From the farm at Yockenthwaite

2:40pm Thursday 3rd April 2008

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I have been amazed how many people have commented since I wrote about oats a few weeks ago.

I had a lovely letter from Jean Reinsch, of Grassington, who gave me an old recipe for Wharfedale Parkin made using oatmeal, and I have been told by at least three people about a stall that used to stand on Settle Market every Tuesday selling oatcakes. I wonder if anyone else remembers this and if they can recall what the oatcakes were like?

It's so strange how small things like this evoke such vivid memories. At home in Settle, where I used to live, Friday was always baking day and I can remember coming home from school to find the counter top in the kitchen covered in cakes and pasties. Mum and nana had been slaving away all day baking so that there was always something in the tins for "drinkin" or tea time and there was always something there in case "somebody comes".

Fish and chips from Hellifield were always a treat in those days and we used to ride up on to Long Preston moor to eat them on the way home while enjoying a fine view of the Ribble valley. Home-made ice cream from a little shop on the edge of Newby Moor was another treat we looked forward to on a hot day in the summer. It now seems a long way to go just for an ice cream, but at the time there was nothing like it.

Baking days are now a thing of the past, I'm afraid. Having time to spend half a day baking is a luxury that I don't seem to get. What I would give for tins full of cakes to help fill a family of growing lads with hollow legs!

All of a sudden the "powers that be" seem to have woken up to the fact that there are a lot of people in the world to feed and just about every day there is some mention in the media about the spiralling cost of food and people going hungry. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next decade and I am sure that we will all have to learn not to take our food supply for granted.

Since last summer our production costs have increased on both sides of the business. Animal feed and the raw grain that we buy off farm to produce our cereals have increased dramatically and there is no sign of them going back down in the near future.

For the last decade or so, farming in this country has been actively driven away from production more towards environmental stewardship, and the change from the old MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food) to DEFRA (Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) suggests that politicians regard the environment as a priority, but surely not at the expense of creating a country that can't feed itself.

It is a fine line, a balancing act, because the environment must be protected in order to keep it in good heart to sustain future generations.