By Niki Williamson, Fenland Farm Conservation Adviser
In the Fens, we do Harvest Festivals and Ploughing Contests.
As a Farm Conservation Adviser who is also a brass musician I get my fair share of both!
I love this time of gatherings and celebrations, borne of an ancient Northern hemisphere sense of communal relief that the biggest part of the harvest is safely in, and perhaps a slight need to huddle together in apprehension of the oncoming winter hardships.
A particular favourite of mine is Prickwillow Ploughing Festival, a fantastic celebration of all that’s good about the Fens, from farming and wildlife to folk music and food.
Local kids on a bug hunt in nectar flower mix at Prickwillow Ploughing Festival
Tom Clarke, who hosts this fenland extravaganza at the aptly-named Green Farm, has been in Higher Level Stewardship for two years now, and if the nectar flower mix conveniently located near the RSPB stand is anything to go by, his farm is hooching with Nature as well as producing top notch crops.
At band rehearsal, our tenor horn player Rob was joking that a lot of the harvest hymns really need the lyrics updating to include things like combine harvesters and glyphosate.
But after a thoroughly joyful weekend in Prickwillow, I got to thinking that wildlife-friendly farmers everywhere deserved a bit of worship.
So Tom, this one’s for you, on behalf of all the children that got to go on a bug hunt thanks to your wildlife-friendly farm.
We plough the fields and scatter
The good seed on the land
Our peat is deep, our yields are high
Our crops precisely planned
The fields have awkward corners
It’s not all perfect loam
So we can leave a few percent
Where Nature finds a home.
Our fifty hectare wheat fields
Will feed the nation well
We put some flowers round the edge
So bees have food as well.
The birds that come in winter
Find stubbles full of grain
And buffer strips keep water clean
For wildlife in our drains.
And now the gates are open
We show our farm with pride
We celebrate the food we’ve grown
With Nature on our side
Our hero. *sigh*.