Research Methods
Research Proposal
For my research proposal i have decided to look into "British Farming" I'm going to investigate the current crises in british farming, which i know has been very difficult in recent years, I've took a look online at an article by Donald Curry who's an expert in british agriculture, and he seemed to think that british farming is as bad evan worse than the BSE crises and the foot and mouth crises, my idea is to go out to different farms around lancashire, and see first hand why farming in Britain has become so difficult. over all i am wanting to end up with broad range of photographs which help describe farming in britain today, to contrast with past eras of farming. as i don't think people today seem to realise the negative impacts happening around apiculture in Britain. i feel photographing the farms will give people a better understanding and raise some understanding about the future in british produce, i want people to see these images and stair some emotions up and get people wanting change, and expecting more help and support to farmers around the uk given my the government.
How the weather has effected
Thousands of sheep and new-born lambs have died in the recent cold weather,.The cold weather "couldn't have come at a worse time" because it coincided with the height of the lambing season, Although hill farmers are used to dealing with snow, this year it has come much later in the season when sheep are at their most vulnerable because they are in the late stages of pregnancy or at the start of lambing. the farms most affected by the snow are in west Cumbria, the Pennines, the Peak District, Shropshire. The situation for sheep farmers has been made worse because 2012 was also a bad year due to heavy rain and floods - and then the start of this long winter. This summer was the second wettest in the UK since records began, Met Office figures indicated. The only summer - defined as June, July and August - which was wetter since national records began was in 1912.A drought across much of England during the spring followed by record-breaking wet weather has meant a poor wheat harvest for many farmers.
Crippling cost of feeds
Farmers problems starting with silage, the green fodder harvested from fields during the summer and stored as animal feed for the harsh winter months. "The first crop of silage was fine," for most farms "The second crop was very late and half what it should be. Plus farmers couldn't graze the cows. They had to be in from July, it was that wet. And obviously you have to feed them properly because if you don't feed them they don't produce milk."So they had to turn to higher volumes of concentrates than usual, where costs have shot up too, because of grain price rises on the international markets. "Feed has gone up by £50 or £60 a tonne." With each animal consuming a couple of tonnes of concentrate a year, that's a major cost. "As a result, the milk price is still below the cost of production because of the cost of that feed."
Disease
The most recent disease in the UK has caused birth defects and miscarriages in livestock, this has has been found on 74 farms in England. But the National Farmers' Union warned cases of the virus, which first emerged in the Netherlands and Germany last year, were being "under-reported" this supports why i think documenting the farms using photography can erg people to think about the difficulties british farmer are facing. In England, the disease has now been identified on the Isle of Wight and in Wiltshire, West Berkshire and Gloucestershire. This is in addition to farms in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, East and West Sussex, Hertfordshire, Surrey, Hampshire and Cornwall, which have previously identified cases. And unfortunately this isn't the only case of disease farms are facing There have been over 14 exotic disease outbreaks in the last 10 years including foot and mouth disease, bird flu and blue tongue, The costs of disease outbreaks in the UK are over £3 billion which is a major outbreak. and most of this money has been the loss to farmer all over Britain.
I've contacted a few friends of my Granddads who are still farming today and they seem interested in helping me, i was thinking firstly going over to there farms to gather primary research. finding out what each farm is struggling with would be a good way to compare and see if there is any similarities.
To achieve the images, I will need to thoroughly understand how each farm works, this is why i have decided to help out on each farm as work experience for a day or two, farmers are very introvert people so if your not going to take the time out to help them out and get involved there not going to let you in to there life there also very proud people so there not up for admitting there struggling. I will also have to make sure the farms i would be working with, understand my intentions as i don't want to perceive them in any way they would find offensive. The difficult part is going to be planning as i will need to work around the seasons of work on certain farms, firstly i contacted few farms in Green Howarth.
Farmer 1
Terry owns a dairy farm called elm tree, he's recently started making his own cheeses to cover the extra costs his farm is facing. So it will be very interesting to find out the problems he facing.
Farmer 2
Roy has a farm with over 200 sheep in Tockholes near Darwen and he's been farming for over 40years, it would be interesting to find out if the weather or disease has effected his farm. and compare this the differance from now and 20 years back.
I decided to research into the FSA and found out that farms all around the world face the same troubles and find them selfs in hardship with no were to turn. and an amazing group of photographer got involved in documenting the effects of unsustainable farming can have on many families. Farm Security Administration (FSA) was an effort during the Depression to combat American rural poverty. The FSA stressed "rural rehabilitation" efforts to improve the lifestyle of sharecroppers, tenants, very poor landowning farmers, and a program to purchase submarginal land owned by poor farmers and resettle them in group farms on land more suitable for efficient farming. The program failed because the farmers wanted ownership; after the Conservative coalition took control of Congress it transformed the FSA into a program to help poor farmers buy land, and continues in operation in the 21st century as the Farmers Home Administration.
The FSA is famous for its small but highly influential photography program, 1935–44, that portrayed the challenges of rural poverty. Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange were commissioned by the FSA - the Farm Security Association and the effects of the depression on the community.
This photograph that has become known as "Migrant Mother" of a series of photographs that Dorothea Lange made of Florence Owens Thompson and her children in February or March of 1936 in Nipomo, California. Lange was concluding a month's trip photographing migratory farm labor around the state for what was then the Resettlement Administration. In 1960, Lange gave this account of the experience:
I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it. (From: Popular Photography, Feb. 1960).
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