Flying out of Bristol Airport for the RDS in Dublin, I look down on the parched brown fields of southern England.

As I arrive in Dublin, I can see the grass fields are starting to yellow a bit. The other difference is we have completed harvest, though it doesn’t look like Ireland is very far on yet.

The Royal Dublin Show lives up to all expectations and should be on the bucket list of every horse-loving person.

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My mother always told me, "you scratch an Irishman, you’ll find a farmer", but, I can tell you, the Irish love of the horse is intertwined in his DNA. The standard and quality of the animals presented was outstanding.

The Irish draughts are as strong as ever, particularly in the stallion parade. Surely, the standard of the Irish draught has remained high, since quite a few farmers keep a couple of brood mares - something sadly lacking in England.

Horse breeding

Since with the introduction of the motor car and tractor to the land, horse breeding on farms disappeared into the hands of the stud farms, which concentrated on racehorses – while we sourced our hunters from Ireland. The horse culture in Ireland is a heritage to be proud of.

I met up with our Irish friends in the Long Bar; talk soon turned to farming.

One mentioned he was about to cut his whole crop. "Clamp or wrap," I asked. "Clamp," he said, and commiserated with me when I told him that last year I bought 50ac of clover and wheat and wrapped it. When I came to start feeding it, I discovered the rats had had a feast and ruined it. I wish somebody had told me, it’s easier and cheaper to learn from others' mistakes than your own.

Full winter rations

Back home, we are on full winter rations again and looking to buy silage rather than wait for the chance of a late cut. With the fields parched brown, even if we had rain now, it would be the end of September before we had any worthwhile crops.

I always say you can’t afford to gamble, if you can’t afford to lose. This is one time we can’t afford to lose. We’ve been offered 600t of good quality silage six miles away at £55/t, which I’m seriously thinking of sourcing.

We are seriously going to have to consider pressing the government to pay more attention to food security, reducing herd numbers and renting more ground

We have a TB test tomorrow and, if we can’t sell our crop of heifers, we’re gonna be seriously overstocked, with the silage clamp half empty – because of what we’re feeding now and were let down on 100ac silage early on.

They say if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen. A very apt phrase at this time, and the prospect of next year being worse. We are seriously going to have to consider pressing the government to pay more attention to food security, reducing herd numbers and renting more ground.

Hold that thought. We have just failed our TB test, so we'll have to buy the silage.

I have also just discovered that DEFRA employs, or more aptly, empowers, 6,600 officials, with only 20 working on drought and food security. Glad to see the government is taking this seriously.