The price of food

We come back to the price of food every now and again in this blog.  It’s not a subject I know that much about but I’m happy to go along with the general consensus that we have cheap food and that food has become cheaper over the last 40 years or so. I read in…

Guest blog – The flight of the neonicotinoids by Matt Shardlow

Matt Shardlow is the Chief Executive of the Invertebrate Conservation Trust Buglife. Buglife is the only organisation in Europe committed to saving all invertebrates; the charity has twenty four members of staff and a growing portfolio of conservation projects.  The charity’s priorities include the sustainable management of brownfield sites; saving endangered Biodiversity Action Plan Priority…

Conservatives in Defra – not doing too well really

I can’t find the Conservative manifesto from the 2010 General Election online but I have my copy to hand.  Here are some quotes from pages 95-97 with my assessment of how Defra has performed in nearly three years of being in ‘power’. ‘The most pressing animal health problem in the UK today is bovine tuberculosis…

More on the EU budget

Institute for European Environmental Policy. NFU. Martin  Harper’s blog.  CAPreform.eu Defra website – nothing at all. I am always shocked by the fact that our government doesn’t think it has any obligation to  feed back on the results of major EU decisions – like settling the budget for the next five years.  It’s hardly surprising…

Last week’s news

It’s quite difficult to get past the headlines to understand the details of the EU budget agreement.  Yes the budget has been capped thanks to some good negotiation by plucky David Cameron but what does that mean – particularly for the environment? I bought the FT, Independent and Guardian on Saturday and found them no…