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Some posts on pesticides from around the blogosphere | PI Blog

Some posts on pesticides from around the blogosphere | PI Blog — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:10:31 GMT

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re: Have your say on bovine TB

somerset bac — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:37:42 GMT

Further to robinpc's comment, I have to say that I am not involved in farming either but as a biologist I found the comment extremely interesting. About 18 months ago our local TV News featured an item about a local dairy farmer whose dairy farming neighbours all had experienced, or were experiencing, TB within their stock. The featured farmer had no problems at all with TB, despite his neighbours and the presence of badgers. He put this down to the fact that he spreads mineral licks around his fields, used by both cattle and badgers, and that this may be boosting the animals' immune systems. I wrote to DEFRA at the time to point out this TV report, and asked if they were intending to carry out research into the efficacy of mineral licks on preventing the spread of TB.

They replied 'NO'.

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re: Tesco's selective hearing

wilddick — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:10:24 GMT

Sounds like a clssic case of the boot being on the other foot. See here www.worcesternews.co.uk/.../1806293.former_rgs_pupil_jailed_for_fraud

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re: Tesco's selective hearing

stevew — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:43:32 GMT

Tesco - the brave few take TESCO on and can win!

Insolvency Expert

Michael Lord-Castle stood by his client Richard (I was employed there) and the following was the result of those that dont back down and dont give in!

Tesco blockaded over unpaid bills

Richard Wild a ROAD haulier has revealed that he was paid outstanding debts by Tesco only

after being forced to mount a lorry blockade at the company's headquarters.

At one stage, Richard Wild faced bankruptcy and losing his business over

invoices for around £400,000. He claims he was also bullied and intimidated

by Tesco executives simply for asking for the bills to be settled.

Wild is just one of a number of small businesses that claim they are being

crippled by Tesco's payment delays - leaving the first British retailer to

make annual profits of more than £2bn at the centre of a militant backlash.

His company, Wild International, based in Redditch, Worcestershire, had a

deal with Tesco to drive their goods from suppliers to distribution depots.

But he was unable to pay his drivers and other staff after the supermarkets

chain held up payments for months. So he took the drastic step of circling

Tesco's HQ in Cheshunt, Herts, with 25 lorries. At the same time, his staff

wrote to the company's directors pleading with them to pay up so they could

meet their mortgage bills.

The protest also involved sending lorries effectively to blockade Tesco's

major food distribution depot in Southampton and one of their biggest stores

in Camberley, Surrey.

Wild said: 'Tesco were either very slow to pay invoices or they would

withhold payments altogether. I couldn't pay my drivers and was on the verge

of insolvency. I was forced into blockading their business premises to make

them pay up - it was the only way.'

Insolvency expert Michael Lord-Castle said: 'Richard had to cease trading as

Wild International to stave off bankruptcy and start a new company. But

within five weeks, Tesco had run up another bill with his new company of

between £200,000 and £250,000, which was in addition to the money they

already owed his previous company. Richard then had to either call it a day,

or fight it. He decided to fight.'

Wild added: 'When you are faced with losing your home, your family being

split up and the same happening to your 35 employees, then you have to take

drastic action. Tesco just wants to walk all over companies like us. I am

here to tell you how they get the profits they boast about - they try to

bankrupt companies like mine.'

An investigation by BBC Radio Four's You and Yours claimed Tesco had adopted

similar delaying tactics with other small businesses. Tesco spokesman

Jonathan Church said: 'We do recognise that there were some issues around

paying invoices. I'm glad to say we have now sorted these out and all the

money we owe Mr Wild has been paid.

'We work hard to have a good relationship with our suppliers and where

issues are brought to our attention we will try to resolve them as soon as

possible. It's clear from this case that misunderstandings have arisen and

we need to look at this episode and make sure procedures are as good and as

clear as they can be.'

Tesco said the average time to settle an invoice was four weeks. Although he

has been paid in full, Wild has decided to cease working for Tesco. He is

taking legal action for damages against the company to cover legal costs,

time spent on chasing the bills and alleged harassment.

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re: Beware too much doom and gloom

motley — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:56:06 GMT

Much to agree with here.The future I would agree is bright, there is much to suggest that agriculture is finally on the up. Crash has managed the economy in such a way that food inflation is going to be something which the government will have to address and supermarkets will no longer be able to screw their suppliers with such effectiveness.

I do feel that the domination of British agriculture by the dairy sector for much of the past century has exposed certain problems of farming in Britain. None more that the closed shop for new entrants.

I remember working on a dairy unit in the 1980's and becoming aware of the farmer paying over £1 per litre for quota. I debated this business acumen, (yes I know a worker talking in this way!). The conversation finished when I was told that he didn't have anything else to spend his money on. Bet he wishes he had upgraded his pollution controls, parlour, housing, and genetics now. It always concerns me how farmers make a risk analysis of their investment.

