At the Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show we paused at a tent surrounded by gleaming, blue agricultural machines to see a friend who knows the area's farmers, as he has spent his whole working life travelling north Dorset to sell tractors. He spoke of the trouble the long rainless spell (since broken) had caused, with only one good cut of hay rather than two or three. By Christmas, he said, fodder would be like gold dust. But there were positive signs too: a giant tractor bristling with sophisticated add-ons had a 'sold' notice on it, and the farming folk sitting down to a ploughman's lunch and a glass or two had a hearty and[...]

[Published in GreenNews - Read the original article]