We come back to the price of food every now and again in this blog. It’s not a subject I know that much about but I’m happy to go along with the general consensus that we have cheap food and that food has become cheaper over the last 40 years or so. I read in…
Tag: agri-environment schemes
Guest blog – The flight of the neonicotinoids by Matt Shardlow
Matt Shardlow is the Chief Executive of the Invertebrate Conservation Trust Buglife. Buglife is the only organisation in Europe committed to saving all invertebrates; the charity has twenty four members of staff and a growing portfolio of conservation projects. The charity’s priorities include the sustainable management of brownfield sites; saving endangered Biodiversity Action Plan Priority…
Conservatives in Defra – not doing too well really
I can’t find the Conservative manifesto from the 2010 General Election online but I have my copy to hand. Here are some quotes from pages 95-97 with my assessment of how Defra has performed in nearly three years of being in ‘power’. ‘The most pressing animal health problem in the UK today is bovine tuberculosis…
More on the EU budget
Institute for European Environmental Policy. NFU. Martin Harper’s blog. CAPreform.eu Defra website – nothing at all. I am always shocked by the fact that our government doesn’t think it has any obligation to feed back on the results of major EU decisions – like settling the budget for the next five years. It’s hardly surprising…
Last week’s news
It’s quite difficult to get past the headlines to understand the details of the EU budget agreement. Yes the budget has been capped thanks to some good negotiation by plucky David Cameron but what does that mean – particularly for the environment? I bought the FT, Independent and Guardian on Saturday and found them no…
Guest Blog – ‘Muzzled Watchdog’ to ‘Toothless Terrier’? by Helen Kirk
Helen Kirk has been described as ‘an indefatigable and tenacious environmental campaigner and amateur naturalist’. For more than 30 years she has championed and helped safeguard the Humberhead peatlands, and the special plants and creatures that depend on them. She is the executive secretary of the Thorne and Hatfield Moors Conservation Forum and has recently…
Food for thought
I expect you have eaten well over the break and are probably, like me, a bit podgier than a couple of weeks ago – or maybe not? If there is anything that might put you off your food it is the sound of the President of the NFU going on about the need for greater…
Bankrupt policies from Defra
Last week George (Gideon) Osborne had to do something different because it was clear that his economic policies weren’t working (he did the wrong thing, but he did have to do something) whereas there is no sign that Defra is going to do anything different even though their policies aren’t working either. The differences between…
Wuthering Moors 27
Blogs entitled ‘Wuthering Moors’ form a series of articles about the Walshaw Moor Estate and its relationship with Natural England and Defra. The Observer published this letter from a sizeable group of Hebden Bridge residents who are concerned that the management of nearby grouse moors including Walshaw Moor has increased the risk of flooding for…
Back to skylarks and Hope
I wrote a little about skylarks here recently – and how numbers had quadrupled at the RSPB’s Hope Farm over the last 12 years, increasing from 10 pairs in 2000 to the low 40s in recent years). The story of how skylarks increased is quite well known – it’s done by leaving small bare patches…