Dy Webb

Love a to-do list and coffee. Mum. Wife. Passionate about all things British Farming. Do the odd audit here and there.

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

A man who spent thirty years reviewing sports cars has taught this country more about its own food than every minister, union and campaign of the last fifty years combined.

Here is what five series of Clarkson's Farm put in front of the public, and not one line of it is opinion.

- A thousand acres, worked flat out for a year, made a profit of £144. Under forty pence a day.
- By year six the same farm was losing money, weather and prices turning a projected £37,000 into a five grand loss.
- A crop can drown in the field after months of work and take everything with it, and nobody is coming to help.
- The farmer is the only man in the food chain who sells at a price he does not set. The supermarket sets it. He takes it or he takes nothing.
- The council can shut his restaurant, refuse his car park and stop him selling his own food off his own land.
- The subsidy he was told to lean on can be closed overnight, the big estates first through the door, the small farms locked out.
- One outbreak of bovine TB can lock a farm down for months, banned from buying or selling a single cow, through no fault of its own.
- Rear pigs with real care and the butcher's maths can still make them a loss, so the animals go and the loss stays.
- The margins are so thin that a rich man buys farmland not to earn from it but to shelter money that earns elsewhere. The shelter exists precisely because the farming does not.

Now hold that against the story you were sold. Greedy farmers. Subsidised for doing nothing. Wrecking a countryside they are somehow also the custodians of.

There is no profit. That was the reveal. A show that set out to be funny accidentally filmed the slow strangling of the people who feed us, and the country watched it happen and finally understood what its cheap food actually costs.

Clarkson has now admitted the plainest part out loud: it is the television money keeping Diddly Squat alive, and most farms do not have a television show. Britain grows about sixty per cent of its own food and the average farmer is past sixty. That is why both numbers are heading the wrong way.

It took a Lamborghini tractor and a man doing it for a laugh. Fifty years of earnest campaigning could not manage it.

[Jeremy Clarkson @JeremyClarkson]

It looks like this year’s harvest will be catastrophic. That should be a worry for anyone who eats food. If a disaster on this scale had befallen any other industry, there would be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

[Dy Webb @dy_webb]

Early start today for a hatchery welfare audit #farm24 #CoffeeTime

[Dy Webb @dy_webb]

Crap customer service @Dubarry_com today @bhtorsetrials. Sole came off them this morning - no help or support, #rude. #Disappointed

[Tira Cole @tiras_corner]

As someone who has studied environmental science, I am so tired of hearing that cow farts are causing climate change.

The public are misinformed because they are fed their “science” from news headlines.

Here are some facts based on real science.

Greenhouse gases are:

Carbon dioxide released during plowing, cutting trees and burning fossil fuels
Methane mostly from rice farming and cow belches (not farts – yes, I’m nitpicking)
Nitrous oxide from fertilisers
Because of the amount of heat each of these gases trap and the length of time each stays in the atmosphere, these can be measured in terms of greenhouse warming potential.

One of the first things we learn in environmental science is the carbon cycle.

Above, I acknowledged that cow belches emit methane. Methane contains carbon and is part of a natural carbon cycle – think about how many buffalo used to roam the plains.

Notice the word “cycle”. Cattle transform existing carbon from grass into methane as part of their digestive process. After about 10 years, the methane is broken down into water and carbon dioxide, which then get taken up by more grass to continue the cycle. This is how nature works!

On the other hand, fossil fuels come from ancient carbon that has been locked underground for millions of years and should stay there. When this carbon is released into the atmosphere, it stays for thousands of years.

Studies show that atmospheric methane has levelled off, even though the number of cattle has increased!

The plant-based industry want you to believe that 18%–51% of greenhouse emissions is due to cattle. It is not! The EPA states that it is 2%. All livestock is only 3.9%. Compare this with crops 4.7%, industry 21.6%, electricity 28.4% and transportation 28.5%.

You can find all the science that backs this up in Sacred Cow, by Diana Rodgers (@SustainableDish ) and Robb Wolf (@robbwolf), as well as a whole lot more detail. If you read the book, you will also learn how cattle can actually benefit the environment! The book also addresses ethics and nutrition.

It’s time we stop blaming meat for what fossil fuels are doing, don’t you think?

[B&S @_B___S]

Branch manager and assistant branch manager

[Phil Stocker @philstocker3]

Here’s some crunch statistics
Farm Input costs up by 18%
Output value up by 11%
Retailers predicting food basket costs up by 5%
There is a gaping hole somewhere….

[Giles Paley-Phillips @eliistender10]

For anyone who needs to hear this today, we don't "get over" the most difficult moments in our lives, we carry them and live alongside them. But we can also make progress despite how they've affected us.

[JakHickman @actonscottfarm]

Sound On! Clever Dusty! 😊

[Garton Hardy Farming @IanDHorsley]

Definitely the cows though. Definitely the cows.

[FareShare Midlands @FareShareMids]

💚12 Days of Thanks: Day 3💚
Through its regular weekly supply & provision of surplus product, @AvaraFoods has become the first meat processor to donate the equivalent of 1 million meals. This is an enormous achievement & one for which the whole FareShare network is so thankful!

[Pinstone @PinstoneComms]

Does this sound like you...
...do you have a curious mindset to drive and develop client accounts,
...will you thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced agency environment,
...have you got exceptional time management and people skills?
Check our website for more details and apply now!

[AvaraFoods @AvaraFoods]

We’ve become the first meat processor to provide the equivalent of 1 million meals to food charity @FareShareUK

[NHS Million @NHSMillion]

If you care about the NHS, please take two minutes to watch this video.

It explains why the NHS Bill - which MPs will vote on on Tuesday - will be such bad news.

Please let your MP know what you think of it.

Please also RT so others can understand too.

[Love British Food @LoveBritishFood]

#COP26 absolutely failed to promote one of the easiest ways we can all help the environment.

Buy local!🇬🇧

Why are we importing our food from thousands of miles away when there is a perfectly fine alternative available from down the road?

Shop local!

[Joyce Campbell @armadalefarm]

Yes I really believe it’s this simple! 😉

[Joe Stanley @JoeWStanley]

But the real question, in the run up to #COP26, is why government is prioritising the import of foods we specialise in producing domestically from 11,000 miles away & reducing 🇬🇧 production when we have a Net Zero goal & world beating standards?

[hamishpork @hamishpork]

Heard it on the ITV news you can't ask utilities companies to sell gas and electricity at a loss
Why not, you ask farmer to produce food and sell it for less than it cost to production and they pay the transport

[Hannah Lloyd @hannah_m_lloyd]

Call out to pig Twitterverse for help please. 🙏🏻🐖
We have a great job opportunity for the right person; must be passionate about pigs & keen to learn. Come & join a family farm near Shrewsbury & be a key part of the team. @NatPigAssoc @ladies_in_pigs
https://t.co/Qe8KXfXK3D