Tebay, Cumbria: I’ve had a stroke of luck with applying for government funding, but some bad vet results are overshadowing things once more
Last week was an important one as the government’s sustainable farming incentive opened for this year. Thankfully, I was working on my laptop when the email came through, so I submitted an application for us to become an organic farm. Others were not so lucky – the funding ran out after a few hours, and WhatsApp became a catalogue of despair among farmers who missed out and now don’t know how their farm businesses will survive. It’s clear that the government needs to provide more money to support sustainable farming.
Meanwhile, it’s been a difficult period since June as we’ve been “shut down” with TB. We’ve been waiting to test again so we can hopefully sell our bullocks, bull and breeding heifers. The wait has been extended because of my son’s wedding, and we had to find a new vet after our previous vet stopped taking farm animals as it was uneconomical for them. I’ve been unable to sleep. Another shutdown would again impact us financially.