It is quota that has destroyed our milk sector. It must further be said when farmers had the chance to keep their milk industry together in the privatization of Dairycrest (son of milk marketing board - given to them in 1933 by a mainly Labour administration.) they took the quick cash, so now they have reaped the seed sown. Farming is a long term-enterprise. The dairy sector was becoming challenged in the 19070's. I vividly recalled a speech, when I was at Wye, at the Farmers Club by Trehane which stimulated me to travel to other parts of the world as he stated even then that there was no future for British Dairying for a young man. I was that young man then, but on granddad time now, though still I dream.

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re: How to motivate DEFRA vets

smithster — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 12:10:17 GMT

As an AH employee these road shows are happening nationwide. It is to do with the new TOM integration they are doing. They are centralising operations, amalgamating Dairy Hygiene, Egg Marketing and Animal Health Officers all in the same unit (this is itself is a terrible idea as new line managers will have no direct experience of managing the new teams). Apparently beating the drums symbolised the different beats of each unit and how they can get out of sync. Typical of animal health and how they waste money, I'm sure if you look into the figures of staffing during FMD (look at genus techs!!) you will see!

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re: JCB speaks out on production

robinpc — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 01:30:46 GMT

There's a serious problem with the statement that

"Britain's food self sufficiency has reduced to 60%".

That 60% "self-sufficiency" is only being achieved thanks to huge inputs of oil to power machinery, and natural gas to produce fertilisers (and also herbicides and pesticides). Not so long ago the uk was an exporter of oil and gas, but now it is transitioning sharply into being an importer.

At the same time most of the other countries of the world are transitioning to being importers, because the cheap oil and gas has been used up and only the increasingly arduous resources remain. Russia can't afford to produce oil at the current prices and is in economic crisis as a result.

And it isn't possible for everyone to become an importer. Producer nations will hoard their supplies and the uk will be increasingly struggling with high-priced oil and limited supply. When all those oil-powered ag machines grind to a halt, what will that 60% change to then? Six percent? The food crunch is going to make the credit crunch look like the proverbial picnic!

By the way, what does 60% of food mean? 60% of protein? Of calories? How many apples equals a burger? Is there some soundly-based formula for calculating the 60% figure?

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re: Have your say on bovine TB

robinpc — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 01:05:09 GMT

Hello, as someone from outside of farming but wishing to learn (and I guess there are plenty others?), may I please raise a hypothesis from an outside perspective....? I guess it may annoy some readers, but then again that alone wouldn't make it untrue.

My thought is that there seems to be so much disease in livestock. Not only tb but also bse and fmd and bluetongue. And my experience is that cattle seem to have colds all the time too. I wonder if this ties in with an observation that cattle raised on mineral-enriched organic land were immune to hoof-and-mouth disease (presumably=fmd). Maybe rather than blaming badgers or that research institute, perhaps the blame is deficient nutrition of the animals due to demineralised soil resulting from the Liebig NPK system?

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Woot! What’s Buzzing Now? » Blog Archive » Phil Clarkle’s Blog - our Own Robert Peston - Jane King’s Blog

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:06:14 GMT

Pingback from Woot! What’s Buzzing Now? » Blog Archive » Phil Clarkle’s Blog - our Own Robert Peston - Jane King’s Blog

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re: Phil Clarkle's blog - our own Robert Peston

burocrat basher — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:16:51 GMT

Phil,

I think it would be usefull for subscribers to be able to see trends in past years so as to be able to guess what the future pattern may be.Also prices for Commodities in other Countries,ie Lambs in New Zealand,Wheat in Australia,Canada and US, for overseas Farmers also.A charge per month would be fine.

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re: Winter wonderland doesn't stop us

matty s — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:00:43 GMT

Not too bad here, cold and a couple of inches under foot....school is not cancelled though (arrgghhh!!!)

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re: Winter wonderland doesn't stop us

viewfromtheothersideofthefence — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:36:17 GMT

Good Luck. I'm currently in Kent and have been since last night and looks like I might be stuck here again tonight.

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re: JCB speaks out on production

viewfromtheothersideofthefence — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 15:32:28 GMT

The trouble is we are preaching to the converted here. We all know what the problems of the industry are, I've mentioned them in my blogs often enough. It needs a programme of education which is not going to be an overnight success, but then that is another problem that has got us into this current mess. Investment needs to be slow and consistent to provide long term stable results.

