July 2008 - Posts
For the second time in a week, the FW team find themselves covering another major event - the CLA Game Fair at Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire. Yesterday was the hottest day of the year and thousands were stuck in horrendous traffic queues trying to get into the show. The BBC made the car jams the top story of the day with doctors and nurses on tv and radio arguing that the event put essential services at risk because people could not get into work. This was a great pity because it marred what is a fabulously, classy event.
OAPs must have been pretty put off after queuing for hours and then to find the generous show discount for them at the gate amounted to just £1. Come on CLA, you can do better than that. There were big meetings yesterday between Fair officials, the highways authority and police to try to avoid further chaos today. So far, so good.
It's been pretty star studded here - yesterday we spotted Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman and, much to the delight of one of our news team, former Carry on film star and Wombles narrator Bernard Cribbins is here. Apparently both are very keen countrymen and write about fishing for various magazines. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, was also present yesterday although no one seems to have spotted him because he insisted upon being driven around not walking and wanted no photographs taken of him close to guns. Mmmmmmmmm not sure what message he is trying to contain there.
Some of the Olympic shooting team are here and Crufts presenter Peter Purvis. As I write, the CLA press team are busy organising with precision the logistics of the Duke of Edinburgh's visit today. He's doing a royal tour this morning and security over a site this huge will be challenging.
FW is running a debate this morning on: We need more food - is it time to forget about the birds? With the pressure on to increase food production, is it time for a shift in our priorities? Should we be worrying less about the birds and more about upping crop and livestock production? Or are the two achievable in tandem? Let us know what you think at fwi.space.co.uk.
Chaired by our business editor Ian Ashbridge, this debate should be fun as we have strong speakers with suitably opposing positions on the theme. So if you're at the show, get on down to the main theatre at 11.10am.
The Welsh certainly know how to stage an agricultural show. The weather is glorious and the scenery stunning - this week the FW editorial team are reporting from the Royal Welsh in Builth Wells, Powys and what an amazing event it is.
The organisers have got the balance just right - a good livestock showcase, a celebration of farming and food from Wales combined with full on entertainment for all ages. Attendance figures for the first day were an impressive 51,360 at 3pm, which is 3000 up on last year and 2000 up on the 10 year average.
This show has everything going for it in terms of a passion about farming and the local environment. As you'd expect, there is a positive tribal vibe going on and visitors receive an extemely warm welcome from the Welsh. This is customer focus at its best.
At times it resembles Glastonbury, such is the appeal for young people. There are thousands of them enjoying all aspects of the show and not just the beer and social scene.
A reliable source told me yesterday that I was the first ever FW editor to attend, which is pretty poor given the quality of the event and the volume of readers we have in the region. I have been knocked for six by the enthusiasm here and the positive tone. I must also admit that it's woken me up to the potential in terms of devolution.
The Welsh have a unique approach to most things and their devolved parliament is already delivering real benefits to farmers, particularly on animal health policy. It's clear that at FW we need to work harder at representing the differences in Wales and Scotland through our content in the magazine and the website. That can sometimes be difficult to achieve when page space in print is limited but yesterday we came in for criticism from the new director at NFU Cymru Mary James who argued that we are not doing enough reporting from Wales especially when their approach on issues such as bovine TB and badger culling is completely the opposite to the rest of England. It's a fair point but what do others think?
FW now has two correspondents in Wales - Bob Davies, based in Welshpool, who has been reporting for us for over 40 years and Gaina Morgan, an experienced former broadcast journalist and farmer. Its our intention to step up our coverage from the region not just in words and pictures, but also videos and forum interactivity. More Welsh farmers have web and broadband access these days so we will be encouraging them to participate in FWiSpace. If you're attending the show, then share your pictures in our gallery.
We've had another leaked story this morning on Bovine TB but this time it has come in from our journalist colleagues in Holland working on their farming daily Agrarisch Dagblad and it is more bad news.
They are telling us that 27 Dutch farms are under cattle restrictions after calves with bovine tb were imported from the UK at the end of May. Apparently, the calves were exported from a Uk farm that thought it was TB free but later found it wasn't and notified DEFRA immediately.
