At last week’s uplands conference at Newton Rigg, speaker after speaker pointed out that upland farming wasn’t really profitable. Different speakers, and different participants, drew different lessons from this. One of the best speakers at the conference was Neil Heseltine. I’m told he’s a good-looking young man (it’s difficult for me to tell) but I…
Category: FARMING
Nonsense
I did, kind of, tell you so… In The Times, once a dull but reliable newspaper, a few days ago there was a headline thus ‘Farmers praised as Skylarks soar again’ (click here but you need a subscription). The piece by Ben Webster was a write-up of the GWCT ‘survey’ of farmland birds by farmers…
The new Clint Eastwood film
The NFU elections provided us with a the possibility of a new Clint Eastwood film but whether it is a remake of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, or the Good, the Good and the Good, or simply the Bad, the Bad and the Bad remains to be seen. I will try, very hard,…
Peter Kendall – bye bye!
I’ll let you into a couple of secrets – although neither may come as a surprise to you. First, I’ll miss Peter Kendall (a bit). Everyone deserves to have a pantomime villain to boo and Peter has thrown himself into that role with gusto for eight years. We’ll have to see whether the new NFU…
Who will be leading the NFU? and Dredging the depths
Two weeks tomorrow will see the election of a new NFU hierarchy of President, Vice President and Deputy President. The candidates for the NFU posts are as follows and you can see what they say about themselves by following the links (and their Twitter accounts). Not much about the environment is there – from the…
Scottish farmers call for raptor action
Argyll farmers want something to be done about White-tailed Eagles. White-tailed Eagles do eat dead lambs and they probably eat a few live ones too – particularly sickly ones. It;s also true that White -tailed Eagles are likely to reduce Golden Eagle numbers in coastal areas. However, this is a magnificent native bird whose contribution…
Arise Sir John
The recently knighted Sir John Randall MP is a birder. Having stepped down from being Deputy Chief Whip he is now enjoying the freedom of the backbenches and the freedom to speak up for nature (note this speech he made in the Christmas adjournment debate from 1:40pm onwards where he touches on various subjects including…
A letter from Rupert
I am grateful to my MP, Andy Sawford, for writing to Defra on my behalf to ask them about the continuing declines in farmland birds. And I am grateful to Lord de Mauley (or Rupert) the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Natural Environment and Science at Defra for his reply. Rupert mentions that this…
That CAPs the year off nicely – not!
The decision of the coalition government to reject the Secretary of State for the Environment’s recommendation of a full 15% rate of modulation for the CAP (and go for 12% instead) caps off an awful year for wildlife in England; – glacially slow and inadequate progress on MCZs – UK opposition to a neonic ban…
Blog for Green Alliance
To see a blog about why we should get serious about wildlife declines visit the Green Alliance website by clicking here.