It’s mid October, it’s pretty wet, and silage trailers continue to roll in and out of the yard. This is not
the best harvest we’ve ever had. One seven acre field only managed to yield one trailer load of
maize, and we’ve lost count of the times trailers have got stuck. But on the whole we’ve been pretty
fortunate, with the crop mostly reaching 6 feet tall, with good cobs.

Of course, harvest is a pretty big deal for us in the farming community. Everything in the farming
world is interdependent, so a bad harvest often leads to a bad year, and, on farm, affects everything
from fertility to milk yields, and further afield can even influence the ever-changing milk price.
Harvest this year has served as a reminder that this interdependent community has become pretty
isolated from ordinary society. Our church, along with many others, celebrated harvest the the other
week, and it was clear that for most people harvest is little more than a twee tradition. Most local
people would have no clue it was harvest time if it weren’t for the mess we make on the roads,
which we of course dutifully clean up.
Some kids from Sunday school came to visit the farm for harvest, and seeing it dawn on an 8 year
old that this is where the milk in shops comes from was quite sweet. But it was also another little
reminder that farming is really no longer at the heart of the community.

Of course communities do look a little different now, in a culture were independence and
convenience are king, farming can seem a bit out of step. But as a farm we’re keen to continue as an
active contributor to our community. We’ve recently succeeded in securing a tenancy on land next to
Herstmonceux castle, we’ve been keen to get it since we missed our last opportunity in 1962! The castle is home to a university campus and as part of our tenancy we are encouraged to engage with the educational aims of the university, which we’re really happy to do. This tenancy further embeds us into the local community and, as we’re not planning on going anywhere, we feel that getting involved is a good investment.

With the amount of staff we have on the farm, particularly during silaging, we’ve pretty much
created our own little community within the community. We’re so appreciative of the hard work put
in by our team over this difficult harvest, pulling late nights and starting in the early morning. We’ve
always been glad to employ local people on our farm, which is another way that we try to maintain
our role in the community. At the end of the day if we want the support of the locals, we need be
willing to support them too.