The milk of human kindness

There’s been a lot in the news about the price of milk recently because of the low prices that some farmers are receiving for their produce (see here, here and here for example). I still have a milkman who delivers (quite expensive) milk to the door several times a week but I am glad to…

Bring in the bunting…

In amidst all that buzzard-bothering nonsense of the last couple of weeks an important restatement of the absolutely obvious was made: farmland birds have declined steeply and there is no obvious redemption in sight. The most recent science on the subject was a report produced from national bird monitoring schemes across Europe, including the UK,…

A song for Guy

Guy Smith, NFU environment spokesperson asked for the details of species I saw on my BBS visit.  I wonder why. I’ll do better than that Guy, I’ll list the species seen on my visit last Saturday and compare them with those seen on my first visit to this BBS square almost exactly seven years ago…

Fair enough Minister

On Monday I did an interview for the BBC Farming Today programme, with the NFU’s Guy Smith.  If you want to listen to that interview you can but you won’t learn anything new from it as the NFU is still in denial over the loss of farmland wildlife and the role that farming has played…

A farmer writes

Last week I received this letter from a farmer and I’m grateful to him for permission to publish it here along with my reply to him. Dear Dr Avery I have read articles and letters from you from time to time particularly in Farmers Weekly. We have a small farm of about 150 acres of…