So the straight talking Brummie Lord Rooker has stepped down from his post as junior DEFRA minister in Gordon Brown's latest reshuffle. While his departure is over shadowed by the Prime Minister's more audacious move to bring Peter Mandelson back to the Cabinet, for farming Jeff Rooker's departure is a big deal.
He is that rare breed - a plain speaking Government man who says it as it is and who has listened and supported the industry well. Often described as "a farmer's friend", Jeff has been prettty vociferous in farming's favour on the major issues, most memorably for action over bovine TB. He was prepared to get out on farms and understand the real issues on the ground and he pushed hard up the line to influence Benn's thinking.
Jeff had a lot of experience with the farming brief because he also served as a junior minister for the old MAFF from 1997-99 where he presided over the BSE fallout. The word on the block in recent times was that he became a frustrated man, particularly disappointed by Hilary Benn's procrastination on key decisions.
He's not the only one. DEFRA's indecision on farming matters and its lack of a coherent policy on food and agriculture is causing widespread concern. We'll need new advocates within Parliament now if the message is going to sink in.
It is difficult to know at this stage whether the introduction of the new Energy and Climate Change Department will help or hinder things. One could argue that the split of these twin issues from DEFRA allows for greater focus on them and lightens the load for a beleaguered department that was struggling to cope with such a wide ranging brief. Perhaps now DEFRA will be better organised and able to concentrate on mainstream production matters. They've got no excuses now not to get on with it.
In principle, Farmers Weekly supports the need to give energy and climate change greater resource but, like the Country Land and Business Association, we expect the crucial role lfarmers play in creating renewable energy options and mitigating the effects of climate change will not be overlooked now the issues are split between departments.
Finally, Jeff Rooker you will be greatly missed in farming but maybe we can find a way of keeping you involved in some shape or form in the future? The industry needs strong champions and to lose one of his calibre is a great pity.
You get the best invitations in this job. I had the pleasure this week of attending a ladies in agriculture lunch hosted by Coutts bank at their grand headquarters on the Strand. This was the first time they've organised such a gathering with some 40 women across all aspects of the industry present. Female farmers, breeders, food chain specialists,policy makers and entrepreneurs were given the opportunity to mingle and swap ideas in a relaxed environment.
As posh lunches go, it was a fabulous affair - champagne, stunning food and a grand archive tour of the head office. It was a great way to meet the female movers and shakers in agriculture and what an impressive lot. The guest list included Elizabeth Buchanan, the private secretary to the Prince of Wales on farming, environment and business, Christine Tacon, general manager of the Co-op farms and farmers Hilary Wood from Cornwall and Debbie Macbean MBE from Scotland.
Apparently, one third of the Coutts client base are women and the bank is very keen to woo and influence us. Keep the wooing going - it was wonderful.
The day ended as it started by sipping champagne in the equally glamorous venue of the London Hilton. The team from our website www.fwi.co.uk were wined, dined and applauded as we won a glittering prize for our online community building work with farmers. Farmers Weekly's website was up against The Sun and won the Online Community of the Year title in the UK Association of Online Publishers Awards. This prize is as much farmers as it is ours because it's you, the web users, who have made www.fwi.co.uk such a great place to interact, buy equipment, find a job,get up to date information etc etc.
Sorry about the bragging, but it has to be done..... the judges were impressed with the level of farmer involvement in the site from thousands of shared pictures, lively discussion forums and farmers driving news stories for both the magazine and the website.
The judging panel said: "Fwi demonstrated there can be a light hearted approach to a business to business site, providing social interaction and community tools relevant to its members and pushing the business media boundaries with its Muddy Matches dating service."
Well done everyone who has participated in our online community. If you haven't had a go yet, it's well worth grabbing a cuppa and setting aside a few minutes to take a look.
We've found two great new young columnists and bloggers for Farmers Weekly and www.fwi.co.uk. They are Lizzie Jennings, a first year student at Bishop Burton, Yorkshire and Rob Cotton, a second year student at Harper Adams, Shropshire. Both will be writing and blogging for us on life as an agricultural student and I think they will bring a fresh take on issues for the younger generation.
