Although we are rarely going to agree on things (although we do agree on Fineshade Wood) I cannot help myself being impressed by the energy of my young, new and shiny MP, Mr Pursglove. This morning I received a letter in the post replying to my email to him of just yesterday! Mr Pursglove says…
Category: FARMING
Hedging our bets
Further to my earlier blog about hedge-cutting dates – it seems that I was foolish not to follow my erstwhile rule of thumb which is that if the NFU says something then it is likely to be wrong. My attention has been drawn (by my olders and betters – though not by the author of…
And so it begins
The NFU is lobbying hard to be able to cut hedgerows a month earlier than is currently allowed. This is being billed as an unfair restriction on farmers imposed because of EU legislation. I’m not quite sure about that – do any readers of this blog know whether that is actually true? Is this the…
All change at Defra – not quite
And so we say farewell to Liz Truss and Rory Stewart – both of whom were promoted in Theresa May’s reshuffle. Truss remains in the Cabinet and got the bigger job in Justice (never has a promotion been so unjust) and Rory Stewart is made Minister of State at International Development. Only George Eustice, the…
Biofuels – let’s dump them
The idea that up to 7% of the fuel you put in your vehicle could come from food crops – not waste but actual food crops – is obscene in a world where people are starving. It’s even more obscene where the calculations show that (for various reasons which I won’t go into now) this…
Throwing CAP up in the air
Everything is in flux, but if we really are leaving the EU then the biggest conservation opportunity is bound to be through changing our financing of agriculture. We spend £3bn per annum on agricultural support at the moment (in England and Wales). We can spend more or less than that post Brexit because we…
Are farmers bonkers?
Tomorrow we will find out whether farmers, in the shape of the NFU, are completely bonkers? As has been rehearsed here already, some Brexiteers, including my MP, seem to think that we would continue to pay farmers lots of money just because we are in thrall to them, if we left the EU. This scenario…
If we left the EU…
My MP is keen that we should vote to leave the EU. He replied to me in a letter ‘This means that we currently send £50 million a day to the European union. If the UK was not in the EU, we could spend this money on farming and our public services, as we see…
Debate on floods (updated with links and quotes)
I watched the opposition day debate on the floods with interest – every minute of it. There were quite a lot of MPs, of both main political parties, taking the time to praise their constituents and to ask for promises of government money. Fair enough. Some of them were more subtle and convincing than others….
What nonsense from Defra
‘Bovine TB eradication strategy delivering results‘ was the headline of a press release issued by Defra on Thursday last week. Defra went on ‘The comprehensive strategy to eradicate bovine TB in England is delivering results with more than half the country on track to be officially free of the disease by the end of this…