Farming and the Bank of Dave

I am a sucker for stories about chipper Northerners railing against the system, and the 'Bank of Dave' is probably one of the best. It is a true story, is a Channel 4 documentary and you can watch it yourself here. A brief summary:

• Meet Dave Fishwick, Burnley bred millionaire owner of successful minibus company.
• Sez Dave, The Banks are Bastards, they aren't lending to small businesses, Burnley is dying, there are no returns on savings and yet still banks are paying huge bonuses and we as taxpayers are bailing them out. We need a better bank. Let's do it.
• Dave sets up his own bank. They have a website here.
• Er, that's it.

Before I go on, here is Dave just so you know where we are firing:

Please note the clocks - New York and Burnley (obviously)

Of course, it isn't all plain sailing. Dave is told by everyone that it simply isn't possible, that he would need to meet with the FSA to get a banking licence (he tries, and is still waiting) and that the plan would never work. What follows is the most heart warming and life affirming documentary I have seen in a long while. Now open and operating is Burnley Savings and Loans Ltd, paying 5% interest to savers, providing small unsecured loans to local people and businesses and turning a small profit after all overheads which is donated to local charities. I could bang on further, but just watch it. 

What though, has this got to do with farming? This idea, I think, has got everything to do with farming.

Attracting young people, or shall we say 'new entrants' instead, seems to be the perennial problem in agriculture. Far too many column inches have been filled with this topic, including a fair amount of musing from me. I think it is all getting a bit boring. The problem is not a lack of people who are interested, it is a lack of opportunity.

Aside from the problem of actually getting a new entrant onto their own farm is surely access to capital. Not access to capital to buy a farm, land, or big machinery but getting hold of a bit of cash when you have no money to start with, when you have no assets and when you probably have a significant student loan. You do not have any financial support in terms of single farm payments because this is connected to land ownership and that's the problem, you do not own any land but really really want to. The only thing you do have is a hard working attitude and bucket-loads of enthusiasm. Where does a new entrant go? I think he should go to the Bank of Dave, or even better, something very similar set up by farmers, for farmers to help guarantee the future of the industry in the UK.

It would work like this. Established farmers who have assets and cash (because come on, there is money around it just isn't always easily accessible) would invest in a fund set up and managed by a group of forward thinking farmers. This would pay a reasonable amount of interest, perhaps 5%, and would then loan out this money to new entrants. There would be no age limit on applicants (who says a new entrant has to be young?) but they would have to have a business plan like any other application for borrowing money. They would be visited by a successful farmer who would talk about their idea, share some of their experience and make a decision on that basis. The new entrant could get a loan for anything that helped them on their way, or took their business to the next level. Any profits in the bank after operating costs would be given to farming charities. Paperwork would be kept to a minimum, the focus would be on the relationship between the investors and the borrowers and it would be run by farmers, for farmers without any unnecessary interference.  

In terms of financing it, it should be seen as a good business deal anyway, but it could be advertised on the basis that (ooof, controversial) farmers have started to tip up 1% of their single farm payments to invest (there is a return remember) in the future of the industry. Back-of-fag-packet figures would show that with a very rough single farm payment income of £3.3bn per year into the UK, a 1% slush fund set up by farmers (by them alone, not mandatory, not by government, just on a voluntary basis) would start off with £33m to lend out if everyone got on board. Would a farmer receiving £10k in SFP invest £100? Could a farmer who receives £1m in SFP be prepared to invest £10k?

A runner? Or shall I get back off my soapbox? Maybe it's something to float here.

Farming on a Friday

'In the early evening light a farmer walks in furrows of soil after a day
of planting potatoes on his land at Strbe in north-eastern Slovakia

The Result

Dear Madam, Sir,

Thank you for your interest in our school

Your level is A1
To enquire about courses availability for your level, please contact our front desk at 02 788 21 60 or email us info@alliancefr.be



In my opinion, A1 means the DB's, the top drawer, the best. In Alliance Francais' opinion I think this is the lowest of the low.

Oh well...

