Archive Article: 2000/03/03
Stupidity to criticise EUmembership
In the late 1970s, the distinguished American historian, Barbara Tuckman, wrote a book called Folly. It dealt with examples from history where kings, governments and many other groups pursued policies contrary to their own interests and continued to do so even when the folly became obvious.
Various examples are highlighted, one being the French king Louis XIVs persecution of the Huguenots. The Huguenots were the most pious, industrious and skilled people in the country. They were persecuted to such a degree that most of them fled to neighbouring countries. This resulted in the French economy going into decline for 100 years while their neighbours prospered.
Another example was the British car industry in the 1960s.
There was also the American war in Vietnam. The Americans knew they could not win, yet for years continued to inflict misery on themselves and on the country they were supposed to be defending.
I am reminded of all this when I hear farmers criticising our membership of the European Union. No group in our country has benefited as much as they have from this membership.
Since we joined, farmers have received countless billions in subsidies and grants, in many cases guaranteeing a living for the most inefficient. And yet it is the farmers, both individually and collectively, who maintain a continuous chorus of whining and sniping at the very system which provides their security.
I have no explanation for this incomprehensible stupidity except to say that history has many such examples.
It is to be hoped that in 50 years a British historian does not write a book on the decline of British agriculture, recalling how, in 2007, the Tories won a landslide victory, took Britain out of Europe and reduced the farmers to penury.
Malcolm Whitaker
Harcombe Farm, Syde, Cheltenham, Glos.
Joining k is the best remedy
How about blaming the Labour government for refusing to match the European cash on offer £ for £ and so depriving British agriculture from well-deserved aid? Many farmers would say that the single biggest thing that would help would be a lower £. Joining the k is the fastest and best remedy available.
How can some racist, small-minded people force the government to hold on to "our nationality"? Both Spanish and Chinese blood run in my veins, I carry a Finnish passport and speak four European languages including German. My husband is Scottish, one brother-in-law is English and the other one a Jew. Aunt is American, she was educated in New Zealand and married a Greek. There is nothing insignificant in my cultural heritage.
We need easy communication and trade between different cultures. We are not discarding the old traditions, but adding to them. Maybe some people feel threatened because we are no longer imperialists but equal responsible persons in a partnership.
Mrs P Johnston
Townfoot, Kirkmahoe, Dumfries.
Mr Blair just doesnt care
The last sentence of your Leader (Feb 11) asks the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, to help the industry he claims to care for. Sadly, he does not care about farming. I am sure there is an unwritten government agenda to let it wither and die.
They promise to help, but farming eats up too much of their precious budget in relation to the output it produces and the small population involved.
Unless there is some new, huge movement to scare Mr Blair to his senses he will let farming drizzle away. Then this money can be diverted into other ministries. Poor Mr Brown is just a puppet. The chocolate eclair should have been aimed at Mr Blair.
A more effective way of telling the Prime Minister what people think when he prances round the country would be to stand up at the end of his speeches and turn ones back on him in complete silence. Sometimes silent and non-violent demonstrations can be more effective.
Perhaps the urban people, who profess to love the countryside they want to roam, need to be reminded when they fly-tip their waste in the lanes that there will not be any benevolent farmers left to clear it up. And councils will not have the money to take it away.
Glos Farmer
Name and address supplied.
Tesco labelling policy for all?
I was delighted to read the letter (Feb 18) from Chris Ling of Tesco indicating that in future all pig products in the companys stores will be labelled clearly to show whether the animals had been reared in the UK.
May one ask whether Tesco will adopt the same policy for all the poultry and poultry products?
Ian Stevenson
Court Lodge, Whitton, Ludlow, Shropshire.
Others helped, why not us?
I was angered by Sean Rickards comments (News, Feb 11). With his former NFU connections, one would have thought he would have had a better understanding of farmers problems.
On subsidies, he quotes British Leyland as a prime example. British Leyland has enjoyed massive subsidies in the past. More recently its German parent company, BMW, held a gun to the governments head and it gave further large sums to subsidise a foreign company. When British farmers ask for agri money compensation, to which they are entitled, it is refused.
Farmers ask for and deserve a level playing field. Supermarkets and many other industries are encouraged to locate in various areas with the promise of large subsidies. So what is wrong with farmers receiving them, after all, farmers contribute much to the economy of the country as well.
Is it fair that the British farmer is asked to produce to a higher welfare and hygiene standard only to be dumped by supermarkets if they can source products more cheaply elsewhere, completely disregarding both welfare and hygiene? So much for loyalty to the farmer and the consumer.
I agree farmers must be efficient, and most are, they have to be in the present economic climate. But getting larger does not necessarily ensure efficiency; that has been shown in other industries where some companies have expanded only to fail later.
J E A Owens
Glancorrwg, Llanpumsaint, Carmarthen.
Hook up pc and sell, sell, sell!
It seems to be a general rule that over-prolific vermin undergo periods of mass-extinction, victims of their own success. Over-abundant rabbit populations undergo self-culling when they contract myxomatosis and RHD. Now supermarkets are beginning to be ravaged by e-commerce. The £100 shopping baskets are transferring to e-shopping, which will eventually make supermarkets uncompetitive in their present form.
