I like Charles Clover but I don’t (by any means) always agree with him. His column in today’s Sunday Times is entitled ‘Greedy farmers a-milking it, no turtle doves and no partridges either‘ and describes Peter Kendall as ‘the cocky ambassador of agri-business‘. Wow! Even I am more polite about PK than that! Charles Clover,…
Tag: agri-environment schemes
More on that 15%
Although the NFU says that it has written to every MP on the subject of CAP reform they don’t put that letter (or those letters) on their website as far as I can see. What they do say on their website is that they are ‘increasingly infuriated‘ with the government position. Only the farming industry…
Writing to my MP – 1
I’ve been telling people that they should write to their MPs as I travel around the country giving talks. Politics is at the heart of almost all solutions to environmental problems. So, I wouldn’t ask you to do it if I wouldn’t do it myself, so here is the first of monthly letters that I…
CAP consultation – here’s one I prepared earlier (and have updated slightly)
In each part of the UK, the governments are consulting on how the tweaked Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) should be implemented. I have drafted my response to the Defra consultation and here it is for people to comment on. If you like it you can simply copy and paste it into the consultation and send…
Bird Atlas – Farmland birds
Pictures can get messages across better than words sometimes. As one flicks through the pages of this Atlas one keeps seeing farmland species with shrinking distributions. But the key to truly appreciating the scale of what is happening to these familiar birds is to look at the maps of change of relative abundance. Time after…
And so we say farewell…
…to Peter Kendall, the President of the National Farmers’ Union, who has decided not to seek re-election next February. Farmers Weekly quotes Kendall as saying he isn’t looking for a career in politics – so I expect that’s where he’s heading. Peter Kendall has been a very popular NFU leader amongst farmers – he has…
An open letter to the new Defra Ministers
To George Eustice and Dan Rogerson. Dear Ministers Congratulations on your new ministerial appointments. You have an unpredictable time, but no more than 568 days (less holidays, the run up to the General Election, time off sick and being moved on or sacked) to make a difference. Given the uncertainties of Ministerial tenure you can’t…
Wuthering Moors 34 – the Defra response to the EU Commission
Further to this morning’s post, here is the information levered out of Defra on their response to the EU Commission regarding the RSPB complaint to the EU over the Walshaw Moor affair and its implications. WMEL below refers to the Walshaw Moor Estate Limited. I will post my early thoughts on this, here, at 1500…
Ralph Underhill cartoon and CAP nonsense from farmers (just pretend it’s Saturday)
The CAP coalition, led by the NFU, the CLA and the TFA, met at the Great Yorkshire Show on 9 July to reinforce their simple message to Government: Keep sending the cheques! The CAP coalition claims to represent the interest of the rural economy but is actually largely a bunch of recipients of taxpayers’…
Should we be grateful?
Sometimes governments say they are going to do 20 daft things (they never put it quite like that) and then only do 10 daft things and they expect us all to be grateful. There ought to be a word for it – a Greek word – maybe there is – for a victory which you…