 

Franglais

When attempting to speak in a foreign tongue, I am firmly of the Englishman Abroad School of Language. This involves performing rather elaborate arm movements, actually speaking in English but pronouncing every word with a funny accent and generally failing to break down the stereotype that precedes the view of the English in Continental Europe: Part of it, but not exactly on the same page as everyone else.  

That's me on the right

We British by and large have an embarrassingly lax approach to foreign language acquisition. I don't remember French or German classes at school really being taken seriously by many, even though Madame Sumner did her very best in our typical West Yorkshire rough-but-okay-if-you-worked hard Comprehensive. So by some fluke, I passed a GCSE with a B like lots of others. I know what a croissant is, I know that Orangina is a funny foreign version of Fanta and that I live in Huddersfield, a large industrial town in the North of England (J'habite Huddersfield, une grand ville industrielle dans le Nord de L'Angleterre). And really, that's almost just about it.

Nope, I have no idea who he is either

It is no excuse to not have knowledge of another language just because English is a global language, so I am planning to try and rectify that. Now I am working in Brussels, and while most people I come into contact with speak a poetic and well pronounced English, it is useful to be able to speak French as well. I have enrolled for French classes.

Before I can go on Tuesday and Thursday evenings after work however, I have to do a short test online to see which set they need to put me in. I approached the test with a bounce, remembering my foray into learning French a couple of weeks ago via a CD from Michel Thomas. Michel says (read this in a very french accent) 'The French language is easy, it is using the very same words as in English.' Well bravo Monsieur, c'est tres simple,' I thought, 'let's go!'

IT WAS ROCK HARD. Even thinking about what Mrs Sumner used to say and that big textbook with all the exercises in and remembering eating croissants and drinking orangina for a 'French Breakfast' lesson didn't help. I had to do 3 pages of a multiple choice test and then came across the stinker on the final page:

Written composition

You have just moved to a new city. You are writing an e-mail message to a friend. You tell them about 1) your arrival, 2) your first day and 3) your plans for the coming weekend. (approximately 10 verbs, minimum 75 words)

As you can see from this blog post, I can waffle on for as long as you like in English. I am a prize waffler. Trying to spin out 75 words of broken Schoolboy French into something vaguely coherent just about beat me. I promised myself that I wouldn't use a translation service on the internet, because that really is cheating. But I did use it to translate what I had written back into English. Here it is:

Hello Robert, are you? It happened Monday in Brussels and start my work in the Office de'Agriculture British Tuesday. My apartment is very beautiful and comfortable. In the weekend, my father arrived Friday evening, we visit the town square. We visit a small town called Ghent, Saturday and my father depart for Yorkshire in England at seven o'clock. For communication, I live in apartment 108, 65a Abbey Street, Brussels. Goodbye, Adam

I have some way to go, non?

           

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

I've been to Hay and Hay is just my kind of place. The only retailers allowed (or so it seems) are bookshops, antique emporiums, delis and butchers and greengrocers, bakeries that do cakes like your grandmother used to make, and cafes where the tea is well brewed and you can sit and enjoy the amazing array of 2nd hand books you have just filled up on.

That we did, so I am now well stocked with the rich seam of no-mental-agility-required writing that is PG Wodehouse. Plus some aged Penguin paperbacks that I should have already read but have been read many times before by someone else and therefore are all the better for it. And a Penguin guide to Devon that I wish was a Penguin guide to Yorkshire but they didn't have one.

I loved it in Hay. And everyone who lives in Hay loves it in Hay. And all the people who read quality newspapers and ponce about at the Hay Festival (I wish I could join their ranks) love it in Hay. The people who love Hay obviously want to keep it that way and understandably so, it's a special place. So you can see why they have set up this campaign to stop a new supermarket.

I was a bit cynical when I saw the signs on shop windows. I don't believe that the appearance of a supermarket in Hay would cause the local shops to close. The shops are flourishing because they are central to the atmosphere of Hay and the attraction of the place, and the thousands of visitors and the residents would never allow this to happen. However, just read a bit more on the campaign website. The big issue is perhaps not that the supermarket is planned, but that a new school and health centre goes hand in hand with the project should planning permission be granted. You let us build a supermarket, and we'll give you some basic facilities.