Unfortunately there is one, possibly two generations that have lost out to this message and it is going to take a lot of hard work to remedy that. However with purse strings tight in a recession, local, good, provenent food at a sensible price will tease customers away from the supermarkets and slowly release the strangle hold that they the supermarkets hold.

That's my plan anyway.

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re: JCB speaks out on production

Jane King — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 13:50:25 GMT

I like the sound of the Food and More Project Ian. We need to follow this through and I will get our business desk to chase it up. Can you contact our business editor ian Ashbridge?.

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re: JCB speaks out on production

ian-foodandmore — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 09:46:20 GMT

In response to Sir Anthony's very timely comments, and his call for DEFRA to announce clear actions to support a boost in home production. DEFRA alone cannot address the depth and breadth of issues facing the food and farming sector. At a time when we are facing massive challenges with reference to the economy we should be looking even harder at other areas of great weakness.

The UK Food and Farming sector is one of those areas of weakness which continues to weaken year on year. Considering how pivotal food and farming is to everyone’s daily activities this is not a good scenario as a food and farming crunch might be even more devastating than the credit crunch and might be even to harder to fix, we should therefore prevent it.

Farmers and growers are the building blocks of a sustainable food and farming industry and we should start there. Many good initiatives have been launched since The Curry Report was published in 2002 however many of these have now become tired and the sector really does need a shake up.

A new initiative – namely The Food and More Project is presently working towards putting the Food and Farming sector into that pivotal position. The Project has an application in process with the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) to part fund a £400k Business Plan with the intention to start building processing, distribution and retail sites in 2010. The core of the Project will be food and “the more” being related intrinsically linked agendas. The Project’s building blocks / foundations will be farmers and growers. The Project will work to Social Enterprise principles and will be a collaborative venture which enables economies of scale to strip out waste and replication, and shorten the length of the chain from producer to consumer in a truly economically viable and sustainable manner.

www.thefoodandmoreproject.com

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re: JCB speaks out on production

Jane King — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 09:31:45 GMT

One of the hallmarks of politics in recent years, particularly the Labour Government, has been to bring in more business people to advise on policy. I have to say, I don't think they've made much of an impact so far, although they should come in to their own in helping the politicians understand better the crisis for business with this downturn.

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re: JCB speaks out on production

juice — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:40:29 GMT

goverment wont do anything until it hits them in the face and stamps all over them .just look at the banking crisis by the time they realised there was problems they and us taxpayers are up the caebosh[in ***] the same will happen with food you and i can see it, but goverment no way until we have seen food shortages then look out , joe public will be up in arms and dont realise cant just turn tap back on and produce food tomorrow cos we farmers now it will take years. shame we didnt have business men/women in goverment.

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re: New look FWi website

2596245 — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:11:02 GMT

Thanks a lot Jane.

Gordon

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re: New look FWi website

Jane King — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:57:47 GMT

We needed to make adjustments to fwi because our web users were telling us they thought it could be improved. The site was popular before but we were frequently told it could be even better in terms of ease of use. Listening to the customer and responding is absolutely critical in these competitive days. But I appreciate that everyone has their own view on change and whether it's a good thing or not.

A final thought..... I think it was Charles Darwin who said:

"It's not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent -- it is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

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re: New look FWi website

2596245 — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:01:01 GMT

I have commented elsewhere, but this seems to be the right blogg.

I don't like the new "home page" It is messy,with no apparent format. There was nothing wrong with the old one! Why spend time and money mucking it up?

Gordon

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re: Judge Hilary Benn on actions not words

Jane King — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:25:03 GMT

Good to see you at Oxford TeslaColis. Fair comment on Benn not saying anything new but given that the media scrutinise his every word, we thought he had been a wee bitmore supportive this year.

I would be wary of just accepting that no set aside is to be reintroduced. It's a matter of well chosen words, I suspect. Although farmers are unlikely to be forced to take land out of production completely, the government is looking at measures that would restrict output in favour of measures to encourage wildlife.

Options include wider drill spacings, further restrictions on applying nitrogen fertiliser and reduced seed rates.

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re: Judge Hilary Benn on actions not words

TeslaCoils — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:37:15 GMT

Benns speach was excactly the same as the lead speach at Oxford has been for the past 3 years - waffle with an undertone. Although I applaude the skill of anyone who can talk for that legnth of time but say nothing.

But whereas the undertone driving the speaches previous was market, environment etc, Benn's was a step-change with the underlying emphasis on food security, which can only be good for us.

And he said no to reintroducing set-aside.

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re: Christmas special

Isabel Davies — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:49:51 GMT

Oh my god....

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re: Christmas special

TeslaCoils — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:10:03 GMT

You'll be laminating yours so they last longer, eh?!

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re: Christmas special

matty s — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:13:19 GMT

I'l take the pics, tesla......

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