As a grower, Jim Peach is as aware as anyone of protecting the natural environment by exploring opportunities for making use of green energy.
Which is why the issue of the wind farm proposed for West Pinchbeck is a difficult one for him.
“I am not anti-green energy, it’s just a shame it is going to impact on the village,” he says, admitting it’s a bit of a ‘not in my back yard’ attitude.
“The only thing we have got is the skyline and I think the wind farm will ruin it, but we want green energy.”
His business, J T Peach & Son, an arable farm and pot plant business run by his son Chris and his wife Caroline, is one of a number of agricultural and horticultural companies offering employment in West Pinchbeck.
Another is E M Cole Farms, a grower of hydroponic tulips, stocks, asters and lilies as well as crops such as sugar beet, wheat and oil seed rape.
The family has been farming since 1927 when James’s grandparents Eric and May ran a small farm, although the site was used as a reserve fire station during the Second World War.
James has seen a shift in work patterns, from local women working part-time in school hours to a workforce that is 80 per cent Eastern European, some of whom have worked at the farm a long time. Exceptions are Malcolm and Cliff Foster who were born in West Pinchbeck and have worked at the farm since leaving school.