FARMING

I guess one thing that can always be said is that Agricultural Practices are always changing. The images taken below were taken in the last two years of lockdown and show the change to an arable regime over the whole area. The need for growing more of our own food seems to be very clear, in the situation where we currently find ourselves , where cost of living increases, especially for food and fuel have gone through the roof. This is in addition to some of the most radical changes ever seen in the countryside, due to the implementation of new rules after our exit from the EU. The new system replaces the old CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) which subsidised food production, to one where public money is being paid to those who work the land to improve the environment. The parish currently produces huge quantities of arable and other crops, including grass for silage or hay, although some crops are grown to be ploughed in, being a natural fertiliser. Maize, wheat, barley, oil seed rape, linseed, beans etc, are grown in great quantities, and every year we seem to produce a huge mountain of potatoes in our fields. Farmers are naturally worried about the new system, and I guess that more changes to the way our land is farmed and food produced are on the way.

The photographs that accompany this months story show that field sizes are becoming bigger, and that every field is used very productively. My impression is that more natural fertilisers are used, with slurry covering the fields at the appropriate time in the growing cycle. Contractors are now regularly used to do the work on a large scale, often working with lights at night to be more efficient. It seems that the proposed new rules mean that the farmers who remain to farm, are going to be paid to improve the health and appearance of our countryside. It is interesting to note that many of our farmers are creating pits on their farms, which will no doubt encourage wildlife and I notice that many new hedgerows of a mixed variety of hedgerow plants are being planted across our local countryside. This should encourage the re-establishment of the natural barriers that farmers created in the 18th century, which provided superb habitats for birds and insects. Let’s hope that the new hedges will encourage lots of hedgerow species to return. I was once told by older members of the Cheshire Wildlife Trust, that if you count the number of different hedgerow shrubs and tree species, in a 30m stretch, you could multiply it by one hundred and find the age of the hedge. In one section of the hedgerow along Hockenhull Platts lane, it was thought to be about seven hundred years old.

My idea behind the series “ Christleton in the Past” Agriculture is to illustrate the local countryside from the photographic files of the Local History Group and provide a permanent archive for our Village website. Christleton 4.