Hi there,

I am a student studying Environmental science at university and am in serious need of a bit more data for a project I am doing for ECM.  If any of you have a couple of minutes (if that) could you please fill in the answers to the following questions (very small questionnaire)?

1.  What size is your farm in hectares and/or acres?

2. What crops do you grow? Wheat, Barley, Maize, other (please state) or none

3. Are you currently involved in an agri-environmental scheme? ELS, HLS, Other (please state)

4. Do you approve of these schemes? Yes, No, Unsure

5. Do you believe these schemes are profitable? Yes, No, Unsure

6. Is your scheme up for renewal in the next 2 years? Yes, No, Unsure

7. Will you be renewing or applying for a scheme? Yes, No, Unsure

 8. Please state any reasons FOR applying; Profit, Environmental reasons, Ease of management, Other (please state).

9. Please state any reasons AGAINST applying/renewing; Unprofitable, Farm is too small, Unsure of advantages, Too many controls/forms, Other (please state).

10. Has the recent rise in cereal prices affected you? Positively, Negatively, Unsure.

 11. Any other comments/suggestions?

Many thanks for spending the time to give me your views on this matter it is very much appreciated.

They are bureaucratic devices created to obtain control over the free Enterprise system of agriculture as practiced in this nation and throughout the rest of the EU. They are a means by which farm land can be surreptitiously nationalized and farm businesses can be collectivized without risking a violent peasants revolt. When the majority of the worlds populations are short of food those who proselytize for these schemes are reducing the total amount of nutrition available in the world and ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. We need more food and less of this socialist nonsense. That has made me feel a whole lot better.

Dick .

( ps. I bet your tutor will simply love my response)

student@mmu:

Do you believe these schemes are profitable? Yes, No, Unsure

Profitable for whom?

Dick.

You have correctly revealed to the world the nefarious intentions behind these schemes. At the same time the succinct manner of your delivery does you credit.

Its about whether the schemes can be profitable for the farmer who signs up to them.  For example if you have joined an ELS etc to help with times when cereal prices fall (cereal farmers) or when cereal prices increase (if dairy or meat farmer) etc. Does this help?

We entered ELS and were exepted the first year the agreements were spoke about 2-3 years ago now. For us it didnt cost us dearly in taking mass acres out of production although we probably lost 7 acres in total. To get the points we had to put in 6 meter buffers against ditches/streams on 3 fields,several field corners went in (areas up to half an acre each)  and 10 acres of over wintered stubbles on light beet land. Luckily the fields are fairly small and are surrounded by hedges or ditches so we managed to get plenty of points through these. Without these smaller fields we would have had to find other means of collecting points either by skylark plots or beetle banks which probably would have caused more hassle than its worth. This is the main reason these bigger boys with 200acre fields gave the ELS option a miss. 

The fact that we can only trim the hedges 1 in 2 years through the ELS scheme does make things look untidy, although we understand the reasons of doing so, so we have to learnt to except it.

No, I dont think these schemes are profitable as such for many farmers. Where rented land took out of production still have to be paid for so the income is going straight out of the other hand. 

We are better off in ELS due to the field sizes and landscape. I suppose we'are doing our bit so at least we can sleep at night!  

I cannot enter any agri environment schemes as my lease is less than 5 yrs. If i get my landlords approval, i can get in , but when he sniffs the money i will get, he will raise my rent, so whats the point?