After farming Bermuda for seven decades dairy farmer Richard Bascome wants to pass on his skills to the next generation ? before it is too late.

?It has got so bad, a teacher told me this kid was saying ?I am a vegetarian?. But this other kid said ?You can?t be vegetarian. I saw you eating hamburger?. She said ?That?s okay, it?s ground beef, it grows in the ground?. We don?t need any more of that,? Mr. Bascome said.

The 69 year old said young Bermudians should be encouraged to learn about growing food so Bermuda didn?t lose the skills.

?I was born in it,? he said. ?My father had it. So I got to stay with it now. I don?t know anything else.?

A $10,000 cheque from the Ministry of the Environment will be used to make Westover Farm in Daniel?s Head more accessible so people can drive through and take a look.

Westover is primarily a dairy farm but it also grows vegetables, mostly potatoes, and slaughters animals as well. Mr. Bascome said he raised livestock, the manure of which was a necessary ingredient in succulent veggies.

?It?s a full programme that we want to enhance. If we can do that on a farm. Most Bermudians think that can?t be done. A farm is something you get rid of and keep away from because we get all kinds of smells but that goes with the territory. They have to learn we can do more things with it,? he said. ?This not in my back yard NIMBY thing has got to go. You just have to put up with a little bit of inconvenience to get through life.?

Judith Wadson said planting methods on her brother Thomas Wadson?s farm in Southampton was becoming increasingly organic. ?Tom has implemented for almost two years now pasture farming, which means that he is putting animals out in the fields and moving them around from pasture to pasture. They are being fed organically. They are replenishing the field with nutrients that weren?t there and enhancing on their fertilisation. This is more sustainable.

?He has moved them to many places all over the farm,? she said. ?There are rams, sheep, chickens and goats now. The farm is growing which will help Tom a lot.?

Lambing season saw seven lambs being born, she said.

Mr. Wadson also won $10,000 from Government for his organic pasture renovations.

They both said the tax-free concession for farmers which was brought back into force during the Budget in February has helped Bermuda?s farmers.

?Every little bit helps,? Mr. Bascome said. ?But that has just come back it was taken away over a long period of time and it was a big fight to get that back.?

Mr. Bascome wanted to emphasise the superior quality of locally grown produce.

?Although we are building everywhere there is still room for farming,? he said. ?Fertilisers have improved so we can get good crops here. The stuff grown in Florida or California that you see around here is picked at a stage when they need to get it here ? they picked it halfway when it?s not ripe. That?s why sometimes you get a tomato and it eats like an apple.?

And as far as being ?sustainable? he said no one knows how much of its own population Bermuda is capable of feeding as Bermuda?s farms have yet to reach their full potential.

?Nobody is really going full throttle at it, because there are a lot of farms still laying fallow, there are a lot of guys who just grow one crop a year,? he said.

The change of a name of a Government Department from ?Agriculture and Fisheries? to Environmental Protection and Conservation Services has upset Mr. Bascome.

?Once the name goes it seems like everything else goes with it. We need more help, more science people, more people in the field able to help us here. We need research.?

Mr. Bascome is forced to get farming tips from a friendly farmer from Pennsylvania.

?I have to deal with him to get information all the time on things that we need here,? Mr. Bascome said. ?But Pennsylvania is not Bermuda. It is a long way away and everything is different up there. But this is what we have to do. Because I cannot get it here. It?s just not available.?

A farmers? market is held every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. in November to June at the Bull?s Head car park.