Two stars from the Westcountry featured prominently in last week’s Nuffield Winter Conference in Edinburgh.
This is the annual event when new Nuffield Scholars can report on their research and how they have spent their time and the scholarship money.
The two locals were Julian Ellis, from Crows-an-Wra, near Lands End, and Andrew Freemantle, from Clyst St Mary, near Exeter.
Julian, a well-known and highly amusing public speaker from his YFC days – he had his audiences rolling in the aisles at the Oxford Farming Conference a few years ago explaining why he hadn’t had a haircut – took as his subject “Farming by the cycles of the moon”.
A dairy farmer, he set out to investigate the impact of the moon on crops and animals, visiting on his study tour four European countries, plus Canada.
He concluded, “The moon’s influence may be small, but it is significant enough that every farmer should understand its influence on soil, plants and the water-table, especially if they are farming organically.”
Well-known pig farmer, Andrew, took as his subject “Closer to the consumer”.
His research travels were far more domestic, taking him to the BBC Good Food Show in Birmingham and the Cirencester Conference, where he was impressed by a lecture from Guy Watson, of Riverside Organics, Totnes, with his 27,000 vegetables boxes per week and special cookery classes.
He concluded that our agriculture should recognise getting closer to the consumer improved the bottom line, should tell “the great story” about what it does, and farmers should co-operate to provide visitor facilities.
Western Morning News
November 10 2010
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