Dream conference – shame about the wind and waffle
The A272 is no longer the free-flowing relaxing drive it was in my youth – uncluttered and stress-free, untouched by forests of road signs and acres of paint.
These days it’s an 85-mile nose-to-tail crawl, so if I’m driving 60 of those miles from Hinton Ampner to Ardingly during the busiest time of a dark drizzly November night, there has to be a damn good reason for it.
Luckily, a couple of weeks ago, there was. The South of England Agricultural Society had organised my dream conference: the perfect venue, the perfect time of day (early evening), and featuring a top-notch set of speakers. And it was free. ‘Is the 21st Century farmer guaranteed prosperity?’ was the theme. But I was still not in the best of moods as I and a thousand other weary travellers trundled slowly east, constantly watching for yet another seemingly random variation of speed limit while trying to spot a straight to overtake yet another 45mph lorry.
But it was worth it. I thought things had peaked too soon when I was offered a drink by the NFU regional director – but, no, things got better. The first speaker was Professor Philip Stott, a boffin with a job title almost as long as the A272, famous for being just about the only man sceptical of ‘Catastrophic Man-made Global Warming’ allowed to express his views on the airwaves of the Warmist BBC. And he was on fine form, clinically running through some of the facts and figures that illustrate the folly of what he called “the wind and wave waffle” of alternative energies. “Global Warming is dead,” he pronounced. “It is the last bastion of the liberal elite.” Truly a phrase to savour.
And as for future farmers: he said that the vital struggle to produce food to feed us all means that we will, once again, “be heroes”. Another phrase that had the packed room purring.
I was expecting fireworks when Andy Robertson, the new director general of the NFU stood up. I was sure that he would follow the lead of Peter Kendall, who recently wrote scathingly about Climate Change sceptics in the NFU members’ magazine, saying we should listen carefully to people like Munich Re, a highly respected insurance giant.
Munich Re is convinced that all recent big weather disasters are down to Climate Change. But hasn’t the NFU spotted the absurdity of an insurance company telling us to prepare for more weather disasters? It seems not. But there was no disagreement from Mr Robertson. Just plenty of optimism, along with “level playing field” and “less regulation”.
The ever-popular and much-missed Jim Paice rounded things off in much the same positive theme. His rant about the immorality of growing anything but food on food-producing land was a gem. The line about “phasing out taxpayer support” caused a murmur, even if he said it wasn’t imminent, and anyway, the surge in prices would minimise the effect.
I had a great drive home. The A272 was suddenly clear, the rain had stopped, and I was able to relax, enjoy the drive, and contemplate the implications of what we’d just heard.
It has been a long time since I heard a bunch of experts being so positive about the future of farming. Not since I was in an Alfasud instead of my Skoda estate had the A272 been such a fun drive out. It was just like the old days all over again.
Charlie Flindt is a tenant of the National Trust, farming 380ha at Hinton Ampner, in Hampshire.