Here is an exam question for a politics course – and some notes to help you answer it. Q: compare and contrast the winter fuel payments to pensioners with CAP payments to farmers. Some notes to help your revision: similar annual sums of money are involved – around £2bn per annum all pensioners are eligible…
Category: FARMING
Tale of a hedge (revisited)
In 2014 I wrote a few blogs about a puzzling hedge (see here, here, here). The resolution to the puzzle was that a farmer had driven down the road with his spray still on and had, accidentally, sprayed over a mile of roadside hedge . Time for an update – this is the fourth spring…
Food prices may be lower after Brexit
This is an interesting article by Warwick Lightfoot, Director of Research and Head of Economics and Social Policy at Policy Exchange. Unsurprisingly, from the Policy Exchange, it is strong on the view that leaving the EU will increase competition and therefore allow food prices to drop. This would be good news for consumers – that…
Dinosaur vocalisations in Jurassic Park
Guy Smith, vice-president of the National Farmers’ Union, said last week that farmers were at risk of being treated as “park keepers”, with Britain forced to increase its reliance on imported food. ‘If the only support mechanism that we get is for environmental delivery, we then become state paid park keepers,” he said. “My concern…
National Trust turns Natural Trust?
The National Trust has a poor reputation amongst wildlife conservation organisations. This stems from a couple of things. First, the National Trust could do so much more to help nature, given its massive membership, large landholding and rich resources. This has been the case for many years. Second, despite the low priority that the NT…
GM crops
Genetic modification after Brexit is now being discussed and I’ve just listened to Princess Anne’s opinions on Farming Today. What she said wasn’t very controversial despite all the hyping by the BBC yesterday. The benefits of genetic modification were all hypothetical ones in the future rather than ones that are available now and being held…
Farming Today, today
I’m staying with friends wondering whether Peregrine Run is a good bet in the 2:50 at Cheltenham this afternoon, so when I woke at around the fairly usual 05:15 I didn’t wander down the landing to my computer and start some work. Instead I used my ‘phone as a computer and listened to Farming Today…
Reply from Defra
I wrote to my MP asking him to pass on my approval of what George Eustice, the agriculture minister, said about funding for grouse moors in his remarks at the Oxford Farming Conference. Here is the reply. It doesn’t say that much, but MPs, ministers, in fact all of us, like being told that we…
A crisis for the NFU?
Brexit means Brexit, and we now can be sure that it means a pretty stiff Brexit if not a hard one. This isn’t what most British farmers wanted but it’s what they are going to get. And it is going to be tough for them. I remember talking to a local sheep farmer about a…
Brexit means?
Tomorrow our Prime Minister will set out her thoughts on what Brexit means – presumably beyond ‘Brexit means Brexit’. Are you fed up with Brexit already? Well, there are years and years to go so you’d better get used to it. She is expected to say we are heading for a ‘hard Brexit’ (according to…