I said I would put a post up about this because I thought you would be interested.

A week long nationwide online debate has been launched around the question: Have we got the balance right between protecting the environment and producing food?

The Great Land Use Debate is being hosted by the UK Research Councils’ Rural Economy and Land Use Programme during the Festival of Social Science/National Science and Engineering Week. 

It will air opinions from key thinkers and there is an invitation for everyone with an interest in land use to contribute.

One of the opening shots has come from Lincs grower Mark Tinsley, who said that farmers and land managers in the UK are getting a raw deal because the emphasis on environmental protection has gone too far.

“We don’t have a coherent strategy for land use in the UK,” said Mr Tinsley, who grows vegetables and cereal crops in Lincolnshire. 

“Policy is ad hoc and designed to achieve short term political gain; it is reactive rather than proactive and the balance between environmental, social and commercial considerations is heavily weighted in favour of the environment. We need to decide rural policy based on a more balanced perspective.”

But Mark Avery, director of conservation for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds takes the opposite view. 

“Agriculture policy is moving out of the dark days of scant environmental awareness, but we’re far from a positive environmental footprint,” he said.  And he added that to focus solely on agricultural production would be folly.

Feel free to discuss it here or add your comments to the other site (or both! )

http://greatlandusedebate.wordpress.com/

Lets see how important the general public take conservation schemes when food starts getting in short supply.

I'M VERY MUCH IN AGREEMENT WITH MARK TINSLEY

A fair price at the farm gate to me is what concerns me as an employee of a farmer/grower and as a father of 2 in the supermarket a fair price in the shops, call me cynical however, but this enviroment strategy is good, looking after it and has benefits for all....BUT too me it has the bad smell of money making rackets behind the caring face, anyway i cant stop as i have to go and do an audit for the spray stores  

bonehead:

it has the bad smell of money making rackets behind the caring face

Bonehead has an interesting point. We all know who it is that makes a living from growing food, we even know who makes a living from distributing and selling it, however, in the case of the 'environment', who is it that makes a living?

In the first case it is people whose labour produces product needed by others, in the second case it is people whose labour produces something wanted by others. 

My guess is that those people who make their living out of growing food work harder and have more overall skills than those people who make a living out of the environment, however, the difference will be that they do not sit on as many committees.

        I used to think that if you look after farming the environment will be taken care of.  With set-aside being brought back into production many environmentalists are getting worried. If farm prices rise to give the farmers a proper margin for their produce, they will be both more able and willing to look after the environment.

Bonehead:  ".....it has the bad smell of money making rackets behind the caring face......."  I like that one! 

I assume that by 'the environment' what is meant is what we would usually refer to as 'the countryside'.  It has always amused me to see how 'environmentalists' seek to preserve 'the countryside' as if it were a natural phenomenon.  In the UK, with few exceptions such as the remnants of Royal hunting forests, landscaped parkland etc., the rural environment is the present day result of 10,000 years of farming - ie. food production, or occasionally as in the case of vast tracts of conifer plantations, of timber production.

If we were able to go back 2000 years to Roman times, the place would look entirely different and it would have changed only a little 1000 years ago.  The real changes would have occurred only in the past 400 years, with greater industrial requirement for timber, increasing population, followed by population shift to the industrial areas.  The 18th and 19th centuries brought advances in agricultural practices with horse-drawn mechanisation, followed in the 20th century by the impact of the internal combustion engine and the swift, reliable transport infrastructure and the impact of artificial fertilisers, pesticides and insecticides.

In short, apart from the wild mountainous areas of the country, Forestry Commission lands and the Grouse moor playgrounds of the wealthy, 'the environment' IS the farmed environment.  The only difference since WWII is that changes have not just been influenced by economics and technology, but also by Government and now EU policy and subsidies.  The policies designed to influence the impact of farming on the environment are largely the carrot of subsidies and the the stick of Cross Compliance. 

When ELS came in we were going to sign up on the dotted line, unfortunately the mess ups with our maps meant delay after delay and we didn't sign up at the start.  On reflection I have now come to the conclusion that, although we have oodles of points and would have to change very little about the way we manage our land, the rate per Hectare on offer is not enough to warrant the time and effort needed to ensure compliance and be subject to more officialdom.  With the planned increases in modulation of the SFP, it won't be long before the same factors apply to that.  With greater returns from arable crops in prospect there must be many farming businesses for which the day will soon arrive where opting out of SFP will pay dividends.

