February 2009 - Posts
Shadow DEFRA secretary Nick Herbert made all the right noises in his speech at the NFU conference not least with his announcement of a campaign calling for country-of-origin labelling of food.
But that was all that was new. Most of his speech was littered with well-worn farming jokes. For instance the one about the farmer who won the lottery and when asked what he would do with the winnings said he'd keep farming until they were all gone.
But in the Q & A session there was a better joke from a delegate who said government ministers were like nappies - they need changing regularly and often for the same reasons.
Keep up to date with all the news on our NFU conference special report page
National Farmers Union president Peter Kendall has kicked off the NFU annual conference in Birmingham with a call for the government and others to take a long-term view of agriculture and its contribution to the national economy.
Mr Kendall quotes the chairman of Rolls Royce who recently said the country needed a broad portfolio of assets. "If you are a one-trick pony you have to hope that people continue to to like your trick. If they stop liking it, you become pet food." Agriculture, Mr Kendall implies, is a crucial asset worth fostering, otherwise I guess, the UK will become even more of a dogs dinner that it currently is.
But the biggest irony is that Mr Kendall's theme of looking long term, means that (as he points out) there's likely to be a Tory government soon. Cosying up to Hilary Benn might, therefore, be wasted effort.
The NFU's leaders should be shouting a round for shadow minister Nick Herbert...be interesting to see who they're entertaining at the bar!
Keep up to date with the NFU conference live on our special report page.
Another busy week draws to a close.
Look out for the FW team at the NFU conference next week, if you're going, and if not, you can catch up with all the latest from the conference, including live streaming by clicking onto our NFU conference special report page.
Like London buses, it seems advertising complaints being upheld are coming all at once.
Today we're running two stories - one about a BPEX campaign and the other an NFU TB campaign.
Both examples really make you realise how strong these "anti" groups are in comparison with the farming organisations.
Neither example in my view warrants the adverts being withdrawn and yet Compassion in World Farming and The Badger Trust have won the day.
The real sadness is that both were examples of where the campaigns sought to promote the welfare of animals only to be squashed by left-leaning anti-farming quangos.
Farmers should all become bus-travelling atheists...they've a better chance of the ASA's approval.
I've been getting some positive reports from users about the improvements to the home page speed. I hope this is now a more universal experience
FWi's blogs have been going great guns this week, particularly Taking Stock which is camped up in Perth, Scotland for the bull sales; and Phil Clarke's business blog, our latest addition to the FWi blog stable.
Phil's just posted a comment on the latest report on the state of the dairy industry and I see Gwyn Jones has replied...nice to see Phil's musings are being read at the highest level.
Meanwhile Taking Stock's Jon Long has a rather long (excuse the pun) journey back to his home in Kent, but he's posted reams from the sales in Perth which I can tell has a good following judging by the surge in page views I can see on my metrics monitor. You can also view the image gallery from Perth.
A couple of new fixes have been deployed this afternoon which should help improve home page speed.
The first is a fix to a troublesome server - it's taken a while to isolate the problem but we think we have now.
The second relates to the feed which produces the images from FWiSpace on the home page. This has been better optimised and also changed so that you can more easily view the rest of the gallery from which the image came when you click on it.
Hope this helps things for all of you patient and loyal users. We are working very hard to keep improving things for you.
8.24am - Monday: Our FWi forecast is not correct and we are working to fix the file to bring you an accurate forecast. please bear with us.