The average age of our magazine readers is about 59 years and online it's about 45 years so we are always anxious to attract younger people to our products and services. If we don't, we wil struggle to survive long term. So we are open to ideas on how best to appeal to a younger audience without neglecting the old 'uns....... all thoughts gratefully received.
If you've got sons, daughters or family at Harper Adams you may be interested in a picture gallery we are about to put up on www.fwispace.co.uk showing photos from their graduation ceremony held at the weekend.
Today, our Global and Markets Editor Philip Clarke has sent a press release to the national media warning that food prices will increase if the EU bans large numbers of pesticides commonly used in farming.
We are hoping to capitalise on increasing newspaper, tv and radio interest in food costs by alerting them to the Farmers Weekly Save Our Sprays Campaign and the likely repercussions on consumers if the MEPs give new legislation the go ahead. The latest independent research conducted by economist Sean Rickard at Cranfield School of Management is a powerful tool on our side. If anything is going to convince the Eurocrats to change their mind, it's the negative impact their decisions could have on shoppers.
The campaign is progressing well with over 1100 signatures of support - about 600 coming from the magazine readers, 400 from our web users and the rest from visitors to our stand at recent agricultural shows. We would always like more names added to the list before we present to the EU Parliament next month so please galvanise your friends and colleagues into action. The next few weeks will be critical. We will also be providing advice on how best to write to your own MEP - making sure they understand all the issues and hear the concern from farmers. .
If you have any ideas on how we can build up this argument further with the EU, then please reply to this blog. We have been disappointed by the lack of support from other farming media in Germany, Holland and France. Media across Europe, it seems, do not look upon campaigning in the same light as us Brits. The journalists over there feel campaigning is not their role and purpose. They believe lobbying threatens their independence and therefore they prefer to avoid it at all costs.
UK media of all shapes and sizes like to campaign a good deal to change opinion, build awareness or fight for injustices. Farmers Weekly has a long history of fighting for certain causes on behalf of its readers and long should that continue. We cannot have a strapline that says: "Working for Your Farming Future" if we are not prepared to get off our backsides and challenge those in authority when it really matters.
Here is the press release circulated to other media today. Let's see what take up we get.
PRESS RELEASE 11 September 2008 – for immediate release
Consumers to take another financial hit if new EU pesticides policy goes ahead
The price of potatoes will double, bread will go up by 9p/loaf, pork chops will increase by 40p/kg and a carton of milk will cost 3p/litre more.
That will be the consequence of new EU legislation which seeks to ban large numbers of the pesticides commonly used in modern agriculture.
According to leading industry magazine Farmers Weekly, without these crop protection products, food output throughout Europe will drop significantly, driving food prices even higher.
That is why the magazine is running a new “Save our Sprays” campaign, to “keep farming productive”.
“At face value, banning pesticides from the food chain may seem like a good thing. Certainly it is an ‘easy win’ for MEPs keen to get re-elected,” says Farmers Weekly’s Philip Clarke, who is managing the campaign. “But on closer inspection the plan is fundamentally flawed.
“First and foremost, we are concerned at the effect the proposals will have on food availability and the price of food to consumers.
“Independent research by the Cranfield School of Management, obtained by Farmers Weekly, shows that, should the European parliament succeed in banning 85% of current pesticides, then the price of cereals would have to double in order to make up for the drop in output.
“For consumers, that would mean a 9p increase in the price of a loaf of bread, 3p/litre on a carton of milk and 40p/kg more for pork chops. According to the Cranfield study, the price of potatoes would have to double.”
Historically, food is still relatively cheap, absorbing less than 10% of average household income, explains Mr Clarke. “But food price inflation is already in double figures and for the poorest families, who spend over 30% of their income on food, any further increase will have a devastating impact.”
Members of the public are therefore being urged to write to their MEPs to register their concern, and to sign the Farmers Weekly e-petition at www.fwi.co.uk/sos which will be presented to the European Parliament in October.
