Food for Thought

Arable editor Robert Harris calls for more footpath signs:

Why is it miles of Britain’s footpaths are still poorly marked or even completely invisible?

This thought was brought home to me on Sunday as, armed with map, I struck out across some of East Sussex’s finest countryside for some much-needed exercise for self and dog.

I always stick to footpaths when I can, and I know farmers appreciate it when I do, especially given the recent foot-and-mouth outbreaks.

But lack of signs and even obvious stiles on at least two of the six miles dictated close scrutiny of the map. A couple of minutes was usually enough to sort out the route, but twice I found myself on the wrong side of a hedge and another time in the wrong field entirely.

Now don’t get me wrong. The dog probably enjoyed the longer walk that entailed, and I was in no hurry and put it down to one of those things. But the farmer, had I bumped into him, might have had a different view.

I reckon I had a solid defence. But a few minutes spent improving signage (I know it’s the council’s responsibility, but you could be in for a long wait) would avoid the need for any possible confrontation.

A simple arrow on a piece of paper wrapped in plastic and pinned to a post would work wonders. And put an end to lost souls roaming across the farm in a vain bid to pick up the footpath, something that will benefit both walker and farmer alike.

Senior FW reporter Andrew Watts is an unhappy man:

Attending the Conservative Party Conference used to be a straightforward affair. But this year things changed.

Only the guys at HQ overlooked the need to amend the instructions on the media application form.

This is my third visit to the Tory Party Conference and I am now well versed in the lengthy process of applying for media accreditation. Having sent my completed form off for processing in June and booked a hotel I let my attention be grabbed by, first, the floods, then foot-and-mouth and most recently, bluetongue. In previous years a similar approach has served me well.

I arrived in Blackpool at four o’clock on Sunday afternoon having driven 265 miles from Surrey in just over four hours. After checking-in at St Andrew’s guest house run by the very friendly Geoff and Jane, I strolled off to the Accreditation Centre to collect my pass. Pushing my way past the two hour queue that stretched out the door of the St John Evangelist church to reach the media-only booth with a queue of one brought me a smile - but this soon vanished.

Imagine the sense of confusion when the young assistant informed me that my application had been delayed because I failed to include a photograph with the form. “But I ticked the box at the foot of the form which said I didn’t need to supply a new picture if I had attended a conference in the past two years,” I explained. “But the rules have changed and you should have sent a new picture,” came the reply.

I decided that it would be pointless to argue this obvious contradiction and instead agreed to sit for my new picture. This was then sent to Lancashire Police for it to verify that I am indeed who I claim to be. It seems my passport is insufficient, despite it being a necessary form of identification to claim the pass. At this point I was told to return at 9pm.

It makes bleak reading.

By January next year, the average free range egg producer will be losing a whopping £27,000/year. It’s even higher for broiler units, at over £118,000.

This prediction came from new figures recently outlined by NFU poultry adviser Sam Hawkes.

He explained that the current financial pressure is because feed costs account for such a high a high percentage of total production cost.

So the recent unprecedented increase in feed costs has directly pushed businesses into the red.

My concern is that it could lead to a shortage of British chicken and eggs, as no company can absorb the higher costs.

Processors and retailers would then be forced to source chicken from elsewhere with the end result that British chicken and free range eggs will lose market share, perhaps even disappear from supermarket shelves.

This is clearly against what consumers want, with many actively shopping for Lion eggs and Union Jack labelled (Assured Chicken Production/Little Red Tractor) chicken.

So come on retailers, give farmers what they deserve. They are not asking for a blank cheque, just sustainable pricing which better reflects the cost of production.

The NFU has persuaded top chef Jamie Oliver to make a public call for shoppers to buy British lamb, as the outbreaks of foot and mouth and bluetongue continue to hit livestock farming.

The celebrity chef said there had never been a more important time to buy lamb and create meals which are both healthy and versatile.

The UK livestock industry has been crippled by movement restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of disease in East Anglia and Surrey. Although markets are set to re-open on Thursday, the current oversupply has weighed heavily on sheep prices which are now some 30% below the cost of production.

