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Articles by Tom Chanter
I Followed Hiro Protagonist into the Metaverse and Now I’m Stuck
I thought the metaverse was stupid at first, but I was wrong. The metaverse is going to have a huge impact on our world, and I’m excited for what comes next. That being said, we must ensure we use the metaverse to enhance our lives, not escape from it. A note from HackerNoon: The metaverse is quite possibly the future of the internet. To help our readers learn more about it, we've started this metaverse interview series. If you too would like to start contributing to Hacker Noon, you can do so here.
Tom Chanter: No place for a farm business in the world of ELM
Tom Chanter 16 November 2020 https://www.fwi.co.uk © Jim Wileman This second lockdown would, I thought, send similar shockwaves across the food sector as the last one, making prices very erratic but, seemingly this is not the case. Since we are now “practised” at being locked down, the behaviour of shoppers is a bit more rational – there is even plenty of loo roll on the shelves. The beef market which was hard hit last time is doing a textbook job of “carcass balancing”.
How I made $542.47 from Medium Partners without writing a word.
This is an article about moving old articles into the Partner program. When Medium announced that they were doing a revenue share with their partner writers, I started moving some of my old posts behind their paywall. One of those posts, This Alternative To-do List Will Help You Complete 100 Tasks Everyday, actually did pretty well and generated $542.47 over the last seven days. What’s cool is that the work of writing that article is long past.
Tom Chanter: Beef import policy is 'contradictory'
The last of our winter cereals should be in the ground and the farm will be settling down for its winter routine by the time you read this. However, it’s a bit doom and gloom in the country. We’re facing increasingly tighter Covid-19 restrictions and, in the farming world, there is change afoot with the recent dismissal of the House of Lords amendment to the Agriculture Bill, which would have prevented the import of food not grown to our standards.
Tom Chanter: AHDB needs to shout louder about its work
Tom Chanter 21 September 2020 https://www.fwi.co.uk © Jim Wileman The arrival of our friendly sheep farmer to electric-fence our grass leys marks the beginning of autumn. We’re going to start cutting maize imminently – certainly earlier than last year – which can only be a good thing, especially as we hope to turn the land around and put in a winter crop. Meanwhile, the beef market is beginning to take a dip.
Tom Chanter: Tractor prices make me long for a 'high-hour hero'
Tom Chanter 24 August 2020 https://www.fwi.co.uk © Jim Wileman Dizzyingly high beef finish prices, coupled with high store cattle prices and some cereals harvesting, have been the order of the day for the past month. The last time we saw a beef finish price this high was in the noughties. It’s really incredible that, considering only four months ago the finish price was at its lowest levels for five years, it’s now at its highest in more than 10 years.
Tom Chanter: Weird weather, Covid-19 and PM's spending spree
Seven months in to 2020, it’s fair to say it’s been a funny old year. My opinion was confirmed by a flick back through photos on my phone and the sparsely populated diary (that it was my New Year’s resolution to keep) which reminded me quite how much rain we started the year with. Torrential downpours, swollen rivers, floods and drowned winter crops led to a catchy spring with odd ground conditions – and in some cases a real fight to get a seed-bed.
Tom Chanter: Better beef prices and petition bring optimism
On the basis that in my last column I complained of an ill-timed drought and a week later we were rewarded with glorious rain, perhaps this one should be about depressed yields and then we will get bumper ones? As an industry, we’re currently enjoying a relatively better finished beef price at long last after the most turbulent 12 months for some time. The whole sector has breathed a sigh of relief and there’s a bit of confidence about.
Tom Chanter: MPs hell-bent on wasting reform opportunity
Let’s start with the weather. Extraordinary that it has been one of the wettest winters on record, and now Mother Nature is playing her final card, the ace also known as a drought. The heavier land seems to be bearing up, but things look a bit frazzled on our lighter sandy soil. Typical. Are we gearing up for another summer like 1976 (alright Grandpa, we’ve heard about that a million times before). Or is Mother Nature just teasing? Time will tell.
Tom Chanter: Prince Charles sums up public mood on food
Well, that’s another month gone. April done and dusted in the flashiest of flashes. Spring drilling: tick. Muck spreading: tick. Fertiliser application: tick. Maize drilling: tick (well, 80% ticked anyway). And finally, a nice shower of rain: tick. Just when I was thinking that nothing stood a chance of growing in the desert-like conditions, we were rewarded with a perfectly timed 8mm of rain and, at the time of writing, are having consistent, steady showers. Marvellous.
Tom Chanter: Shutdown shows farming isn't killing planet
I think I can finally say that spring is here. The clocks have changed and although it is a bit brass monkeys in the morning, this is short lived as the sun soon bursts through and warms everything up. The wind has been the biggest surprise. The combination of dry air and strong winds has seen ground that was waterlogged and unworkable two weeks ago turned into a dust bowl.