For more information on this story please contact:
Philip Clarke, European editor at Farmers Weekly
020 8652 4921 philip.clarke@rbi.co.uk
Mike Abram, deputy arable editor at Farmers Weekly
020 8652 4086 mike.abram@rbi.co.uk
NOTES TO EDITORS
1) The legislation going through Brussels is the revised EU Directive 91/414 on pesticide approvals. It is about to receive its second reading in the European Parliament.
2) So far the EU Commission has not conducted a full impact assessment. MEPs are therefore being asked to vote on something they don’t yet know the effect of.
3) An assessment by the UK’s Pesticides Safety Directorate shows that, under the EU Commission’s proposals, 15% of current pesticides would go. But under the European Parliament’s version, 85% would be lost.
4) Independent research was conducted by well-known economist Sean Rickard at The Cranfield School of Management and is available at…
5) The current “risk-based” system of pesticide approvals already builds in large safety margins for farmers, consumers and the environment.
One of our fwispace regular users TeslaCoils has challenged us on the selection of FW's barometer farmers. He asked: "Do you vet your barometer farms? They seem never to have any problems and always have the best yields for the least effort. Either that or they are liars"
Well, they are certainly not liars. I'm not sure whether TeslaCoils has been reading enough of our barometer farm reports. The are all vetted before being offered barometer farm status and there's no doubt that they do have their share of problems and frustrations.
Take a look at the tale of woe from barometer farmer Ian Bird at Catchgate Farm, Castle Eden near Hartlepool and you'll see what I mean. The piece is also written up on page 50 of FW's September 5 issue. The poor guy has not only had the worst harvest he's ever known but has had to battle with a combine breakdown at the same time. Previous harvest spotlights may well have been more upbeat because two weeks ago and before we were not in the dire situation we are now with the weather.
The criteria we use for choosing barometer farms is tough. Firstly, they all have to be good farmers who have either been recommended to us by others in the industry or who have passed the Andrew Blake test. Andrew is our very experienced senior arable reporter who runs this section of content. He sets extremely high standard and he's a hard man to please.
Barometer farmers have to be business minded and prepared to give us their time to update readers and users on what's going on with their farm. We need an honest account - warts and all. It would completely defeat the whole object of having barometer farms if they always reported a perfect picture of life on the farm and consistently came up smelling of roses. What would be the point of that? In order to do a fair job for readers, they also have to represent a cross section of arable farms in size, location and focus. Overall, they should epitomise best practice in agriculture.
So it's not that surprising then that our barometer farmers are sounding like they've coped pretty well with this awful weather. We would have expected them to have found solutions to the problems. Our overall impression of this very difficult harvest is that it is impossible to generalise. Different parts of the country have had different experiences with the weather. Yields generally have been good for those suffering less with constant rain. I've just had a conversation with our columnist Stephen Carr who is based in East Sussex. He tells me that the micro climate in the south east has led to huge variations for farmers just down the road from each other. From parish to parish, there have been big differences in the way farms and farmers are coping.
Some of the harvest success stories are not just down to the weather. Good judgement calls on when to cut and making sure you have enough capacity to cut it all must have a lot to do with it as well. Some farmers in the south east, for example, have had years of relying on three dry weeks to cut and have organised their combine capacity around that. This year, with the weather so unreliable, two weeks of cutting was all they really had to work with. In East Sussex, there are still acres and acres looking untouched and very sad. It's a disaster for many.
Like you, we are getting seriously worried about this harvest. The FW team is completely preoccupied with the challenges or, should I say crisis, the wet weather is presenting for farmers. It dominates our working day as, I'm sure, it does every grower.
Some of the FW journalists have family farms and so are grappling with the issues in the field and then reporting on them at the same time. We have been using our barometer farmers to keep us up to date and give you daily assessments of how its going overall in your region and across the country. It's a mixed picture. For many in the south west and north, for example, it's looking like a disaster in terms of yield, quality and drying costs. See harvest highlights (or should it be harvest lowlights) in pictures, stories and forum discussions. There you can access information about how much is left to cut; how the harvest is progressing and moisture content details.
