Paperwork has taken much of the joy out of farming

The lads still await favourable weather conditions to start sowing the maize, just as I also await some kindness in the weather to continue sowing the spring crops. Land is ploughed and ready but remains very wet and needs a couple of days drying before any work can be done.

The weather seems to rotate in a vicious circle these days. We have some nice drying and then the heavens open, undoing all the good. The winds too will need to ease off if all the polythene covering the maize is to remain on the ground. I don't know whether or not it is my imagination but we seem to have had a lot of wind these past couple of months.

The awful weather forced cows back indoors for a few days and they were not pleased. Performance was not affected because this is tightly managed under the new system, but the cows voiced their objections to indoor confinement very loudly indeed. Thankfully, their confinement was brief and they could again go out to some of the drier paddocks.

At least the very wet weather of last week forced us to complete some paperwork that was on deadline. We had to submit a Nitrates Report before March 31 because this was part of our Cross Compliance inspection.

Sometimes I wonder if there will ever be an end to this unproductive type of paperwork. To my mind it is futile and does little to enhance either farming or the environment.

All it does is create yet more stress for the farming community and for our Teagasc advisers, who work hard and diligently to help us with it all.

I would go so far as to say that the surfeit of paperwork required by the EU on an almost daily basis has taken much of the joy out of farming.

Such is the accountability nowadays that we must write down our actions daily in our little notebook and then transfer the information to the computer once or twice a week.

We must also keep invoices and delivery dockets to hand all the time to satisfy EU and Department requirements. We have folders for this and folders for that and at the end of the day we still struggle to find something in particular.

Balancing feed fed to cattle and slurry output together with fertiliser spread is far more complicated than it would appear. I can't do it, anyway, and would be lost without my Teagasc advisers, both Cyril and Ned.