericho, around 7500 BC, that arable farming was born. It was here that man, instead of simply gathering the grain from wild einkorn (an ancestor of wheat), actually began to plant these grains and harvest the resulting crop. Read more » -
1997 - A horrible year
There is nothing worse than a whingeing arable farmer (except perhaps a self-righteous environmentalist). Raised on a diet of subsidies, shielded from the cold and drafty market place and supported by a doting Brussels, some of today’s East Anglian farmers have the chutzpah to complain that their lives are hard. And so they are if you take the past year in isolation and forget about the previous two decades. Read more » -
1996 - Fasten your seatbelts
The year began with wheat prices moving sharply upwards. The world was running out of grain, demand was overwhelming supply, and optimism - at least in this part of the country - spread like listeria on soft cheese. By May the price of wheat touched £130 per tonne and it was clear that it could only move in one direction; upwards. The price of land - which, for some strange reason, inevitably reflects the wheat price - sailed through the £3000 per acre barrier, and for the first time in almost two decades, there was a waiting list for certain tractors. Even the gloomiest arable farmer (and I have yet to meet one who does come into this category) had to admit that the future rarely seeme d brighter. Read more » -
1995 - Deja vu all over again (as Yogi Berra once said)
Mr Berra, who was a very good catcher for the New York Yankees and a so-so baseball manager in later life, would never have heard of the Common Agricultural Policy. The nearest he ever got to agriculture was probably playing for the reserve teams which are known as farm clubs. This is just as well because Yogi Berra, like all rational human beings, would certainly find it hard to understand why this year - once again - the prices went up and the subsidies went up too. This phenomenon started in 1994 and I assumed it would soon correct itself. Far from doing so, it actually repeated itself so what had once looked like mild eccentricity turned into serious lunacy. Not t hat I am complaining in any way. Far from it. As far as this farm is concerned, we are profoundly grateful. But a still small voice somewhere deep inside what might otherwise be called a conscience keeps asking whether the system is not stark staring crazy. Read more » -
1994 - Let the good times roll....... (as they sing in Louisiana)
And roll they certainly did. The price of wheat went up, the yield of wheat went up and the subsidy we received for every acre went up. Which all goes to show why this farmer isn’t complaining in 1994. On the contrary. Read more » -
1993 - The cheque is in the post
If "I love you" is the most frequent lie told by civilised (?) man, then "the cheque is in the post" must be the runner-up. Few people seem to love farmers these days so we have not been unduly worried by the first promise. But the second is giving us some nervous moments as 1993 draws to a close. Any day soon a brown envelope should come thudding through the letter box. Inside will be Brussels's thank you note (giving a new meaning to Bread and Butter letters) for the three hundred acres (120ha) we set aside this year. But that won't be all. There should also be a small financial sweetener, amounting to a mere one hundred and twenty five thousand pounds sterling. At the time of writing this exciting event has still not happened, though some of our neighbours have received their cheques. We, like most farmers, will put the cash in the bank, grit our teeth and pay our taxes. There are, however, exceptions. One of our friends was so overcome by excitement the day his cheque arrived he immediately went out and bought himself a new sugar beet harvester. Read more » -
1992 - Setaside finally arrives
This time last year there could be no doubt. The slurry was about to hit the air-conditioning. Ray MacSharry's talked-about, worried-about but as-yet unpublished Common Agricultural Policy reforms were going to be disastrous. The experts were unanimous. British farms in general, and big farms in particular, would be hit very hard. Setaside was going to be introduced and we would receive compensation for only the first fifteen acres, just like a Portuguese peasant. As if that were not enough, the Intervention price for cereals was going to fall and the co-responsibility levy would rise. Read more » -
1991 - Good harvest - awful future
It was the year of the Sale. This time last year we were farming three thousand acres. Today we are farming two thousand. Every farmer always wants to farm a few more acres, and we are no exceptions. Yet the future now looks so difficult it is time to take drastic measures. And those drastic measures have only one objective: to free ourselves from all debt.Read more » -