When is it going to stop raining?. The forecast for this weekend is once again dire with severe weather warnings in some parts. I heard that the forecast for East Cornwall was that it would rain everyday in that area for at least another week. Our senior arable writer Andrew Blake has just heard from a neighbour in Wiltshire that he still has 1000 acres of wheat to cut and it's still pouring there. The only slight glimmer of positive is that most of the crops Andrew has seen in the county seem to be standing reasonably well given the battering they have had.
We are trying to put together more meaningful round-ups of what's going on around the country and will do a proper assessment of the full impact after this weekend's downpours. But keep us posted if you hear of anything noteworthy concerning the harvest or want to be included in next week's roundup. The more comprehensive we can make our coverage the better for everyone.
Farmers Weekly is supporting British Food Fortnight (Sept 20 - Oct 5) and if you want to know more about how it is promoting to retailers, consumers, caterers and schools look at the following:
A 'Want to buy British' service enabling the public to see at a touch of a button what British produce is available in the supermarkets - people can search by product or by supermarket, see which supermarkets are selling the most British produce and use the information to ask their local store to stock more British product ranges. Accessible via top right hand corner of www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk The new 'Buying British' information service that for the first time in one place, provides consumers, retailers and caterers with everything they need to know about buying British food including what logos to look for and information about regional and seasonal varieties. For example: General info: http://www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk/blogcategory/general-information/Beef: http://www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk/blogcategory/beef/Lamb: http://www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk/blogcategory/lamb-and-mutton/Pork: http://www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk/blogcategory/pork,-bacon-and-ham/ Chicken: http://www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk/blogcategory/poultry/Dairy: http://www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk/blogcategory/dairy/ The 'Why it is best to buy British' film, courtesy of FW!: Accessible via home page: www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk School resources on: http://www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk/blogcategory/teachers-take-part/ - see in particular the downloadable 'Putting the Ooo back into food' resource packs and the contact details for accessing help from our network of 9,000 chefs. The 'How to take part' pages:For consumers: http://www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk/blogcategory/take-part/For retailers & caterers: http://www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk/blogcategory/retailers-and-caterers/For public procurement: http://www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk/blogcategory/public-procurement/
I had lunch today with someone who had so much energy and drive she made me feel quite lazy. Her name was Alexia Robinson and she is the founder and organiser of British Food Fortnight, which runs from September 20-October 5, Alexia is a bit of a one woman human dynamo. Now in its seventh year, British Food Fortnight has grown into an impressive national promotion for all that's great about British agriculture and food thanks to Alexia's enthusiasm.
Every year, more and more shops, pubs and restaurants take part, all enjoying the commercial benefits that participation brings. Over a 1000 independent shops, 200 medium sized retailers, five major supermarkets, five of the largest food service organisations and four major pub groups regularly run promotions. BFF's website www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk receives 5.8m hits and media coverage is seen or heard over 300 million times during the year,.
It would be easy to knock an event like this organised by a one women operation that lasts just two weeks and has virtually zilch funding. But it's a start at trying to communicate positive generic messages to the consumer about British food by mobilising communities to use BFF resources and it is influencing at various levels. Alexia's campaign includes retail, catering, education and a media programme. In schools alone, she is encouraging children to learn to cook with British food and inviting volunteer, professional chefs from around the country to get stuck into the classroom and educate. One of her sponsors Kenwood is even supplying kitchen and cooking equipment for schools that get involved, which is ironic as Kenwood is no longer a British owned company, it's Italian.
BFF has good support from a few isolated British farming organisations and an army of passionate individuals like FW Farmer of the Year John Geldard but, she would hate me for saying this, the scheme is not well supported by British agriculture. We have to ask ourselves why? In fact, retailers, caterers and schools back BFF better than British farmers.