If you can understand the Dutch language, and I can't, then you can pick up a lot more than me from a video interview Agrarisch Dagblad is running on its website right now. I can just pick up the gist of the headline and caption and they seem to be talking about British veterinary controls being woefully inadequate. It's at moments like this when I wished I had made more effort to learn languages at school.
Inevitably, the Dutch livestock industry is up in arms as the country has been free from Bovine TB for at least 10 years. So far, 4000 cows are being investigated and some have already been slaughtered. The Dutch Beef Association is calling for an import ban and there is speculation that the Belgians will jump on the bandwagon too.
This could not have come at a worst time for the UK livestock sector. It puts all the focus back on to cattle to cattle transmission of the disease at a time when the pressure should be on culls of infected badgers in hotspot areas. DEFRA must have known about this problem for at least six to seven weeks and has said nothing, presumably to try to protect the UK industry for as long as is possible.
Our news team have understandably had reservations about putting this story up on our website until we had all the clear facts. You can see a bald outline of the latest news on fwi.co.uk and more will be forthcoming shortly. Once again, this has serious repercussions for animal health strategies not just in the Uk but right across Europe. It makes me query whether a stand off between the Government and industry stakeholders continues to be a good idea following the no badger cull decision. We need to work together to solve these crises and rebuild confidence - the current impasse helps no one.
The FW team has been at the Royal Show, Stoneleigh for the last two days and it's been an excellent event from a news point of view but not necessarily the news we wanted to hear. Yesterday proved to be a critical day as we woke to leaked news on the BBC that the Government had made its long awaited decision on whether to cull badgers to control bovine tb. The news, as we had predicted, was not good. The BBC claimed a leaked source had said the decision, due on Monday, would be against a cull. Sir David King, the Government's former chief scientist was on tv and radio purporting dismay if this leak were true. It amounted to Government completely ignoring his own recommendations.
Leaked news can be tricky. Usually, it turns out to be true but until it is confirmed to be true journalists inevitably end up speculating. And that's what happened yesterday. The entire media crew at the Royal Show - from the BBC to Reuters, the daily nationals and regionals and Farmers Weekly - spent all day trying to substantiate the story.
I'm completely biased of course, but the FW team did a great job at covering the story with breaking news, farmer reaction and video interviews. There's also a video of Hilary Benn briefing the media at the show - although in reality he gave little away and kept urging everyone to wait until Monday for an announcement. He comes across as a man of integrity who cares about agriculture but recognises he still has a lot ot learn about it. I think his main problem on culling is that he isn't convinced it will stop the spread of disease and he's concerned about public acceptance of any actions. Two key practical issues which, in our opinion, can be overcome.
If it's true and Hilary Benn does make a statement to the House of Commons on Monday saying he does not believe a cull will control the spread of the disease, then it has far reaching consequences for farming families. Our view is that it is not only a travesty that Government has procrastinated for so long on this while farmers have suffered serious losses but it also risks damaging relationships big time.
Whatever farmers say about Defra and usually it's not complimentary, there have been significant improvements in the way industry and Government officals work together in recent years. We're at a fundamental stage in terms of co-operation, consultation and negotiation over cost and responsibility sharing on animal health in this country and one cannot imagine that issue going any further if a cull is not forthcoming.
There were farmers yesterday already threatening non co-operation and taking matters into their own hands. We fully appreciate how people are feeling but emotional knee jerk reactions now do not help farming one jot. It is essential that we get the right message across to the public about the consequences of no cull on cattle and the devasting effect on farming families. We cannot expect the masses to come with us but we should be able to communicate effectively the seriousness of the situation on livestock herds and help more of the public understand the issues better. The NFU is seeking legal advice and working on a communciation strategy to this end as we speak. There is a talk of action in the streets of London next week to manage the messages about the plight of farming families.
When I got home last night from the Royal Show, there was an email from an Angus Thomson. It read:
"There are those who believe that a cull of farmers would enhance the countryside, promote wildlife, improve nutrition, remove 15 minutes of snivelling a day from Radio Four and enable other people to get to the bar. It would certainly give bagders a laugh".
That's what we're up against..... and why we need to manage the messages very carefully. Have a good weekend.