The nation is divided on an issue: whether or not the turkey can fly

I had gone to bed early on Wednesday night, and had no idea that snow had fallen so heavily in the night. I don’t remember such depth of snow in this area in the past and it was very dry and powdery indeed.

I was amazed to see our local inseminator arrive in his little van at 5.15am as usual; snow cascading over the roof as the front spoiler scooped up the dry snow and threw it up over the windscreen.

Our hero clocked ten extra miles that day, courtesy of wheelspin! Our milk tanker driver phoned in to say he needed a tractor to tow him in to the farm; he was only a mile away. Great effort again.

Frozen water troughs and pipes was the story on Friday as temperatures fell to minus 13 degrees overnight. One spends the whole day just getting the routine work done, everything taking twice as long. Gwenan’s calf feeding robot over at Tillington froze, and had to be coaxed back to life; it is now being lagged with two layer insulation.

The Anaerobic Digester had got me out of bed at 3.30am sending texts to my phone, telling me that it was overflowing! The sensors had frozen and malfunctioned, pumping substrate out of the towers into the separator pit, when in fact there was no need. Those sensors have old jumpers wrapped around them now to keep them sane. On Saturday it all thawed, and we had various burst pipes to fix, slush and water everywhere, as rain fell; adding to the chaos.

The NFU spent many hours with others, persuading Government to relax working hours and restrictions on milk tanker drivers, fuel and gas tanker drivers and cattle feed lorry drivers. This will now stay in place until December 17. We also gained a temporary exemption for farmers to use their tractor and shovels to clear snow using red diesel.

This is an important service that we can offer in times of bad weather, but normally one cannot use farm machinery running on red diesel to carry out any work on public roads. The dairy industry did very well nationally, picking up over 60 million pints of milk a day, supplying 93,000 grocery outlets, and getting milk to 2.5 million doorstep customers every day last week.

n An NFU commissioned poll shows that one in five people believe turkeys can fly, and one in ten believe the bird originates from Turkey. A total of 3,000 people were asked a few basic questions about their favorite festive bird. 67 per cent of people will tuck into a turkey this Christmas, with 58 per cent saying they will buy a fresh bird; 39 per cent will buy from a butcher, with 67 per cent buying from a supermarket.

Whilst the nation is divided on whether the turkey can fly or not, I can reveal that whilst they do not fly south for the winter, they can get off the ground for short distances.

The turkey is believed to originate from Mexico (now you know!). The NFU has several hundred turkey producers on line, so that you can order your fresh turkey www.ukturkeys.co.uk

Bernard Mathews died recently at the age of 80. Mr Mathews started with £2.50 and built a £400m empire, changing turkey meat from a rare treat and a luxury product rarely eaten other than at Christmas into an affordable meat through mass production techniques, offering a range of innovative turkey products.

Having invested his £2.50 in some turkey eggs and a second hand paraffin lamp in 1950, the twelve hatched eggs made him £6.50 profit and he was away. Within two years he was producing turkey 3000 eggs a year, and in 1955 he bought Great Witchingham Hall near Norwich, a derelict mansion, but with plenty of room to rear turkeys.

It remains the company headquarters, now that it is fully restored. The company really took off in the 1980’s, with Bernard Mathews starring in his own ‘bootiful’ TV adverts, but as time went on, and we all lived in times of plenty, he was criticised by animal welfare groups for his intensive production methods, and Jamie Oliver did the company a great deal of harm with his attack on the ‘turkey twizzler’ during his school dinners campaign.

Avian flu struck the company in 2007, and there was more criticism as 159,000 turkeys were slaughtered. The legacy is that the company is still Britain’s ninth biggest food brand, and one third of all Christmas turkeys eaten in this country at Christmas will be produced by Bernard Mathews; an inspiration to farmers and entrepreneurs.

*The Food Standard Agency has advised Government Ministers that a change in UK legislation, based on their interpretation of cloned animals (which is different to the rest of Europe’s interpretation of the same legislation!) being included in the food chain is possible.

The FSA says that latest advice received by the agency is that meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring show no substantial difference to conventionally produced meat and milk, therefore unlikely to present any food safety risk.

The truth is that the FSA had an interpretation in place that was unenforceable, and was frankly ridiculous. Whilst we all have our opinions on cloning, we need regulation that can be enacted upon, and preferably in line with the rest of Europe, if we are indeed working under the same laws.

n This column has focused a great deal on the problems we have in agriculture when it comes to health and safety, due to the nature of the work we do every day. It was a huge shock to hear of the very sad death of Hampshire dairy farmer Ian Rook last week. Ian suffered fatal injuries when handling his Aberdeen Angus bull.

I knew Ian well and he was very well respected throughout the Hampshire farming community and will be sorely missed.

Ian was Hampshire NFU chairman from 1992 until 1993, taking up the position of honorary treasurer for the county until 2005. He also was an active member of NFU South East’s dairy board and a member of Countrywatch. Our thoughts are with Ian’s family at this very sad time.