Tag Archives: NFU
Let’s hear it for the buzzard – and the osprey
I fled Scotland a day early and am now back home – the weather drove me away. I did consider turning up at the Scottish Game Fair on Friday, but standing around in the rain, in a soggy field full of people moaning about buzzards didn’t really appeal to me. I see they will get …
Bring in the bunting…
In amidst all that buzzard-bothering nonsense of the last couple of weeks an important restatement of the absolutely obvious was made: farmland birds have declined steeply and there is no obvious redemption in sight. The most recent science on the subject was a report produced from national bird monitoring schemes across Europe, including the UK, …
Fair enough Minister
On Monday I did an interview for the BBC Farming Today programme, with the NFU’s Guy Smith. If you want to listen to that interview you can but you won’t learn anything new from it as the NFU is still in denial over the loss of farmland wildlife and the role that farming has played …
Between a rock bunting and a hard place
I had a short piece in the Farmers Weekly this week and you can read it here. But have a look at the image that FW has chosen to go with the article – a nice bunting. But wait a minute – that’s not a yellowhammer or a reed bunting, and it’s certainly not a …
NPPF
I’ve only had a very quick look at the government’s planning policy that was unveiled yesterday. It’s not my area of expertise and I would have to be led by others as to its overall impact. But I find it interesting to note that everyone seems to be claiming that they ‘won’ – which is …
Wuthering moors 3
The Heather and Grass Burning Code of 2007 may have escaped your attention although it is a quite remarkable document carrying, as it does, the logos of Defra, Natural England, the Moorland Association, the CLA, the NFU, the Heather Trust and the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation. In paragraph 10 that document clearly states that: There should …
Wuthering moors 2
Last Wednesday all Natural England staff received an email entitled Natural England’s work in the uplands. It tried to explain why NE’s Chair, Poul Christensen, had been reported as saying that NE’s Vital Uplands document had ‘let his organisation down badly’. Because not everyone agreed with the NE vision, which you may have noticed was …
The home straight
You only have two weeks to join over 700 others in voting in the Nature of Harming ‘award’ – the results will be announced on April Fools’ Day. Although there is a clear leader, one candidate made a strong bid for your vote this week and it seems that another is planning to get your …
NIAs again
Nature is everywhere, it’s all around us and it is in trouble in many places around us. When government was looking for areas to qualify as Nature Improvement Areas it had plenty of places from which to choose – 76 proposals came forward for the £7.5m funding that was available for just 12 sites. Those …
A busy week
Congratulations to the re-elected NFU President, Peter Kendall, whose speech at the NFU Conference was described as ‘shocking and regressive‘ by one of his own members on this site on Wednesday. That farmer said he voted for the NFU in the Nature of Harming ‘award’ and writes rather harshly that ‘Peter Kendall is a PR …