80 years ‘young’!

Our Young Farmers Clubs remain one of the largest rural youth organisations in the UK, dedicated to young people who have a love for agriculture and rural life and, surprisingly, offer an open invitation to all those youngsters people who may not be directly involved in farming or be a young farmer.

Young farmers clubs are in fact part of a worldwide organisation made up mostly of young people living in the countryside and may be known by a range of titles: YFC’s in the British Isles, 4H in many parts of Europe and America, Future Farmers in other parts of the US and Canada and elsewhere they may come within the scope of a religious body such as the International Movement of Catholic Agriculture and Rural Youth.

The Young Farmers Club movement which today provides opportunities for over 5,000 male and female members across Wales - through a network of 12 county federations and 155 clubs - is our largest rural youth grouping and this year marks it’s 80th anniversary as an all-Wales organisation.

True to tradition, the clubs are run by young people for young people through which members aged from 10-26 years are encouraged to get the most out of YFC through developing new skills, gaining invaluable training, travelling the world, helping your local community and making friends for life.

With the active encouragement of the then Duke of Norfolk, the first Young Farmers’ Club in Wales was founded at Clynderwen -stradling the county border of Pembroke and Carmarthen -in about 1929 and shortly afterwards another club was opened at Usk in the old county of Monmouthshire. The first clubs in Cardiganshire were the North Cardigan, Llanwnen and Blaenporth around 80 years ago - in those early days most clubs were considerably smaller than today as the only means of getting to meetings was on foot or with the use of a bicycle!

The Clynderwen club had developed from an early ‘calf club’ where a group of youngsters had been set the task of calf rearing, with competitions and prizes for those achieving the highest standards.

Over the next decade, more clubs opened to provide agricultural education, with the focus on the keeping of growing and living things including calves, pigs, poultry, bees and gardens.

Within a few years, it was proving difficult to offer the type of help needed by the members to offer guidance on the rural social role Young Farmers’ Clubs were assuming and soon the National Council for Social Services (NCSS) stepped in with the goal of developing YFC as a voluntary, self-governing and self-generating organisation.

The war years marked a turning point for YFC with the development of agricultural classes and proficiency tests, but were also nearly disastrous as many YFC supporters and staff were drawn into the armed forces or war work.

Some clubs announced they were closing until after the war and by the end of 1940 few people held much hope of reviving YFC, but the picture changed dramatically when the Board of Education (BoE) was empowered to give financial help to youth organisations.

A joint advisory committee was formed between the BoE, Ministry of Agriculture and NFYFC but, although membership had dropped to just 7,000, YFC now had government help, and had undergone a wide change, educationally and socially.

It had become obvious that YFC could provide a countryside youth service and became what was, unashamedly, looked upon as a marriage bureau!

By now, with great traditions and a successful past, YFC looked ahead aiming to retain those traditions yet be flexible enough to attract young people who were becoming more sophisticated with each generation. It found a way of neither becoming a narrow single purpose organisation, nor a general youth organisation, of retaining its countryside and farming traditions and yet being sophisticated enough to appeal to a wide spectrum of young people.

Throughout the golden years, morale in clubs was good, members were keen to participate. They raised large amounts of money for local and national charities and provided labour and leadership for community projects. The YFCs were encouraged by government, financial institutions, business and academia to continue its pioneering role and sponsorship and grants were made available.

Rural areas offer a lot of opportunities, especially to young people: stable social structures close links to the decision makers, people who know how to bring ideas into reality and an atmosphere full of creativity. However, many young people are forced to leave their villages because of a lack of job opportunities or limited access to education.

Despite this, many members, both male and female, have gone on to represent their communities and agriculture at the highest levels on district and county councils, as MPs, MEPs and within the realms of agri-politics both nationally and in Brussels. A Pembrokeshire member, Delme Harries (who is employed by the NFU at their Crymych office), recently stood down having served for a number of years as chairman of Rural Youth Europe spread across 29 countries.

Delme says: “With the caring support of adult volunteers and mentors, the most important thing is to trust young people, to offer them places and resources to work out their own ideas and help them to make these dreams real. Young people need opportunities to take responsibility and to identify themselves with their home villages and communities and they need these opportunities to influence their environment and their society.”

