David is a partner in EJ Barker and Sons, farming with brother Roy, son Patrick, and nephew Brian. The farm extends to 535 hectares, growing wheat, barley, oilseed rape, grass seed and field beans, with 48km of hedgerow and an abundance of wildlife. This year he is president of Suffolk Show. Here he speaks with Gina Long.

What is your connection to East Anglia?

I was born at Hall Farm, Langham, not far from Walsham Le Willows, on a farm with a dairy herd being milked not far from the back door. As a toddler I would watch the cows being milked, and one day they lost me. My grandmother said they found me in the meadow. The cows were in a big circle with me in the centre!

What is your East Anglian heaven?

The countryside of Suffolk and South Norfolk is my heaven. In particular the areas where farming operates alongside an abundance wildlife.

What is your East Anglian hell?

The litter. I just wish these people would take it home or place it in a bin!

What are your favourite East Anglian restaurants?

The Four Horseshoes at Thornham Magna or the Guinness Arms at Icklingham. Two of many superb country pubs with good food.

What’s your favourite East Anglian landmark?

The tower of St Edmundsbury Cathedral.

What’s the best thing that happens in East Anglia every year?

The Royal Norfolk and Suffolk Shows, I was Suffolk Show director 1994-97 so I know what goes into preparing these events.

What's your specialist Mastermind subject?

Ipswich Town Football Club. I saw my first game at Portman Road in 1960.

What is always in your fridge?

Greene King IPA or Adnams Southwold Bitter.

What’s your simple philosophy of life?

Keep farming whatever the obstacles. I kept pigs for 40 years and had many obstacles but they were overcome!

What’s your favourite film?

Escape to Victory.

What was your first job?

At four-years-old I drove an Allis Chambers tractor and trailer in a circle around the meadow as the cowman threw kale to the cows.

What is your most treasured possession?

The 1939 John Deere Model B. My father had it when he left school and it was one of the first rubber wheeled tractors in the area.

Who do you admire most?

Margaret Thatcher for getting the UK back on its feet, and Minette Batters, the present president of the NFU.

What is your biggest indulgence?

Ice cream.

What do you like about yourself most?

My passion for wildlife.

What’s your worst character trait?

Getting worked up at cricket - in particular at Bury St Edmunds, or watching England!

Where is your favourite holiday destination?

Menorca. We had many family holidays on the island.

Best day of your life?

Winning the Silver Lapwing Award presented at the House of Commons in 2009, surrounded by family and friends.

What’s your favourite breakfast?

Sausage, bacon and eggs, locally sourced.

What’s your favourite tipple?

A pint of best bitter.

What’s your hidden talent?

Saving penalties on the football field.

What’s your earliest memory?

The Queen’s Coronation.

What would you like played at your funeral?

I have told my sons that if the Duke of Edinburgh can be taken to the church in a Land Rover then I can travel in my Proton Jumbuck and they can sing Jerusalem. The cricketers present can imagine they are with the Barmy Army.

Tell us something people don’t know about you?

I am the only person still living in Westhorpe who ever heard the church bells ring. I remember because it was 1959, and the dogs would set their heads back and howl! This year we launched an appeal for £129,000 to restore the church bells. Included is a bell dated to 1450, which would have been heard by Mary Tudor Queen of France and sister of Henry VIII when she resided at Westhorpe Hall.

What’s the worst thing anyone has ever said to you?

‘We are going to have to cancel the show`. It was just before 9am on Thursday, June 8, 2012. As senior steward for press, I was with David Nunn and Chris Bushby. The weather forecast was gale force winds by midday. There was no other choice. I took out my mobile phone rang the BBC Radio Suffolk newsroom, and within a few minutes David Nunn was live on air with Mark Murphy. We saved thousands of people travelling. By midday marquees were flying through the air. It was the right decision.

Tell us why you live here and nowhere else?

I love rural Suffolk with one great wish for the church bells in Westhorpe to ring again.

What do you want to tell our readers about most?

I have a lifetime’s interest in farming and the environment, and there have been immense changes in that time. At agricultural college in the late 60s the word ‘conservation’ was never mentioned. In my view the worst period for the farmed environment was the 1970s with neat and tidy farms, the flailing of ditches all year round and the wholesale removal of ponds, hedges and woodland.

In 1979 on our farm we commenced a programme of tree planting and hedgerow restoration, much of which was natural regeneration. Some thought we were odd balls, but agricultural policy in my view had gone too far, and the industry needed to refocus on conservation but still produce plentiful food.

During my time as Chairman of Suffolk NFU we launched the Stanton Survey which highlighted the landscape features and wildlife in that 50 square mile part of Suffolk. I took the opportunity to work with conservation organisations, in particular with Derek Moore at the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, who became a lifetime friend.

As conservation rose higher up the political agenda, I became chairman of the Suffolk Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group. During that time we were alarmed at the EEC bringing in compulsory rotational set-aside when farmers were forced to cultivate the bare fields during the bird nesting season. This was madness and when John Cousins came up with the term ‘Green Veins in the Countryside’ we campaigned with this as our banner headline, in the House of Commons and Brussels for a policy change. I remember John Gummer meeting us and saying ‘This is the first time I have met a delegation representing both farmers and conservationists. You are a powerful lobby!’

We helped to change the policy and, as a result, field margins, with their positive effect on buffering watercourses and providing wildlife habitats, became widespread.

On our own farm, as my brother and I took a back seat a few years ago. We entered a higher-level stewardship scheme in 2007, and 10 years later the recorded data confirms that we doubled the farmland bird population and created a much more sustainable farming system. The scheme targeted grey partridge and great crested newts, numbers of which have increased dramatically. However, in addition the population of other species like moths, dragonflies and bees have increased across the entire ecosystem. The farm was highlighted in the Government’s 25-year Environment Plan as an example of sustainable farming.

My message is that it is not rocket science to have a farming system that produces an abundance of high value food in an environment rich in wildlife.


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