1990 - Heat + drought + C.A.P. = bad news
"The trouble with farmers", says the man on the Clapham omnibus, "is that they always complain. If it isn't the weather it's the prices, and if it isn't the prices it's the politicians". This time he is right. For almost twenty years since these reports began, we have resisted the temptation to moan. Today we can hold out no longer.Read more » -
1989 - Not a good year - but not a bad one either
The weather played an even more important role than usual this year. On our light land we need constant rain; we did not get it. In fact we actually experienced a worse drought than 1976. What was even more worrying is that (unlike 1976) the drought appears to be continuing throughout the autumn and winter. While the topsoil today is damp after a month of mists, the subsoil is as dry as an Ethiopian hillside. Read more » -
1988 - An above average harvest and some better-than-expected prices gave us a good year - but not a great one
1986 and 1987 were two of the most difficult years this farm has ever known; the outlook in 1988is now slightly better. To cope with the problems faced by all European arable farmers - which at Thriplow were made worse by two successive bad harvests we have had to make some very drastic changes. In 1984 we employed twelve people. Today on our 1200 hectares, the full-time labour force consists of six, a Manager, mechanic/foreman and four men. Each man now has his own personal two-way radio so communications have improved dramatically. Read more » -
1987
We had always assumed that this farm must inevitably do well in a wet year. We were wrong. 1987, with over 27 inches of rain (compared to our normal 21), was a poor year, but not as bad as 1986. We should not complain because many East Anglian and Scottish farms endured an infinitely more disastrous harvest. It is also worth remembering (and being grateful for) that before 1986 we enjoyed ten consecutive good years. Read more » -
1986
A very bad year. In financial terms it was the worst we have experienced since 1970. The cause was simply the poor cereal yields, which were particularly disappointing at a time when the rest of the country was enjoying the second biggest harvest on record. The graph below shows the problem starkly. From a peak in 1983, our cereal yields have fallen, in spite of an improvement last year. The causes are, as always in farming, unclear. However, certain specific actions have probably influenced these figures. Read more » -
1985
A year dominated by the weather. We were lucky to finish harvest only a week later than normal, on August 3Ist. Many other parts of the country - particularly in the north - were still combining in mid-October. After a decade of (relatively) easy harvests, this time it paid to be over-equipped. Our four large combines and a big drier made life simple, albeit very expensive. It was only in November that we began to find unpleasant things going on in the grainstore, with bugs and hot wheat giving us problems we had never experienced before. Read more » -
1984
A good year, but not the greatest. While the rest of the country was enjoying the biggest harvest ever, our yields were slightly down on last year's record. It is a sobering thought that the average (repeat, average) wheat yield in the United Kingdom last harvest was 60cwt per acre (7.5 tonnes/ha). As recently as seven years ago at Thriplow we were pretty excited if a single field yielded this amount. Read more » -
1983
The best (and easiest) cereal harvest we have ever had. Both wheat and barley comfortably beat the previous records and, in doing so, gave us some serious storage problems. Prices were also higher than we had budgeted so the results overall this year have been good. Read more » -
1982
An extraordinary year in which yields of every crop except wheat have been as high, or higher, than we have known them before. Sugar beet, above all, has been little short of miraculous. Prices, as one would expect, have been unspectacular, but overall our results have been good. Read more » -
1981
A strangely disappointing year in spite of the fact that the harvest was only five percent smaller than our record of last year and the sugar beet has been better than we have ever known it. It is, of course, unrealistic to imagin e that yields can increase every year but this has happened so frequently in the past that we feel an anti-climax when last year's record does not become this year's average. Read more » -
1980
