OF&G :: The blog

Defra appears to have the perfect payment method - the debt that need never be repaid! According the Guardian the department managed to spend £230 million more than its actual pocket money from the Treasury. Apparently it was the only Government department to achieve this feat for the period 06/07.

A department spokesman is reported to have said: “The budget for 2008-09 has not been reduced by any clawback of over-allocations in previous years.”

Now that’s the kind of loan we’d all love to have!

Read the original story here.

It has been said that working at OF&G is a dangerous job - however we never thought we’d have to resort to biohazard outfits!

No - there’s actually a very good explanation: Members of the team visited a poultry farm as part of an animal welfare training day and of course the suits were the required uniform.

This is, in actual fact, a thinly veiled excuse to publish a photo of Nicola (left) and Jen as they have never been seen before (and wish never to be seen again).

…or The Ski’s the Limit… Terrible puns aside, just a quick note to congratulate Certification Officer Jenny Bibb on achieving her Grade A qualification as a skiing instructor. Having already gained grades C then B this, it would seem, is no mean feat.

Combine the love of the slopes with Jen’s horseback skills and we cannot help but wonder if she should be dubbed ‘Sporty CO’ (but that opens a worrying door to suggestions for what we should call the others and I’m not sure they’d like it…).

They say an army marches on its stomach (that sounds like a description of crawling to me, but still, we’ll go with it…) so it’s good to hear that the British Army is planning to start filling its stomachs with organic muesli bars.

Organic & Natural Business magazine reports that nearly two million of these bars have been ordered by the MoD for the troops from the Otter Valley Organic Food Company.

They are thought to be the first organic product to go to war!

It’s been a couple of weeks where you find yourself considering what’s really appropriate to write in a fairly lighthearted forum such as this blog. Most people in and around farming probably haven’t felt very lighthearted (better note that I’m referring to the Surrey FMD outbreak so that it makes sense if anyone looks at this in the distant future!).

So on that note I’ll stick to a bit of tale telling that might amuse a few:

Guesses welcome on which well-known agricultural college was responsible for a herd of stampeding heifers through a quiet village on Wednesday (yes, movement ban still in place). It seems they’d been moved to the adjacent yard from the field for a visit from the vet but the apparent lack of a qualified farm gate security technician (you can see what I’ve done there..) led to chaos.

It was with some surprise that householders gazed out of their windows to see about a dozen of the beasts chewing on their hedges while the rest took off hell-for-leather down the lane - in the direction of a busy B road.

Local info has it that the end result was a call to the police to stop the traffic while the round-up took place.

What can you say, apart from “whoops” and perhaps “I want my hedge back!”.

Having been assailed by the travails of our glorious leader to actually get onto the Royal Welsh site, we can now present a not-so-exclusive image of some of our team at the show.

I can confirm that model releases have been signed and any copyright issues settled to bring you the following photo of (left to right): Mari Jones, OF&G Inspector, Jenny Bibb, Certification Officer, and Research and Development Officer, Steven Jacobs.

It did cross some mischievous minds to open this up as a caption competition, but Jenny is already mortified at our choice of photo anyway!

Next time you see us at a show, don’t forget to drop by for your stylish new OF&G pen…

When OF&G Chief Exec, Richard, went to film a piece for the Beeb’s beakfast news he didn’t realise he was about to fulfill a childhood ambition.

But when he was led into the hallowed Blue Peter garden he was transported back to his days as a green-fingered (dunno about that, I made it up) youth. Just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming he set about grabbing some snaps on his phone and here, for the nostalgics among us, are the results:

Unfortunately it doesn’t appear to be the lush haven it once was under the legendary Percy Thrower’s hand. Shame.

But there are still some reminders of the halcyon days…

Sainsburys has been all over the news because of the, frankly, mad rush by shoppers to get their hands on a new designer shopping bag at £5-a-pop.

Apparently people have been queueing up outside stores from the early hours to get their hands on the limited supplies of this “must-have” accessory by designer Anya Hindmarch. And not just the bonkers fashionistas in London either, it’s even been happening here in leafy Shropshire it would seem.

What we at OF&G can’t understand is quite why. Especially when they could be lugging the weekly shop home in one of our very own stylish jute bags!

(Thanks to our Quality Systems Administrator, Simon, for agreeing to be in the cheesy photo)

This being a weblog, there’s plenty of space for everyone. So if you’ve taken a particularly stunning or amusing pic, or you’d like to share a snippet of something interesting with us, why not send it over for inclusion here?

Send contributions to mark.waugh@organicfarmers.org.uk.

Can you do better than this one our snap-happy PR guy got on a trip to Attingham Park, Shrewsbury? Probably…