The UK government seems hell-bent on eliminating payments to farmers as soon as possible - setting us free in the world market place being the watch-words.  The general public and, for the most part unintelligent, politicians seem to have a view of agriculture and the countryside formed not from the grindingly realistic rural literature of Thomas Hardy but more HE Bates's 1950's, subsidy fuelled, bucolic idylls of the Larkin family of The Darling Buds of May.

So who makes a living from 'the environment'?  Apart from the odd dry-stone waller, hedge-layer and Bill Oddie and the BBC wildlife unit, only a few thousand bureaucrats I guess.

I really like the what Jacobus has written.  Our situation is a little different, the earliest white settlers in this area came in about 1854, the area I live in remained very sparsely populated with whites until after the Civil War, our town was founded in 1879.  We had a neighbor who lived to be 102 who could remember the land across the road being broke out from native prairie with a team of oxen.  Having said all of that, what "environment" we have is because of farming, not in spite of it.  150 years ago this was all warm season prairie grass, with a few trees along the creeks.  There would have been very little food for wildlife of any kind to over winter on.  Farming has introduced cool season grasses and wheat that provide grazing through the winter, and more importantly grain farming, the left overs from combining provide food for birds over the winter, as is evidenced by the turkeys and prairie chickens working over the corn and soybean stubble in the afternoons.  I have heard reports that there is more wildlife here now then there was when the Indians roamed this place, and I have no problem believing it.

The second part of this equation I think is, what is the point of the question to begin with?  As has been reported lately and widely in the world press, the world still has alot of hungry people in it.  What if the balance isn't right?  Do we reduce farming and allow more people to go hungry?  Farmers are doing their jobs, trying to grow food for a spiraling population.  Oh yes, we are trying to make a living as well, which to many seems to be a sign we are in some ways rather devious.  I want there to be a vibrant wildlife population and I don't want the entire world plowed, at the same time I feel people must come first.  Farming in my opinion is not the root cause of whatever environmental issues there are, we are the one industry that can keep green places intact and still operate.  People are the problem with the environment, population growth is the threat to the world.  Farms and farmers are just a cog in the workings of society.  Intelligent lawmakers understand there is a fine balance between preserving the environment, whatever that means, and meeting the needs of humankind.  People are going to impact the environment, that is just a given.  The issue to deal with is how can the planet deal with the growing numbers of humans and still resemble a place we all want to live.  Certainly in the list of environmental good and bad guys, I think most farmers are the fellows in the white cowboy hats riding to the rescue........the guys wearing black hats certainly have to be real estate developers who build on green spaces...deer and birds and skunks and possums have a much better chance roaming my farm fields regardless of the practices I use, then they do dodging in and out of traffic in housing developments and shopping malls. 

One other point is water.  Much is said about runoff from farm fields being contaminated by either manure or farm chemicals.  In reality, I think it was probably never a good idea to drink from an open water source, our ancestors did it and quite many of them died before they reached 35.  Once again, it is a balance.  If the frogs and fish can live in the river, and thrive, and wildlife drink from it, in my opinion it is in pretty good shape.  The idea that water can and should be safe for humans in its raw state from streams and rivers to me does not face reality.  Farming is not the only activity to pollute water, yet it is one of the most singled out industries.  It all boils down to the idea humanity can't have its cake and eat it too.  There can't be 6 billion people on this planet and have the environment be like it was when there were 1 billion, or none.  It isn't practical to try to make it so either.

kansasfarmer:

People are the problem with the environment, population growth is the threat to the world.

kansasfarmer:

The issue to deal with is how can the planet deal with the growing numbers of humans and still resemble a place we all want to live.

kansasfarmer:

There can't be 6 billion people on this planet and have the environment be like it was when there were 1 billion, or none.

Well said!!  Thank you, Kansas!!  I am with you all the way there. Forget Global Warming, Climate Change, Carbon Footprints, and all that.  It is all about population expansion and the polution of mankind.