Mr Oliver said: “Now is the time for a call to action to help our British farmers. It’s been a tough year for them and for many it’s just getting worse.

“I’d like to encourage everyone to buy more British lamb, at least for the next few weeks. Try lamb mince in your Spaghetti Bolognese for a change. Or try a beautiful roast shoulder of lamb on Sunday instead of what you might usually have.”

NFU livestock board chairman Thomas Binns said: “It is a fantastic endorsement to get Jamie Oliver on board and his support will inject some much needed confidence in the industry. Hopefully consumers will support British sheep farmers through this extremely difficult time by buying lamb which carries the Red Tractor logo.”

Farmers Weekly columnist David Richardson offers an interesting insight into what is going on with the supermarkets and the green groups at the moment.

It is good to hear that conservation groups are being told about the serious consequences some of their campaigning can have.

Advertising is everything. That’s why many global companies spend millions of pounds tempting the public to buy their products.

So what hope is there for the egg and chicken sector competing with global food players like Pepsi and Coca Cola?

My Colleague on a recent in South Africa took this picture of a novel approach adopted by a local poultry company.

Painted on one side of the poultry shed is a mural giving the appearance of a traditional stone building with two partially open wooden doors, revealing some content looking hens and eggs on straw.

Moving the bluetongue protection zone boundary is the only way to save the south and east's livestock industry.

That may sound a harsh assesment of the situation, but as someone farming in Kent at the moment I can assure it isn't. Those of us trapped inside the zone have few marketing options and no chance to move stock to traditional winter grazings outside the zone.

The number of slaughterhouses in the zone is negligible, particularly when you look for any with serious capacity. Quite simply those finishing stock in the zone have been left high and dry and need access to their usual outlets, denying them this chance to trade is unforgiveable.

I can understand the reticence of farmers in other parts of the country to expand the zone, but I would urge them to consider how they would feel in our position. European evidence suggests animal movements play little if any part in bluetongue transmission, so there is no logic in trapping animals in an arbitary zone. More welfare problems will abound if this change isn't made early next week and businesses will collapse.

The news that Waitrose has today raised its payments to beef farmers by 10p a kilo, giving farmers a minimum base price of at least £2.25 per kilo, is very welcome.

The retailer has also introduced a series of structured payment increases over the next 18 months with the aim of reaching base level payments to its beef producers of £2.50.

The new long term pricing structure is designed to give farmers some protection and allow them to plan ahead.

Waitrose will also pay lamb farmers a minimum of £2.30 a kilo for British lamb for the rest of the season. This is well above the market level which has seen prices plummet as low as £1.70 a kilo in the last fortnight.

Peter King, chief livestock adviser for the NFU, said: “This is a much needed step which will see a supermarket sharing risk with farmers. We will be encouraging other retailers to take similar steps to protect the supply of British beef and lamb.”

I hope the other supermarkets take note.

With so many harvest festivals being celebrated this month how difficult is it to distribute the gifts? A lot of nursing homes don’t want to receive a mixture of carrots, courgettes and cauliflowers because their kitchens are run on central buying. It’s a shame that yet another tradition between schoolchildren and the community at large has become a victim of so-called streamlining operations.

Welcoming DEFRA's £12.5m aid package is of course a help to those who will receive some of the cash, but quite frankly it once again shows DEFRA's failure to grasp the seriouness of the situation.

Yes £8m will be gratefully received by the hill farmers of England, but it will only see each eligible farm receive about £850 each, a long way short of the estimated £10,000 average that each farm has lost due to foot and mouth movement controls.

And OK £2m will pay for a few more meat adverts, but where is the substance to back up these measly amounts. However, Mr Benn has unfortuately totally forgotten about the group of farmers now under greatest strain, those inside the bluetongue zone.

These farmers are unable to move any stock out of the zone, bar going to two abattoirs, one in West Sussex and one in Lincolnshire. They still can't trade through markets and there is no indication of when they may bee able to. Most worrying though is that the zone must stay in place for two midge seasons after the last case of bluetongue is seen, that means it will have to be there for at least another 18 months.

