Congratulations are in order for Ian Pigott, Hertfordshire
farmer and opinion writer for the ‘Farmer’s Weekly’. As a farmer’s daughter
myself I spend a lot of time reading the ‘Farmer’s Weekly’ over my breakfast,
although as a self-confessed ‘townie’, it is rare that I have something to say
on the matters that arise. However, Mr Pigott’s article in the latest magazine,
published 16th August 2013, was full of the eloquent anger and
contained despair that I felt regarding the same topic. It was time to make my
voice heard.
Mr Pigott laments the way that farmers are still, in 2013,
treated with “condescension and curiosity”, and held in similar regard to a
circus monkey. He had come across an article in a well-known broadsheet about
the success of Tyrell’s crisps, and was disappointed to find that the author of
the article, financial editor James Quinn, had concluded his piece, “not bad
for the son of a potato farmer”. I too find issue with this comment as it
suggests that the sons of potato farmers, or indeed any farmers, are expected
to achieve very little, and although Mr Quinn almost certainly did not mean to
cause offense with his comment, it is particularly disparaging to the farming
community.
As Mr Pigott points out, farmers’ sons have shaped our
world: Jethro Tull, Thomas Jefferson, Isaac Newton, Norman Borlaug, Henry Ford
and Johnny Cash – just a few famous names who have influenced our world, and
all came from a farming background.
So why are the children of farmers not expected to do well?
Or, more importantly, why are they not celebrated for what they do well? I don’t
think it is just Will Chase, founder of Tyrrells crisps, who has made something
from a farming background. Whether they have continued the family farm,
established their own business, or branched into new enterprises, every single
farmer’s son or daughter should be celebrated. Farming is essential to our
world. We cannot feed our children without hard-working farmers, and Mr Quinn
would do well to remember that.
Mr Pigott, on the other hand, should be praised for his
dedication to future farmers. As the founder of Open Farm Sunday, he is clearly
passionate about promoting farming, and so he should be. The National
Federation of Young Farmers’ Club goes from strength to strength and as former
JLS band member Jonathan ‘JB’ Gill recently announced he is to start farming
upon his retirement from the band, farming might be seen, finally, as the
rewarding, enjoyable job it is.
As a farmer’s daughter myself, I hope that whatever I do for
a living, I remember and stand up for my roots and my farming background. It’s time
that farmers were taken seriously. The view that farming is a backward
profession for peasant families is one that, hopefully, should be long gone.
Farmers nowadays are entrepreneurs, biologists, chemists, vets, engineers,
managers, buyers, sellers, presenters, and in the case of Mr Pigott,
journalists. While the uniform might not be as clean and the coffee not out of
a Starbucks takeaway cup, farmers deserve the same amount of respect as their
journalist peers. Mr Quinn should be ashamed of himself as he conforms to
old-fashioned, out of date stereotypes about farmers. Maybe if he had done a
bit more research on “Will Chase, Herefordshire farmer”, he would have seen
farming as it really is in 2013: a community of men and women with incredibly diverse
skills, proud of their heritage and their farming ancestors.
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