A breath of optimism at the shows (From Gazette & Herald)

A breath of optimism at the shows

JULY, as well as seeing the beginning of harvest, is also the time for the agricultural shows - and just two years ago it was beginning to look as if some of the smaller village shows would struggle to survive.

Foot and mouth and the recession in farming seemed to be putting an intolerable pressure on both their working members and their finances.

But this year, after a shaky season last year, most of the country show societies seem on the way to recovery in spite of all the financial problems which still affect the farming industry.

Every agricultural show represents the cultural side of the region from which it draws its support.

Driffield has a very strong bias towards the arable section plus a quite strong beef and sheep section. Ryedale is usually strong in almost every aspect of farming, but for almost all its 150 years has been especially strong in the horse section. In Farndale and Rosedale, of course, the moorland farmers are nearly all exhibiting their local breeds of sheep but the dairy cattle, which used to be seen in good numbers in the dales, have almost disappeared. Shepherd's crooks are still important at the dales shows, but exhibitors often live many miles away and would be totally lost if they had to use a crook in a pen of sheep or pen those sheep with a working dog.

Nearly all the exhibitors at the shows tell me they go for the day out and the rosette is more important than the prize money. This must be so because prize money at all the shows in today's values is derisory compared to the prizes on offer years ago. A hundred years ago, the trophies, too, were much more valuable than they are today, nearly all of them being solid silver, and almost every one of those cups could be won outright if it was won three years in succession. If this happened, such was the esteem gained by the donor of a cup to the local show they would always be replaced by another of similar value. Today, almost without exception the term perpetual challenge trophy appears in every show schedule and the prizes at the Gooseberry Show at Egton are just as valuable as those at some of the big agricultural shows around the county.

I have always felt that a day or two spent amongst the very wide cross-section of people who attend the country shows allows me to gauge with a fair degree of accuracy just what is happening to farming and the countryside. Amongst the regular show-goers, it is possible to meet peers of the realm and MPs, the terrier men from the local hunts, city businessmen and miners on holiday, in addition to the farmers and all the members of the allied trades who will be there hoping to combine business with pleasure.

This year, I get the feeling the farming community thinks that we might have just turned the corner and that things are beginning to look up. But - of course - you need to be an optimist to be a farmer.

The biggest changes in the exhibits at the local shows in recent years has been the growth of the vintage classes for farm tractors and machinery of past years

Many of these have been renovated and saved from destruction by men with very tenuous links with farming but a real love for machines which were often worked by their fathers years ago. Another new development at the local show is the farmers market where farmers or their wives take stalls to sell home-produced foodstuff to the general public and in doing so quietly convert an increasing number of consumers to buying good fresh home-produced food.

Apart from these and the normal livestock classes, very little effort goes into telling the general public who are at the show anything about the real facts and figures associated with the cost of producing high-quality home-grown food.

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It has been especially busy on the farm this week because we have had James, our four-year-old grandson, back home paddling in puddles on his holidays from the Isle of Man and I have had to show him round and explain in great detail how I am looking after the farm in his absence.

Granny has vied with me in spoiling him and my dogs have once more become his dogs and they have spent most of his waking hours in his company, all of them eager to share his Smarties and biscuits, which he dispenses with an affection which is returned with love and loyalty.

He doesn't need expensive toys, give him a tennis ball and he will play with the dogs until they all need to retire for food and drinks to refuel their batteries.

If anything else takes his attention, there will always be one or two dogs just a few steps behind him, ever-watchful and ready to spring to his defence.

Updated: 11:44 Wednesday, July 23, 2003