There are two types of invertebrate on our farm that I refer to as “the enemy”. They are the fly and the liver fluke, one an external parasite and the other an internal one, each the bane of the health of our cattle and sheep across the Pevensey marshlands. We have over 150 species of fly on the farm, and more than 20 species of snail that play host to stages of the liver fluke cycle. As invertebrate populations across the globe are crashing, horrifyingly quantified by Francisco Sanchez-Bayo and Kris Wyckhuys in the February journal of Biological Conservation, I find myself reviewing our own farm practices. This summer we shall remove the low-volume dose deltamethrin insecticide from the cattle and replace with garlic. The sheep policy will also be reviewed, for, despite already being an organic system our stock rely on medicinal parasiticides. While generations of farmers have spent their lives reducing insect burdens on their holdings, mine will be the first to seek to travel in the other direction.
Rot and decay are life giving processes, and environments without these processes are ultimately doomed
The Farmer
