Please keep up the good work, FFA

The farming and rural communities of Britain are greatly indebted to the Farmers For Action and the haulage contractors for their magnificent actions. Their blockade of fuel supplies highlighted the obscene and unfair level of taxation imposed on all motorists and businesses by this socialist government. Hopefully, the Prime Minister will have the guts to overrule his tight-fisted friend in the Treasury and reduce this crippling burden before we lose our haulage industry and our rural businesses.

It was sad for lifelong NFU members, like myself, to realise that this once proud organisation was no where to be seen during the demonstrations. We expected, at least, to see our president, or some of his colleagues from headquarters, standing shoulder to shoulder on the picket line with the FFA and hauliers fighting for this just cause on our behalf. This action has obtained more publicity and public support, and will obtain more positive results, than any amount of cosy chats with the PM and Nick Brown.

I hope the FFA will keep up its good work on behalf of the ordinary farmers of Great Britain, who are weary of false promises and ministerial clap trap. Those businesses need support now if they are going to survive todays economic catastrophes.

Dick Lindley

Birkwood Farm, Altofts, Normanton, West Yorks. dicklindley@birkwood.fsbusiness.co.uk

NFU should work with us

I am tired of picking up farming publications only to read that NFU is constantly criticising Farmers For Action, particularly over the recent fuel blockades.

It is about time that NFU started to work with FFA in helping its members fight for their rights to survive. Surely, if we all tried to campaign for the same things and stuck up for one another we would become a much stronger force to bargain with, rather than suffer the continuous mud slinging and detachment shown by the NFU.

It is obvious to me which group is not afraid to do whatever it takes for our industrys survival. So it will not be a difficult choice as to which group I will subscribe to next year.

B R Tuck

Lower Stockley Farm, Bere Heath, Wareham, Dorset.

Supermarkets so vulnerable

The fuel crisis clearly demonstrates the vulnerability of the supermarkets national distribution system. Compare that with the robust and diverse local food economies that are being created by farmers markets, independent retailers and direct food links. Those rely on local sources of food, use less fuel in distribution and create less pollution. Also with shorter supply chains, they create closer links between producers and consumers.

Those are the 21st century businesses, which show that local, decentralised economies have multiple benefits. They are less exposed to external risk factors, and also begin to break down the barriers between farmers and consumers. The global economy works in the opposite way.

Higher fuel prices may become inevitable, in order to meet targets to reduce global climate change. But that will help the farmers, retailers and communities that are interested in creating local, less fuel intensive patterns of production and trade. It is these economic models that will hold the competitive advantage over the juggernaut fuelled, just-in-time economy.

Charles Couzen

Director, Foundation for Local Food Initiatives, PO box 1234, Bristol.Charles.couzens@localfood.org.uk

Townees dont get countryside

I am very much against Mr Blair and his Party. They dont understand country life. Its a pleasure to have hunting in the countryside. We work in the country and are entitled to have something. They have their pleasure holidays and we have to help keep them. I read that hunting has been going on since 1066. I dont understand why they should dictate to us. Foxes causes problems in the lambing season and kill poultry.

They dont understand the businesses it will effect and put people out of work. Leave us country people alone and dont come to live in the country, stay in the towns.

Gwyneth Hyde

The Furlong, Little Hereford, Ludlow, Shrops.

New Labour is just as bad…

When New Labour came to power with their huge majority, Dr Jack Cunningham MP, the first farm minister said the government was for the countryside. Yet in this first year of the new millennium, the opposite is true.

To MPs and former Tory MPs who might read this letter, I invite them to comply, at the age of 59, with their jobseekers allowance scheme. I joined the Labour Party to be rid of the years of arrogance, deceit and rural incompetence after 18 years of the Conservatives. Now I have resigned as convenor of Rural Affairs for the Congleton Labour Party in protest against the continued victimisation and social exclusion.

John E Willett

Future of Rural Society, 14 Eastgate Road, Holmes Chapel, Cheshire.

Trust tenants struggle on…

Edward Leigh-Pembertons Talking Point (Sept 15) has struck a chord with us 700 or so farmers who are tenants of the National Trust. We struggle on in a farming crisis with the added hindrance of a landlord whose ideas of what the countryside is about seem to come from focus groups consisting largely of Allegro drivers, and who would really rather we didnt do any grown up farming at all.