Long-time readers of Farmers Weekly will be familiar with the name George Scales because over the years it has appeared frequently on the letters page.

So I was shocked to come across the following obit for Mr Scales which ran in The Guardian last month.

Every now and again you get the opportunity to go to an event that leaves you feeling inspired. Last Friday’s Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust’s grey partridge conference in Cambridge was just such an occasion.

Described several times by speakers as an iconic bird, grey partridge numbers have declined from over a million pairs pre-World War I to less than a 100,000 now.

But 40 years of research by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust has identified what management practices farmers can put in place to reverse that decline.

My colleague Isabel is right to welcome Waitrose's price increases for beef and lamb producers. Current values for prime lambs are diabolical. But Waitrose's record isn't as squeaky-clean as its many plaudits suggest.

I’ve just been searching online for an article I read in the Times at the weekend, which reckoned unpasteurised milk is the latest fad for health-conscious Americans.

Thinking I might write something about raw milk’s rising sales, I was rather surprised to come across some other interesting issues about America’s latest craze.

The sale of raw milk for human consumption is actually illegal in 15 states, while restrictions are in place in the 26 states where it can be bought.

This means some people keen to take up the latest health-boosting habit have to go to some rather extreme lengths to get their fix.

Can a Food For Thought reader help throw some light on this picture?

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It has not been the best of days for the farming industry. First, it has emerged that bluetongue seems to have spread into Kent and Cambridgeshire and then came the news that DEFRA isn't in a position to pay early single farm payments.

Both issues have a certain inevitability about them and have prompted plenty of discussion on the FWiSpace forums but it wasn't what producers needed to hear...

Government ministers are forever going on about their desire to cut red tape.

The problem they face, however, is that it is every civil servant's instinct to do just the opposite. When it comes to red tape, they just can't get enough of it!

There can be no better example than the impending "grower initiative" - an EU-backed outgoers scheme designed to give sugar beet growers the chance to surrender up to 10% of national quota in return for a compensation cheque worth almost £30/t.

Notices of the scheme have already been posted on the RPA website and application forms will be sent to growers next week.

There's just one problem. The grower initiative is not actually going to happen - and DEFRA knows this!

This is because the EU regulation says that, if the processor agrees to surrender more quota than beet growers, then the grower initiative is null and void.

British Sugar has already told DEFRA it plans to relinquish 13.5% of national quota next year. Indeed it has been in detailed discussion with DEFRA and the NFU on the best way to achieve this.

DEFRA's decision to launch the grower initiative is a bureaucratic nonsense. Not only will it get growers' hopes up, it will also create extra red tape and lead to yet more confusion. It is unnecessary and smacks of "jobs for the boys".

Ian Ashbridge on Alastair Darling's nasty surprise for farmers

At first, it looked so benign. Alistair Darling's first pre-budget report had the ring of a fairly unoriginal, but standard-grade piece of school work. He repeated a lot of what Gordon Brown had said in March, nicked a few ideas from the Tories, put the words "I have decided..." in front of them and sat down with a smirk. I gave it a 'C'.

But once the Conservatives had expended their considerable - and not unforgivable - reserves of righteous indignation, we started to see just what Alistair Darling had really meant. And it wasn't pretty.

The battle of the blogs is hotting up on FWi.

For anyone who need a reminder, two of Farmers Weekly's bloggers are going head to head.

In the red corner, it's Matthew Naylor with his blog The Longer View. In the blue corner, it's Tim Relf with his Field Day blog. Who wins? You decide.

Badger culling in order to tackle bovine tuberculosis seems to be more of a political possibility after a surprise report from the government's chief scientific adviser.

Sir David King has concluded that culling would be beneficial in areas surrounded by hard physical boundaries, such as coastline and motorways.

His conclusions also include:

• Badgers are a clear source of infection for cattle. Reducing the density of badgers in those areas of England where there is a significant level of TB in cattle reduces the incidence of TB in cattle in the same area;

• Removal of badgers should take place alongside the continued application of controls on cattle. Genuine commitment by all interested parties to the overall TB strategy is needed if TB is to be successfully controlled;

• Removal of badgers is the best option available at the moment to reduce the reservoir of infection in wildlife. But in the longer term, alternative or additional means of controlling TB in badgers, such as vaccination, may become available. Research into these should continue;

• Removal of badgers should only take place in those areas of the country where there is a high and persistent incidence of TB in cattle. It is not an appropriate measure in other areas.