Isn't it about time we had a more coherent plan to promote British farming and food better to the public? Rather than relying on the goodwill and enthusiasm of a few people, wouldn't it be so much more effective if we had a national campaign that rolled out through the year and marketed a fresh, dynamic image? This takes money and organisation but we have all this in the form of the AHDB (the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board) that oversees all the levy groups. It might take some bashing of heads to get agreement on a way forward particularly as there's so many factions involved, but where there's a will, there is usually a way.
Where efforts have been made in the past, such as the tv ad campaign with Beefy and Lamby, it seems to have delivered big benefits to the meat sector. British Food Fortnight does a great job given its size and scale but a bigger concerted effort is required. What do you think?
In true Victor Meldrew style: I simply don't believe it. Farmers have gone mad for our harvest highlights.....
And don't you believe it the next time someone tries to convince you that farmers are not great users of the web.
In the last few weeks, we've regularly had 140,000 page views on our harvest highlights picture galleries on www.fwispace.co.uk. We've had almost 900 harvest photographs supplied by farmers and farm workers this summer and for many we are not even half way through the harvest season. Last year, we received about 300 pictures on the same theme. It just goes to show that farmers and their families really enjoy taking shots of their farm and machinery in action and then sharing and comparing them with others online. You can register for fwispace for free, upload your pictures and create your own stunning gallery, and it's easy to do.
A handful of would-be David Baileys have sent 50-100 pictures each and we're talking about top quality snaps that would be the envy of many professional photographers. In fact, we've been so impressed and stunned by this participation with our readers and web users that we ran a photographic competition to find the best snap for the front cover of FW magazine. Look out for the winner in next week's issue. You may also have noticed the double page spreads in print showing magazine readers what's going on online. We call this kind of material "user generated content" because it's been supplied by farmers and is distinct and unique from anything the journalists here can deliver.
All this interaction is positive for the farming community and for us. Not only are farmers getting a real kick out of showing their great work off to others but it also reflects the vibrancy of this great industry. The picture galleries are driving amazing traffic growth to our website www.fwi.co.uk and I firmly believe it encourages loyalty to the magazine as well.
As people become more and more time poor, the success of all media will largely depend on our ability to be relevant, engaging, entertaining as well as informing. But what do you think? If you are a reader of the magazine or a user of our website, do you like to see pictures or words supplied by other farmers? What do you see as the pros and cons of this approach? Do you think we do enough or too much of user generated content? On what type of occasions is it most or least appropriate to use it?
So calling all web fanatics, we'd love to know what motivates you to participate in discussion forums online or supply pictures for online gallieries. And also how can we keep improving the service?.
Farmers like to see Farmers Weekly campaigning on their behalf but you have to pick your moments and you have to hook others in to make it fly.. Timing and themes are everything when you are campaigning for change. So this week we're pushing the boat out with something extremely important to the arable sector. We've launched a new campaign: Save Our Sprays: Keep farming productive, which is all about lobbying the EU Commission on its proposals to tighten up pesticide approval regulation.
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It's crazy to think the regulators are making life even harder for the arable sector at a time when some parts of the world are suffering catastrophic famine and climate change continues to put more pressure on Europe as a mainstream crop producer.
This is the right theme at the right time because the proposals could wipe out more than 80 per cent of the pesticides, herbicides and fungicides commonly used on British farms. It would have far reaching implications for the future of European agriculture and is worrying growers the length and breadth of the country. It's crazy to think the regulators are making life even harder for the arable sector at a time when some parts of the world are suffering catastrophic famine and climate change continues to put more pressure on Europe as a mainstream crop producer. .
Our view is that it's perfectly understandable for European politicians and bureaucrats to question the threat of these substances to human health and the environment and to want to limit or stop their use if they are dangerous. But it's not acceptable to force farmers to abandon these sprays before it is adequately proven that they cause harm.
Just because a product has hazardous properties doesn't mean it's dangerous. A cup of coffee, for example, contains carcinogens and toxins, but we don't view a latte or capuccino as dangerous.