Focus on milk: profits and solutions

In a forecast published earlier this year, based on actual costs to the dairy farmer, it was stated that 2016 was likely to be particularly challenging ‘with very few producers able to sustainably produce milk at less than 23.35p/litre.’

Costed in were anticipated lower feed, fertilizer and energy costs and a plentiful carry over supply of winter fodder from the 2015 harvest.

The report also suggested that the number of producers leaving the industry was likely to accelerate and that as many as 1,000 of the UK’s 13,000 producers could do away with their herds during the current year. Output from farms this year is already down by four per cent and as many as 280 dairy farms in England and Wales have ceased production since last summer.

For June, many Welsh producers expect to be paid just 15.43p/litre but some considerably less. The returns being obtained by Irish farmers is equally low.

Many dairy companies are yet to realise that their acid whey - what is left after cheese and butter making -is a valuable raw material that can be used to create high quality and nutritious consumer products.

Acid whey contains the same minerals as milk, which means it offers the same benefits to bones, teeth and general health. But it is often disposed of in waste streams or sold for little or no profit to farmers for use in animal feed.

Worthy of special note is the new ‘maximum yield’ campaign that Arla Foods Ingredients highlighting just how acid whey can be converted into high value consumer products and, in turn, enable dairies to boost their efficiency by using 100 per cent of their milk and not just a portion of it - not least to benefit the ageing generation.

Arla Foods Ingredients is predicting a long-term increase in demand for whey protein ingredients suitable for use in products that address sarcopenia in seniors.

Sarcopenia is the loss of muscle mass with advancing age and is common in elderly people. It occurs as seniors become less active and consume less dietary protein, which results in a reduction in lean body mass that can impair movement and increase the risk of injury.

The recommended daily dietary intake of protein is currently 0.8g per kg of body weight - but nearly 40 per cent of people over the age of 70 do not achieve this. In combination with the reduction in activity levels associated with ageing, the consequence of this is that an estimated 15 per cent of people over 65 and 50 per cent of people over 80 years will experience sarcopenia and its related physical limitations at some point.

The problem of sarcopenia is only likely to worsen as a result of the world’s ageing population. The UK, Germany, France and Italy each has in the region of 11 million people aged over 65, according to Euromonitor. In the US, the figure is 46 million, and the picture is similar in major growth markets such as South Korea, Russia, Argentina and Brazil.

For Arla, business development manager Peter Schouw Andersen tells me presently in Europe over 20 per cent are aged 60 years or over and by 2050 the number is predicted to reach over 34 per cent. In Asia and Latin America just eight per cent of the population achieve 60 years.

Anderson adds: “This year, Europe will have twice as many consumers aged 55 to 74 than young people aged 15 to 24 - a trend that is mirrored elsewhere in the world. The benefits of whey protein are well documented. It is more rapidly absorbed by the body compared with other protein sources and is known to increase muscle protein synthesis after exercise in both young and older people. Whey also offers a highly nutritional amino acid profile and is particularly rich in leucine, which initiates muscle protein synthesis. This package of benefits makes whey ingredients the perfect solution for addressing sarcopenia.”

Is 38 per cent a majority?

Over recent months, there has been so much in the way of political straws blowing in the wind that I seem to have ended up with just a fistful of chaff!

Whatever the polls declare, we are advised that we should all learn something from the outcome.

The so obviously failed Welsh Assembly/Government was an obvious lesson as many considered afterwards that it was never elected to by the majority of the Welsh electorate.

Now we have the EUphoria of the in/out referendum and whilst so many are wildly excited about the outcome, the maths that I learned at school tells me that just slightly less than 38 per cent of those who had the opportunity to vote actually chose to leave.

Friends I have spoken to in recent days appear, as I do, somewhat bewildered by the outcome. A consensus of local opinion would suggest that so few people fully appreciate the true standard of living and wellbeing that we now enjoy - I feel it ain’t going to get any better and it could become far worse.

Truisms

When I joke they take it seriously but, when I’m serious, they take it as a joke.

You can’t have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.

All my life I thought air was free, until I bought a packet of crisps.

Confusion is a word we invented for an order which we have not understood.

If you treat him/her the same way as you treat others, how is he/she supposed to know that he/she is special to you.

Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.

How others see you is not important - how you see yourself means everything.