Jeremy's Blog 22nd December 2023: The Year Turns

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 21st December 2023

With the winter solstice in the dark of early tomorrow morning, the year turns to bring 2023 to an end and open 2024 and all it might offer. The great feasts of lights, Jewish Hannukah followed by Christmas, shine out in the mid-winter, lights against the dark. From this autumn’s grey and rain sodden farmland of Britain to the grim war-fronts of south and east Ukraine, this matters for the hope and renewal it represents. Trees begin to bud, snowdrops come and the days then lengthen.

Christmas is often seen as a moment when time is “thin”, with a sense that the past can be more present, affirmed by much of the traditional symbolism of the season never minding the ghost stories. The assurance of the past may also bring comfort when the world seems darker with jostling powers, failing states, uncertain economies, the stirring of ancient evils, climate change’s effects and consequences and much else. But we also need to draw strength and resolution from it to face and make our future amid the growing and restless forces for change.

We can under-rate how much change we have seen but be too timid about what we anyway face, seeking to avoid it rather than make our place in it. In the end, we cannot hide from it. Avoiding it, looking for drawbridges to raise and comfort blankets to hold, leads to stagnation and, ultimately, risking much more radical change and deeper discomfort.

So, to keep faith with our past and thrive in the future, we have to be open to the means of change, whether to find growth again in the economy, to house our people properly or to answer farming’s productivity challenge in ways consistent with environmental demands.

2023 ends with English farming moving out of the legacy Basic Payment Scheme, with the other parts of UK preparing to move. Each business has now to look at itself as unsupported, in business in its own right, and find its way after 30 years of area payments. That unlocks pressure for change which needs to be handled well, creating opportunities for good and new farmers to build afresh while finding new futures for others. Schemes, public or private, may offer some genuine help but prove distractions for others. The need for good client-focused advice will never have been greater. The CAAV stands ready to support members in this role as trusted advisers.

With the turning of the year, it is not only for us to kindle the lights that will now shine out but, as did generations before us, to set our course to navigate the restless seas of coming change.

To bring thoughts back to homes and hearths, I wish all a merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.