I don't like this, and I can understand why the people of Hay don't either. It is wrong that a community should have to say yes to something a lot of them do not want, in return for basic services that should be provided by the government. Mix together issues around food choices, localism, planning, politics and budget cuts and the plans in Hay are really worth watching. But don't worry about missing it just yet. The discussions are off just now until after the local elections of course.

Happy Farmers of Europe

In the same block of offices where I am working for these couple of weeks is the office of COPA-COGECA. This organisation is the combined forces of the farming unions and farming co-operatives in Europe and does its best to represent the views of the millions of farmers, big or small, across Europe to 'Europe.' I can't argue with those grand aims, and neither should any of the farmers that are represented in the fantastic photography all over their offices. With apologies for the pretty poor quality and reflections of me taking them, here are a few I managed to get as I came out of a meeting today.

Happy Flowers

A cheese producer fully signed up to the concept of 'Movember'

My particular favourite...a very happy dairy farmer

Hop on, Hop Off

Working in Brussels for a couple of weeks meant that this weekend I had time to myself to explore the capital city of Belgium, the powerhouse of the European Union and all round rather grand place to take a stroll around. Except I didn't, not for all of the day anyway. For some of it I went on this:

And what a great time I had. I figured that rather than pretend I am a good European (I speak no language other than English and even that not too well sometimes, I cannot compete with Brussels residents on their dress sense/general stylishness and I am unable to drink coffee or smoke a cigarette with quite the same panache as any of the people I have watched while I am here) I may as well admit defeat and become a tourist. That way all of the above is entirely excusable on a Saturday afternoon because I am either queuing for, sat on, or have just got off the hilarious experience that is the Brussels hop-on-hop-off-sightseeing-tour. I could hardly get my 20 euro out quick enough when I saw the bus waiting at the Rene Margritte gallery, and after nearly getting run over by a man on a scooter and tripping over a cobble, I was on.

It is good news that other folk who aren't English struggle with being abroad at times too. I was sat next to a lovely fellah from Scandanavia, well rather too close actually, because his earphone lead was a little shorter than it really ought to have been and he had to lean in because the socket was on my side. Needless to say I wasn't really bothered because within 5 minutes I was COLDER THAN I HAVE EVER BEEN so was quite happy with the extra warmth.

Now if I was a tourist bus driver I would get a little bit stressed if it was busy with traffic. And it was. I don't know if we had a new driver or what was going on, but his tape with the explanations of the landmarks we were driving past was running quicker than the bus could get to them. This made the whole experience a lot more fun I thought: 'And to our left you see the Church of the blah blah built in the 17th century for King...' to actually see a McDonalds with a drunk man with an alsation with a bandana on sat outside it.

By and large though, a good visit. I have learnt that it was either easier to get things built in the past, or the Royal Family of Belgium had more money, or both. King Leopold was certainly adventurous in his construction and most certainly prolific, with most buildings we went past having some connection to him- a Royal Park here, a monument there, and my favourite, a beautiful gothic church built before his wife died ('Now Leopold,' said she, 'we could do with a better church for me to be laid to rest in when the time arrives, can you build one?') and now standing as a lasting memory to the Royal family as all the dead ones are in there.

My favourite bit was here though. Look at it!

This is the Atomium...representing the 9 seperate areas of Belgium at the time it was built for what was, as far as I understand, essentially a huge jamboree to celebrate the end of the war and the technical prowess of Belgium. It seemed to me very much like our Festival of Britain which gave us the South Bank in London. There is a lot to be said for this type of back-slapping-aren't-we-good-and-don't-worry-because-everything-is-going-to-be-alright-everyone type of building project. It makes people feel better about themselves and their country and ultimately is a good draw for tourists. With the current problems in Europe, something similar again wouldn't be a bad idea.