Chris Berry

It’s that time of year when for some farmers the world turns orange, people turn up to pick their own vegetable that they will probably never eat and where, at one farm in East Yorkshire, there are special times that could be referred to as ‘barking’.

Coroners once held inquests into fatalities at The Old Horn Inn in Spennithorne, but this little village pub in Wensleydale held its biggest ever inquest two years ago when the fatality concerned was likely to be the pub itself.

Eggs with special taste, from hens that live all their lives on farm, cows still milked in a six-abreast, sixty year old parlour receiving that special touch, a combine harvester that is 52 years old and a selection of elderly tractors, that’s how the Gibsons roll at Priest Garth Farm in Gillamoor in the North York Moors.

You should always address the ‘elephant in the room’ and that’s why it’s important, for those that don’t know, to point out there is an iconic landmark in Rosedale Abbey called Bell End, so named because this was as far as the toll of the church bell could be heard.

Ploughing matches have been part of the agricultural world’s autumn calendar since, it is reputed, that two farmers in Dorset settled a dispute over who could plough the best, with their heavy horses, in 1847. They developed into annual events all around the countryside to celebrate harvest having been completed and for farmers to demonstrate their skills in preparing their land for crop establishment for the next year.

Planning for future generations to follow into the family farm, especially when more than one sibling is involved, can prove challenging. But one farm in West Yorkshire has been quietly going about just that in the past two decades.

Finding new sources of income has long been part of countryside life and for historic Newburgh Priory, which has been in Stephen Wombwell’s family ever since Henry VIII dissolved it in 1538, one idea has gone far beyond what he anticipated when starting out with his old schoolfriend Wilf Standeven just twelve years ago.

This festive season might have seen the odd rum punch being consumed, but the effects of that will be nothing close to the punches that many farming families like the Wilsons of Hunday Field Farm near Grafton are feeling the effect of right now.

Floodwater and poor weather conditions for last year’s harvest, grain imported, losing a quarter of his potato crop, winter wheat drilled late due to the previous year’s conditions, increasing costs of farm machinery, fuel, energy and fertiliser, lower yields. It’s quite a mix but Richard Bramley is ever the optimist.

Up the creek without a paddle may define how much of the farming community feels at present through a mix of poor margins, inclement weather, animal and bird restrictions and the real stinger of government intransigence over budget proposals regarding new Inheritance Tax levies, but farmer Callum Stark of Sutton on the Forest is set to serve and volley a new idea that he hopes will prove a smash hit.