30th August 2007

Yesterday we completed our small, but significant grain harvest. This year we have tried a new rotation in the chicken range, to include a crop of spring sown barley as an effective break from chicken for a year, before the birds return to the ‘clean’ area.

Having established hedgerows last winter, dividing the whole of the field into 1-hectare blocks, half the field between the hedges was ploughed, the other half left as grass for the chickens to range over. The idea is that the barley crop draws up the nitrogen left behind by the chickens, making the most of that fertility-building phase of the rotation and, once the corn has been harvested and the straw baled, the grass re-grows through the stubble to give a clean grass area for the chickens to occupy again. Next year we will repeat the plan on the half of the field that left in grass this season.

The whole idea is to keep the chickens moving onto fresh, clean ground. Now that the hedges have established, these will increasingly provide shade, shelter and a habitat rich in bugs and grubs, all essential supplements to the organic diet.

So, as well as providing excellent chicken, the rotation makes the best use of the fertility built up by the birds, while the barley provides grain for winter stock feed and straw for bedding. This barley, which has yielded about 1.5 tonnes per acre, will not break any arable farming records, but with grain prices rocketing around the world, it will make a huge contribution to our farm performance this year.

Interestingly, talking with the local contractor who completed our combining, all the crops he has harvested in the county have been very mixed, and straw is in particularly short supply. Straw yields have typically been a third of what he would normally expect, so both grain and bedding prices are going to be inflated this coming winter.

On a global scale, the demand for food is outstripping increases in supply. This has now caught the attention of economists, bankers and accountants, all of whom are predicting inflated prices on shop shelves. As ever, the next few months for the economy will be interesting, and our simple example just goes to illustrate the link between global economics and our 30 acres of spring barley!