But why is the NFU on the trusts council? Surely the Tenant Farmers Association would be more representative, with the added advantage that it is a lot cheaper to join, and therefore may have more members among the National Trusts tenants. It also, in my experience, tends to think more clearly. The NFU (dithering on hunting and the Euro) and the National Trust (just dithering) at the same table would be the Clash of the Woolly Minds.

Hants Farmer

Name and address supplied.

Compare milk with petrol

Your leader (Opinion, Sept 8) is most timely but a punch short of its necessary impact.

Raised on a mixed farm in Co Kildare, and for years a farmer in England and France, I joined Farmers For Action as an independent member of Countryside Alliance. That was because I do not believe the dairying sector should be annihilated by those representing the interests of corporate shareholders in the multiples where most milk is sold.

Milk and petrol have some similarities. The farmer and the refinery both happen to be paid 16.4p/litre; give or take a few small shavings. Each litre can cost the consumer 80p with equivalent give and take. The message to government, since hauliers and farmers joined forces, has been endorsed overwhelmingly by motorists.

The Chancellor is able to siphon off £32bn in petrol tax. But the public are tired of being taxed so highly on a daily commodity and it appears that they are likely to continue to support those worst afflicted by such high taxation.

The milk scenario is different and will be the next to implode on government policy. The media has informed the public that the farmers are in distress because production costs have risen. The latest MAFF report for the first quarter of this year shows farmers price has shrunk from 16.4p delivered to 15p/litre. Production costs have been verified by four independent authorities. They have established that a gap of at least 6p/litre is not sustainable.

There is no reason for farmers to be paid a third less than cost of production for a commodity that is sold at a profit along the rest of the supply line.

Supermarket strategists know that milk is on the shopping list of 95% of customers. So its placed far from the entrance in order that the maximum number of aisles must be passed on the way to milk. Likewise, its profitable to get shoppers to visit the store by offering cheap petrol.

We are left with a situation where two groups are making 20% and one is losing 25-33%, according to individual circumstances.

Nevertheless, I believe dairying will recover because of milk quality and those, like myself, intent on seeing that British agriculture also survives.

D McGillycuddy

Haselbech, Northants.

TFA seeks fair deal for its own

I am concerned that Edward Leigh-Pemberton (Talking Point, Sept 15) does not recognise that the only organisation dedicated to tenant farmers in this country is the Tenant Farmers Association. We are in regular contact with the National Trust on behalf of all its tenants and we work tirelessly to ensure that tenants everywhere have a fair deal from their landlords.

We are actively seeking the ability to nominate individuals for the National Trust Council. And, as a dedicated body for farm tenants, we are hopeful that the Trust will respond positively.

R G L Haydon

National chairman, Tenant Farmers Association, 7 Brewery Court, Theale, Reading.

Time to follow American lead

I read with interest your short article about the size of tractors (Opinion, Aug 18) and would like to offer a balanced opinion on farm equipment efficiency and capacity. I spent my first 25 years working on English farms, before moving to the USA to work for a farm/consulting company.

I spent last week in Oklahoma, watching growers begin wheat planting. I met one owner/operator who farmed about 3000 acres which included 2000 acres of wheat, in addition to another 1500 acres of contract wheat planted for neighbours. He does all the farm work himself, aided only by a part-time man to help with grain haulage.

US producers use large direct drills with seed carts bigger than grain trailers I drove as a teenager. Such units allow hundreds of acres to be planted before re-filling. It reminds me of the days I spent drilling with a 4m drill in Lincs working long hours to plant 100 acres in a day.

Things have not changed much in the UK over the past 10 years. Drills are a little bigger perhaps but the large-scale movement towards minimal tillage and 10m plus equipment will take time. With farm labour becoming more expensive, how long it will take UK growers to adopt US efficiency levels in their establishment techniques?

There will always be a place for a plough in the UK, perhaps ahead of potatoes or pasture. But with £69/t wheat prices, there is no profit to spend all of your money on fuel, ploughs, power harrows and other recreational tillage-systems. Direct drilled crops in the US have similar, or better yield potential on some soils thanks to better seeding and herbicide technology.

Many will comment that small field sizes in some areas of the UK are detrimental to big equipment but they may not be profitable with any sized equipment. Would Case and other manufacturers have introduced a 440hp tractor to the UK, if they saw a future in small equipment?