Tom Chanter: How well prepared are farm suppliers for change?
Tom Chanter 11 March 2020 https://www.fwi.co.uk © Jim Wileman Another month has slipped by and we are still battling with the elements. I think the farm is now so wet that it might break free from England and join the Isle of Wight, or preferably the Channel Islands, where I gather there has been less wet weather and no coronavirus. Since the turn of the new year, it feels like we, as an industry, have been increasingly bombarded with how agriculture has got to change.
Tom Chanter: Nasty, cheap meat imports could do us a favour
Tom Chanter 12 February 2020 https://www.fwi.co.uk © Jim Wileman Veganuary has come and gone and we have officially left the EU. The day after our departure from the EU the stock market didn’t crash, flights were not cancelled and, annoyingly, a bolt of lightning did not shoot out of Jeremy Corbyn‘s backside. Oh well, there is hope yet. In fact life has just carried on, which makes you wonder what the last three years of worry, arguing and concern were all about.
Tom Chanter: Local meat miles better than any vegan import
A new year, a new decade and a whole load of new challenges await an already strained industry. Hopefully we are back on the political straight and narrow with the government working together rather than against each other, and any opportunities that may arise over the next 12 months are something to look forward to. See also: Myth buster – the BBC’s anti-meat programme examined Meanwhile, life goes on.
Tom Chanter: Feeble response to biased BBC gets me raging
December has arrived. The final month of what has been a rather challenging year and a complete baptism of fire for my first year as a farm manager. It fills me with glee every time I hear someone with 10 times more experience than I do say “This has been a really tough year” because I think to myself, “Great, that means things can only get better, chin up”.
Tom Chanter: Cheap meat seekers should value UK food more
Tom Chanter 06 November 2019 https://www.fwi.co.uk © Jim Wileman Several hundred more grey hairs later and a completely worn-out bucket brush, and maize harvest 2019 is complete. The last tyre ceremoniously placed on the clamp sheet to mark the end of the farming year for us and… the start of another one. We have a mammoth task ahead of us, which is to try to plant something in the maize stubbles that is proving somewhat difficult with the weather.
Tom Chanter: A way to control beef price and make Greta smile
Maize harvest has kicked off for us. It’s a relief to be getting crop in the clamp and, on the whole, it has been a good year for maize… until now. Just when we were getting into the swing of things – with contractors primed and tractors, trailers and drivers fuelled – we did about two days’ harvesting and then, in quick succession, the forager got a puncture and the heavens opened. I can confidently say that it hasn’t stopped raining since.
The Ascent of FinTech
Society has always been hostile towards financiers. There has always been tension between the have-nots and have-yachts. For millennia people have sneered at âparasiticâ money lenders, while admiring more âhonourableâ professions from farming to art. But nothing could be further from the truth. Before the ascent of finance, society was more hostile. Hunter-gatherers didnât trade, theyâd raid.
Tom Chanter: Once in a lifetime chance to get change we need
Tom Chanter 11 September 2019 https://www.fwi.co.uk © Jim Wileman Every now and again, in times of uncertainly, an opportunity can present itself. You don’t need me to tell you that farming is an uncertain game to be in, often with no clear winners or losers. Everything can be uncertain, from next week’s weather (which, at the time of writing, looks okay) to life in farming after 31 October (which, at the time of writing, we don’t have the foggiest idea about).
Tom Chanter: Learn from vegans to reverse beef price slump
Tom Chanter 14 August 2019 https://www.fwi.co.uk © Jim Wileman A huge amount has happened since my last column – we’ve taken another cut of grass, wholecropped the oats and combined all of the barley. All has gone well and it’s good to have brimful grain bins and full silage clamps. Oh… and we have a new prime minister and a Defra minister who I’ve never heard of. Two things have not changed, however.
Tom Chanter: You know nothing until you know your costs
Tom Chanter 09 July 2019 https://www.fwi.co.uk Tom Chanter © Jim Wileman I’m thoroughly enjoying my new life as a farm manager – the ups, the downs and the weather are all challenges I gladly accept. However, nobody warned me just how tight the margins are once you wade through the financial side of things, and the consultants will say this is typical. Why, as farmers, do we consider earning very little from our farming operations to be the norm? Take the beef market, for instance.
Software Is Eating The Useless Class
The story of Marc Andreessen Tom Chanter The Internet Evangelist “He’s not great at the basics of daily life: directions confound him, because roadways aren’t logical, and he’s so absent-minded about sunglasses that he keeps a “reload station” with nine pairs on his hall table,” wrote Tad Friend in a profile for the New Yorker magazine. He grew up in New Lisbon, Wisconsin. The population? 1,500. At the age of 8 he taught himself the BASIC programming language.
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