Around where I live the combines are out in the fields working by day and into the night. It’s a bit unusual that some farmers are getting in their wheat before the end of the barley or rape harvests. The high prices of wheat mean that everything depends on a good wheat harvest and yields…
Category: FARMING
Something for the weekend sir?
I love farmers. Well, admittedly not all of them, but then I don’t love all birdwatchers, all RSPB members or all of anything – maybe all hen harriers? But I do love the fact that some farmers are doing a fantastic job with the help of my taxpayer’s money on their farms. We have come…
Big Society and forestry and farming
Forestry came up in the debate in which I participated at the Game Fair. Remember the Government was heading towards a consultation on its Big Society/Small Government plans to sell off or hive off some of the forest estate to communities and businesses when it scrapped the consultation and promised to think again, and along…
Mellow farming
Yesterday I visited one of my favourite local farmers. Duncan Farrington has pulled off an amazing trick – he has made a commodity into a luxury. And he has got Nigella Lawson to back him. I first met Duncan a good few years ago when I volunteered to do some bird surveys for the RSPB…
NFU in clover?
Charles Clover can be irascible. I well remember, long ago, phoning him to try to persuade him of the newsworthiness of an RSPB story and hearing him growling ‘Boring boring, boring boring, boring boring, …‘ down the line at me. But he is worth listening to, and reading, even when wrong, and in his column…
Your taxation – who is representing your interests?
The NFU is indeed a union working for the interests of its members and we should always remember that. And we should always remember that the money for which they are negotiating is our money, but that they do not negotiate directly with us. Unlike most unions who negotiate directly with an employer, whether public…
Income support for farmers
The argument that Pillar 1 income support for farmers keeps food prices low for all of us is pretty far-fetched. In the bad old days, subsidies were tied to production – you got paid by the taxpayer for every tonne of wheat you produced whether the market wanted it or not and that led to…
CAP reform – CLA statement and a crying killdeer
I’m grateful to the CLA for sending me their statement on CAP reform, a matter of great importance to their membership: A CLA spokesman said: “There has been comment on a rumour that Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso is proposing to cut the funds for the Rural Development (second) pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)…
This could be really bad for Europe’s wildlife
We still don’t know what will emerge in the EU Budget proposals a week today but it is clear that cuts to Pillar 2 are certainly on the cards so I would ask you to support the RSPB’s campaign and let President Barroso know that you care about this issue. There are plenty of farmers…
EU CAP cuts – it’s your money – what are they saying?
I heard my former colleagues Martin Harper and Gareth Morgan spelling out the threats to Pillar 2 of the CAP early this morning. Doesn’t it sound dull? Pillar 2? CAP? But it’s about the life in our countryside and how our money is spent. The losses of wildlife in the farmed countryside have been huge…