Phil Needham

Kentucky, USA phinee@milesnmore.com

Dont blame me, it was Mrs T…

I was interested to read Mr. Dodds assertion (Letters, Sept 15) that my television series, Against the Grain, is the reason why British arable farmers have been denied agrimonetary compensation. If Mr Dodd has any hard evidence on which to base this ludicrous assertion, I have no doubt your readers would be interested to hear it.

I am afraid the real reason the Chancellor is so tight-fisted is not because he felt that every arable farmer in Britain was a clone of me (which I agree is a pretty ghastly thought) but simply because, unlike any of the other EU countries, the British government itself would have to provide £385m out of the available £450m earmarked for agrimonetary compensation.

Maybe Mr Dodd has forgotten the reason for that. It is not because an individual Cambridgeshore farmer made a television programme. It is because Mrs Thatcher agreed to that condition at Fontainebleau back in 1984. It was the price she was happy to pay in return for keeping the EUs rebate. I should also point out that at the time not a single farmer raised his voice to object.

But why should Mr Dodd be bothered by these boring details when it is so much more fun to blame all the troubles of arable farming on me? The tradition of finding scapegoats is, after all, as old as agriculture itself.

Oliver Walston

Thriplow Farm, Thriplow, Royston, Herts.

French exploit milk deficit

As milk producers are selling up every day, there is a national milk deficit. And that deficit is being supplemented by milk from France. As current labelling laws do not require retailers to make the public aware of this by labelling its source, the public remain in the dark. With a large amount of interest in dairy hygiene in Britain, I doubt whether this set of rules is also applied to French producers.

Once the Farm British Standard label is slapped on the front of cartons, people will ask where this milk is from. They will expect it to be British. They will not wish to drink milk that is at least three days old before it arrives in the country, especially if it has been mixed and treated with a fresher supply of British milk. Mr Blairs child may soon be drinking French milk, but my children will not.

Deb Pascoe

Cornwall.

Foxes always attack poultry

A little knowledge is dangerous; no more so than in Jim Dimnocks letter (Aug 25). To state that foxes pose virtually no threat to farming smacks of ignorance.

In these days of diversify or die, can I relate the following story about a young farming couple who purchased 70 turkey chicks to rear for Christmas sale.

In July, the young farmer was combining well into darkness trying to beat the gathering rain clouds. With the barley field finished, it was only while locking up the combine store that he realised it was his turn to shut up the free ranging turkeys because his wife had taken the kids to the seaside.

Upon his return home, his worst fears were realised. Only in the morning did he discover the true extent of the carnage reynard had left in its wake. 34 mainly headless corpses left him gutted. Multiply that figure by £30 and you can see why. I could relate several local incidents of daylight raids on free range hens, so too, Im sure, could many of your readers.

To underestimate the full impact a visit from the fox can have on farming is a sin.

Kerry Johnson

5 The Folly, Longborough, Moreton in Marsh, Glos.

Environment balancing act

I read with frustration articles and letters that appear in FW and the national Press regarding farming, the environment, GMOs and organic farming. No one appears to acknowledge that farmers have brains, that they care for their farms and surroundings, but that they need to farm profitably.

It is too easy to criticise farming practice and claim that it will have a detrimental effect on the environment. Most critics fail to understand that by altering one facet, this will almost certainly have a knock-on effect on another.

Witness recent articles after the publication by Watkinson et al of a model to predict what might happen to skylark populations under various fat hen control scenarios in sugar beet. The paper concentrated on the use of herbicide tolerant beet, but provided a basis for all weed control systems. The model needs data to be used properly and, for GM herbicide tolerant beet, that information will be produced by the DETR Farmscale Evaluations. The paper barely mentioned other control systems.

The message in the Press from the Watkinson work suggests that if weeds are absent in sugar beet, skylark populations would decline even more. But if we have more weeds present and do not modify other aspects of crop management to overcome this, the beet crop could disappear. That would be disastrous.

It is not those who have a concern for farming and the environment, but rather those with short-term political or commercial interests that are dominating the debates. Both farming and the environment are suffering. Those seeking to improve the environment must adopt a positive approach and provide farmers, their advisers and other researchers with good information.

Sugar beet growers have an efficient education and advisory system that they pay for with their own levy. Environmental impact is important and, with factual information, researchers can usually produce a win-win scenario for the farmer and the environment. There are ways to solve the skylark "problem" although different systems may be required for conventional, GMO and organic cropping. Positive thinking is alive within the beet world.

Mike May

Senior liaison officer, IACR-Brooms Barn, Higham, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.