It has been a year to remember. Every crop except herbage seed has enjoyed the biggest harvest in our lifetime and for the first time we managed to grow more than ten tonnes of wheat per hectare. Oilseed rape and sugar beet have also ex celled and so at first glance it would appear that our financial results were equally exciting. They would have been had it not been for inflation. As it is we have done no better than last year simply because the additional income produced has been equalled by expenditure, which has increased by twenty four per cent since last year. It is a sobering thought to wonder what would have happened if we had experienced a normal harvest. Read more » -
1979
After two exceptional harvests we were beginning to think that everything was too easy. This year's harvest was therefore a bit disappointing when measured against 1977 and 1978 but it was still well above the average for the past five years. Winter barley dropped by about 5% and the very small amount of spring corn actually showed a slight increase in yield over last year. It was winter wheat which suffered most and yields dropped by 15%. Perhaps it was lucky that prices rose 15% from last year's level and thus the overall financial results were not too bad. Read more » -
1978
Last year's harvest broke all records by a big margin. This year has been even better. Wheat yields are down slightly but barley is up; sugar beet is at least 12 tons per acre with sugar over 18% and the crop drier has produced over 100 tons more lucerne than ever before. As always, we have the weather to thank for these results. Almost constant rain during the spring and early summer is just what our thin land needs. Given these good conditions we must ensure that the seeds are planted early and the crop remains healthy - neither of which are impossible tasks with modern methods. But without lots of rain we cannot grow the sort of crops we have enjoyed for the past two years. Read more » -
1977
Last year, after the worst harvest we had ever experienced, we decided to use the "High Input" system of cereal growing in the hopes that the resulting yields would more than pay for the increased costs, I wrote "Our targets should be the following average yields: Winter Barley 40cwt, Spring Barley 38cwt and Winter Wheat 60cwt. With reasonable weather conditions we should be able to attain these levels even on our light land." Except for Spring Barley, which looks like averaging 36-37cwt, we have comfortably exceeded these targets after a harvest which has been nothing short of miraculous. Lots of rain throughout the year may have made combining difficult but it gave us the sort of yields in every crop which occur once in a life time. Corn, lucerne, herbage seed, mustard, rape - everything except sugar beet - have comfortably beaten the old records. Read more » -
1976
It was a year in which the weather dominated our lives even more than usual. The most prolonged drought in history gave us the worst harvest anyone can remember. Winter corn received 7.75 inches between drilling and harvest and spring barley had exactly five inches. Given our very light free-draining soil it is hardly surprising that yields were down 50% on last year. Barleys giving no more than a ton per acre were commonplace and winter wheats of over 30 cwt were exceptional. Without the seed premiums the picture would be distinctly gloomy. As it is we shall make a small profit this year which will not be enough to keep up with inflation but does at least show that we can manage to survive conditions which we hope will not come again this century. Read more » -
1975
In terms of output it has been a good year. However, on the financial side we shall have done rather worse than last year for two important reasons; prices have remained roughly the same as while costs have risen by 20%. In additi on to this we have continued to reinvest substantial amounts in the shape of a new 150' x 105' barn, the grainstore for 800 tons of wheat and much new equipment. One encouraging feature has been the fact that the farm seems once again to be regaining its reputation as one of the more progressive in the country. Our experiments with the NIAE bridge linkage, use of large equipment and general expertise in seed production have created considerable interest in the farming press and television. Read more » -
1974
Prices have remained high this year and yields of wheat have been very good. Barley yields, due largely to the poor performance of Proctor and Berac, have been below average and for this reason we shall not be growing any Proctor next y ear. This marks the end of a 21 year period during which Proctor was the mainstay of this and many other East Anglian farms. We have also decided to cut down on Berac which is being outclassed by some of the newer varieties. Instead we shall concentrate on Otter, Mazurka and Mink with the two new varieties being Maris Trojan and Aramir, a high yielding feed barley. As far as the wheat is concerned we shall be growing MarisHuntsman and the two new semi-dwarf varieties, Maris Ho bbit and Maris Fundin. Read more »