That's why we're joining forcing with the NFU, the Crop Protection Association and others to push for two demands:
* We want an EU wide impact assessment on the proposals so that politicians have all the evidence and the likely implications for the public, the environment, the food supply, prices and farm incomes.
* We also want a clear definition of the hazard criteria that determine whether a pesticide can be used. And we are calling for no more hazard criteria to be added..
Commentators predict that crop production in this country could be halved and food prices will go sky high if the EU Commission has its way, so we must put the pressure on now.
There's lots you can do to help support the campaign and press the Commission to do the right thing:
Sign up to our e-petition at www.fwi.co.uk/sos.
Find your local Member of the European Parliament and write to him/her explaining the damage this could do to your business. Finding your MEP is easy simply go to www.europarl.org.uk/uk_meps for an interactive map.
In the next few weeks, we will be explaining more about the campaign in the magazine and online, so watch this space. We are hopeful that we can galvanise support from our Eurofarm colleagues overseas. They head up the equivalent of Farmers Weekly - publications and websites serving farming audiences right across Europe - and could help us reach millions of people as a powerful lobbying tool. So don't sit on the sidelines, it's time to get active and show the European politicians we mean business.
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.
Many thanks for the feedback to my last blog about serious versus frothy and fun content. One of the issues to come up was women. We certainly do take women in agriculture seriously whether it's as a husband and wife farming team or women supporting rural families in many other ways.
In the last week, we've been out and about judging the FW Awards and visiting the 2008 finalists on farms. The involvement of women in all aspects of these businesses is impressive, particularly in giving the men in their lives the courage to develop and grow the enterprise. Sorry guys, but it's often the women who are willing to take the risks, change the approach and who give their partners the confidence and ideas to move forward. In farming, we are good at analysing our navels but sometimes you do have to bite the bullet and give something new a go. And women in agriculture are really making a difference here not just with diversifcation but also with mainstream farming.
There are well over 600,000 businesses owned by women in the UK, generating something like £80bn a year for the UK economy and rural women are at the forefront of this trend. The NFU tell us that its female membership has grown substantially as has female representation on NFU councils and boards. The gender balance is also moving in favour of women on many agricultural and related courses and thank goodness for that. I have a feeling it was only in 1979 that women were admitted to the Royal Agricultural College - a sign of just how sexist the industry was.
Nowadays, the big opportunities for women right across the food chain as producers, retailers, processers and marketeers mean we're no longer invisible in rural business. Think of the leadership that groups like the WI has shown in driving initiatives like the Great Milk Debate. It was the WI women who forced Justin King of Sainsburys and others to wake up to the plight of dairy farmers. They used their collective power as consumers who care about agriculture to have their say and boy did all those ladies frighten the big cheeses in the supermarkets.
This older female audience has also been pretty vociferous with FW. Many of them have grown up with the magazine on the farm for generations and a few have been uncomfortable with the changes we have made. As you would expect, FW magazine has to appeal to a broad church and so different people have different views about the purpose of our popular Farmlife section. It really is intended to provide something lighter from the technical content for the whole family, which is why we cover rural matters, sport, leisure, children, students and wider family issues. It is true that some of our older female readers assume that Farmlife is entirely prepared for them because for years it had a long tradition of providing recipes and was very involved in the former Farm Womens Club. I've had some complaints from older female readers that we don't provide the same volume of content for them like we used to and I'm afraid that is correct. Nowadays Farmlife should be appealing to an eclectic group of readers with its mix of views, features, pictures and interactivity. For example, Farmlife regular agony uncle Farmer Frank is probably appreciated more by blokes because the jokes are so smutty but then I could be wrong. What do the ladies think of Farmer Frank?
It will be interesting to see who (male or female) is driving most of the traffic activity on our new online dating service Muddy Matches. I will keep you posted on that if we can get some stats.... and we've agreed to have a massive celebration for the first couple to get engaged after meeting through the service.
Entertainment value is becoming more important to business brands like Farmers Weekly but we have to get the balance right between the serious and the fun. On that note, have a good time this weekend.
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