"Governments are always well behind the things," according to Bovey Farmer (or was it Burocrat Basher) on another forum. He then goes on to ask why they are still wanting us to cut food production when all the pointers are that food will become scarer.

I agree with his comments, but his question got me thinking as to WHY governments are always behind things and then so often take wrong decisions or continue to implement programmes that have gone past their sell by date.

Could it be because politicians are ignorant of facts or, that when they have made decisions their minds then move on to something else and so they are no longer interested in their 'last weeks' actions.

Could it be that there are no quick acting mechanisms to enable politiicians to change direction once they have set it?

 Probably because Governments/Councils etc. have to conduct an appraisal for important decisions, this appraisal has to be debated, and then any proposed ideas voted on, then implemented.  Due to the structure of Government it takes huge amounts of time to get from appraisal to implementation, meaning that by the time proposals are implemented they ae based on a massively outdated appraisal, sometimes causing wrong decisions.

There is no one in govt who has had a real job , so they are out of touch with reality.

Used to be a lot of farmers in parliament, not any more, we only have shiny, silver tongued lawyer mp,s, who dont know sh*t from shampoo.

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How can we paid to not grow crops when the demand is there . But we can have a 6m boarder around a feild to allow the wild life to prosper when the conditons for them are wrong .You will find more birds nesting in a well cut hedge than 3 years of growth with no cover for them. So much would be better if the people who understand the land ( lets call them farmers) where allowed to manage the countryside and keep it as it has been for many years

goverment does not have a clue what goes on out here in the jungle!!!!!!!!!!!

Most Governments are made up of People who are looking for a life style rather than a commitment to a cause.If Politicans were any good they would not bother with the Salary of an MP but get into Business or Commerce where [ even without Expenses ] they could earn much better Salaries. This seems to be the case with Civil Service and the Army which to me should have a Stalin Purge every so often to stop useless ,Lazy spoilt Brats having an easy life with very little apptitude for the actual job of Fighting.Two World Wars have shown us this as well as Afganistan.Nothing drives or Focuses Politicans more than an Emergency,the Media shout so that their positions are put at risk straight away.

Concreter posted this on Talking points: 

"I had a chat with our carcase disposer yesterday, he confessed that there seemed to be a lot less dead animals about this year, is this true? I have not had many less about here but perhaps other people are different - maybe one or two more are being put in holes around and about?"

It could be that he is correct and that practices are not following procedures. This kind of thing often happens when the 'authorities' have lost interest in pursueing us or don't have sufficient staff to do so.

However, why is it that we don't have rules rescinded when it is apparent to all, including the authorities, that they are not being followed by the public or chased up by officials?

It could not possibly be, that 'authorities' like rules for their own sakes, could it?

Peter Wells:

WHY governments are always behind things and then so often take wrong decisions or continue to implement programmes that have gone past their sell by date.

Politicians are now, in the main, egotistical and not necessarily working for the common good.  When given a job to do by government they seem to feel obliged to make excessive or unnecessary change to justify their existence.  However they rarely last long enough to see it through.  Their successors, wary of taking responsibility for another's choices, adopt a "hands off" approach.  The public whinge to themselves but then fail to vote.  Politicians and civil servants are basically employed by the taxpayer, yet by not holding them to account  we say "here is a blank cheque - go play!"   We the public have allowed  Government to become lackadaisical. 

Peter Wells:

Governments are always well behind the things

Well yes Peter  Government are behind things.

Government is a legislature and executive, which has become exclusively grey these days.

It was more divergent it history with the king!

Now we have a 24 hour news cycle and internet communication. The problem as I see it is the corridors of power are peopeld with policy makers, spin doctors, advisors and so on and so on.

Politicians are more interested in PR than government now, probably always so.

The real trouble is the civil servants are also wanting to get in on the act today and be on TV. Civil servants are the engine room of government to be unseen and unheard, doing, oiling the wheels and distilling facts from fiction knowledge for emotion.

As to food production; we have pushed the ability of our soils to produce to hard. Our weather patterns are taking more impact out of production, we use more irrigation in Suffolk now than 30 years ago. The Jordanian farmers pump water 1100 metres out of the ground, a few years ago it was 900 metres down - we can go on.

The agricultural knowledge in this country is very poor and becoming less farmers don't want to enter the debate with the rest of society [you know the other 99% of the nation who are not farmers] so the 99% of the nation are driving agriculture and this is the same in Iceland and America and Australia and New Zealand. The difference in New Zealand is the government no longer pays agriculture, agriculture is a stand alone business. We had a Kiwi adviser talk to a group of farmers here and he called UK agriculture 3rd world agriculture and he is right.

Ramblings but until farming joins in the debate about land use and food production then it is just a cacophony from the sidelines. Food security policy is no longer made in response to Nazi worry or even cold war it is about ecology and climate and carbon.

Why do so many farmers use 100litres of oil hectare on their arable production units when it can be achieved with half the quantity through changed tillage techniques?

Motley, i presume you are taling about non farmers when you say agric knowledge is poor and getting poorer. This is a major threat to the industry.

The standard of farming is falling generally, as farmers have little money to invest, and are constrained by poor security of tenure and voracious lenders.

As to the 100 litres a ha of deisel, yes you can use less, but you need more chemical, so does the carbon footprint really change?

switching to min till also requires capital, and you have lower harvests for a number of years till the system beds in.so if your lenders and landlords are at your heels, how can you afford to risk more in changing your system?

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