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It was a charming little spot, the sort of thing half the population dream of running away to. Matter of fact, I did myself. I live on a knackered farm and I could tell very quickly that the brothers were taking on the kind of place that would be completely impractical to run as a business. Just like the place I call home, it was a well-loved farm that had gradually run to ruin in the hands of an aging owner. Well, the margins involved in agriculture are tiny. If it were easy to make money out of farms, Tesco would have bought them all already. There’s a good reason why farms aren’t all owned by supermarkets. They’re just not really profitable.
Still, all the brothers already had jobs, so this wasn’t to be the principal source of income for any of them. Looked at from the point of view of a luxury, rather than as a necessary means of earning money, the farm was suddenly a very appealing prospect. Instead of being the job that nobody wants, it looked like a lot of people’s dream come true: a life-enhancing Eden, a kind of super-allotment. All the brothers spoke at once, with great enthusiasm as they described their dreams, their plans. The eldest was a primary school teacher, and his eyes shone as he told me all about his plans to breed rare Red Poll cattle. The middle brothers were twins — a builder and an artist who were encouraging and disparaging in turn. They were keen on shooting and had plans to plant cover for a couple of drives among other things. There were so many ideas, all brilliant. The whole situation had infectious energy and I wondered what the place would look like in a few years. The fourth brother had moved to Australia, but the others were keeping him posted. It was inspiring to hear their plans for the place, reminded me why I did something as ridiculous as buy a farm in the first place.
I often tell people I’m a farmer. Actually, very few people really know what it means these days. I guess it means anyone involved with the land. All the tasks of agriculture are actually performed by machines and the whole life cycle of a grain of wheat, or even a pint of milk, happens without anyone getting dirty hands — in fact, dairy farmers have the cleanest hands of anyone you’ll ever meet. I suddenly realised that one of the brothers had black hands. I stopped mid-sentence. ‘Hang on a minute. I’m not sure how many farmers I’ve met over the past few years, a good many: woodsmen, dairymen, combine operators, arable gamblers, pig princes, vegetable growers, the whole bloomin’ lot and yet you’re the first one who’s got the soil on his hands!’
When people ask me what kind of farmer I am, I always say, ‘Finger farmer, I point at people and tell them what to do.’ Well, there’s no shame in that; making decisions is the hardest job. Meeting these guys made me realise there’s a lot to be said for being a hobby farmer.
Hobby farming has become a dirty word; it’s used by the tax man to identify a nefarious practice of using land ownership to avoid paying taxes. It suggests someone messing around, rather than taking things seriously. I’m all for that. I think farming’s a good hobby and perhaps one day, as Andy Warhol predicted, we might well all be farmers for 15 minutes.
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