There's more on this story on FWi

There's a really interesting thread developing on the FWiSpace discussion forums about which was the best era in which to farm.

The Scottish Executive has announced what it claims is a £25m aid package for Scotland's livestock farmers sruggling to deal with the effects of the foot-and-mouth crisis.

NFU Scotland's verdict is that the announcement is progress, but much more is needed (it is also putting the value of the package at £19m, rather than £25m).

NFUS President Jim McLaren said: “Today’s rescue package is just that. It is not compensation for losses, which go far higher than the money announced today. For a farmer with a 1000 breeding sheep, he will be facing losses in excess of £20,000. This aid package would put £6000 into that business. That may just be enough to cover the bills he’s facing now and bring some immediate relief, but it doesn’t get close to addressing his losses.

“It is a bitter disappointment that the welfare problems facing the pigs and dairy industry have not been recognised in today’s package. Both government and industry must now look urgently at getting export restrictions further unwound and processors must use the private storage aid made available by Brussels for pigmeat.

“We are an industry crippled by a disastrous set of circumstances that are not of our making and are the result of negligence. Over the next few days we will be looking further into options to get full justice and compensation for our members.”

The fight goes on.

The Soil Association has today announced the outcome of its consultation on whether it should stop certifying organic food that has been air-freighted to the UK.

It has concluded that a complete ban would be inappropriate because it would impact too harshly on farmers in developing countries. However, the rules will get tighter - if food is to be certified in the future it must meet the SA's Ethical Trade standards.

The decision is a compromise - but is it a good one?

The Soil Association was founded in 1946 by a group of farmers, scientists and nutritionists who observed a direct connection between farming practice and plant, animal, human and environmental health.

They were people who felt strongly that their lives - and the environment - would be improved if they farmed and ate in a way that didn't involve inorganic fertilisers, antibiotics and pesticides.

But you only have to take a look at the SA's website to realise that things have become much more complicated than that today. The organisation is still campaigning on all the old issues - but its efforts also include food miles, school meals and the power of agribusiness.

Looking at its heritage, you could argue that as one of the UK's leading environmental charities it should have gone for a complete ban. Air-freighting food is polluting and contributes to global warming.

But it hasn't. Which leads me to ask: Is the Soil Association now an ethical charity or an environmental one?

The Farming Help Appeal 2007 is building momentum, but the charities really need more money.

Demand for their help is high - RABI alone has given out more than £500,000 in domestic hardship grants as a result of bluetongue, foot-and-mouth and flooding.

Farmers Weekly is playing its part. Last week we donated £1850 which was raised by FW's display sales team, who donated a percentage of the value of adverts sold on one day.

This week I've raised another £50 by selling pumpkins to people in the office!

Farmers Weekly is running the 2007 makeover competition and this time we're looking for students to take part. If you want to nominate yourself or a friend, send a photo and a few words explaining why you/they need a makeover to tim.relf@rbi.co.uk by Nov 20, 2007.

You know you want to...

Farmers hoping that DEFRA's epidemiological report into the bluetongue outbreak was going to be illuminating are going to be disappointed.

The report concludes that the infection was likely to have been initially introduced into Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex on the night of 4/5 August by windborne transmission of infected midges from continental Europe.

The report also describes the generally low morbidity, mortality and prevalence rates in infected animals. The majority of infected premises have only one infected animal and the prevalence is generally low.

Other than that - all it really says is further surveillance is going on.

The Farmers Weekly Awards take place tonight and it promises to be a glittering ceremony.

With things so tough at the moment in farming it will be nice to focus on the positive - farming does have a good story to tell, and there are many people doing innovative and inspiring things with their businesses and they need to be acknowledged.

For those people not lucky enough to attend, you will be able to get a real flavour of the event from tomorrow. We'll have a picture gallery of the night, a guestbook and even a video and webcast!