This may be a chance for producers to compete on a more level playing field. Properly designed, your website can look as good as, or better than, anyone elses. A PC-user cannot tell the size of your operation, or the amount of chromium plating you have, by looking at your website. Hook up a bright 12-year-old to your portable computer, and get selling direct to the public. If your product-range is too small, just meat for example, get together with like-minded neighbours who sell vegetables, flowers, hay and straw for horses. And be prepared for barter, something we are much more used to than supermarkets.
Incidentally, New Scientist reports that internet retailers are complaining that two-thirds or more of potential shoppers abandon their electronic shopping trolleys before closing a purchase. It seems that, in many cases, prices are not openly displayed. One finds out the cost of an item by clicking on it, only to discover that it may cost a lot more than one is willing to pay.
G Smith
Old Milton Farm, Thurleigh, Bedford.
Make way for Mr Haddock
There comes a moment in history when the phrase "if only" leaps to ones lips. If only Churchill had come to power two years before he did. If only Captain Smith of the Titanic had been able to change course in time. If only Richard Haddock had been elected president of the NFU, instead of the present incumbent.
The time for a change in direction in farming is now, but valuable time will be lost as casualties of this crisis suffer needlessly. All because someone has failed to plan and lead the necessary changes required. When the head of this country and the whole leadership of the NFU refuse to be in touch with grassroots members, the small and vulnerable suffer.
It is not the mark of a strong, resolute, politically astute leadership able to stand its corner. The NFU council may be full of intelligent men but they have got us into this mess. I, and many thousands like me, hold them responsible for the present position. They are as big a flop as the millennium dome, and should go quietly, to make way for Richard Haddock and people of his ilk who are not only politically astute and hard working but carries the majority of grassroots members with them.
Malcolm Light
Ashbury, Okehampton, Devon.
Buy British clauses needed
I am amazed by our government which is so short sighted and addle-brained. It spends billions of taxpayers money to support other nations with military and other aid. But it is unable to support our own nation, which is also in need of support.
With a stroke of the pen and two words (Buy British), they could support our own industries which are in crisis. Those include farming, manufacturing, steel, coal that would create jobs and reduce the dole queue, therefore saving taxpayers money.
Ministers when signing contracts with supply agents should include Buy British clauses. So what if they have to pay a bit more due to the strong £, it is no fault of the producers. Our hospitals, schools, prisons, forces, etc, will be eating good quality food, wearing and using good quality supplies.
I am sure the taxpayer, if given a choice, would support our industries, thus saving money and providing secure employment. Their own jobs could be on the line.
So ministers take your head out of the sand and create a better future for this country.
Mrs A Pitts
Stockbridge Farm, Eskmeals, Bootle Station, Millom, Cumbria.
Plough/drill is not sustainable
Those whose practical experience of organic arable farming predates the current bandwagon will not be surprised to read of Messrs Greens experiences (Organic Special, Feb 11).
Long-term cereal production by the plough-and-drill system in an all-arable organic programme is doomed to fail for two reasons. First, the build-up of an arable weed burden and second, the decline of soil fertility with weaker crops struggling against stronger weeds.
The problem is not absolute, it is economic. It is more economic to grow heavy arable crops on half the farm in rotation with the other half feeding livestock than to struggle with the modest weedy crops of all-arable cropping. And the need to have some of the land in green manure crops and sometimes in full or half fallow for weed control means that in practice it makes much better agronomic and economic sense to have that area of land grazed as a clover ley.
Maintaining soil fertility on organic farms is costly in terms of land use, labour, time, fuel and materials. Traditional tenancy agreements make fussy requirements about the use of manure and sale of farm straw and limits on the number of white straw crops to be grown.
There is a shortage of organic feed, especially cereals, since hardly any all-arable farms have converted to organic. The feed shortage is likely to remain a problem because organic farming is a system of mixed farming with a high level of internal self-sufficiency. That is its strength. A farm selling off large quantities of feed grain will be hard-pressed to maintain its soil fertility, even with the use of clover and other legumes.
Unless British arable farmers perfect the production of grain crops strip-seeded into permanent white clover and restrict the use of the plough, the situation will be that, just as the fertility of North Africa went down the sewers of Rome, so the fertility of the soil of Polish peasants is going down the throats of British organic pigs and poultry. Is this a stop-gap? Because sustainable it isnt.
Stuart Pattison
Church Lane, Calstock, Cornwall.
Organic myth needs challenge
I note that you have drawn attention to the BBCs huge
bias towards organic farming and its criticism of modern farming methods (Opinion, Feb 18).
Organic farming has a useful niche market and includes some good farmers. Among its top protagonists are people whose passionately held views are frequently expressed with skill and eloquence. But it is mischievous of the BBC to suggest that this outdated and expensive form of production will ever be anything more than niche. It is amazing that a system which is probably eight times more likely to infect its consumers with E coli and is environmentally risky in terms of nitrate leaching should be attracting extra subsidies.
With 99% of our food being produced by modern farming methods there is enough food for all of us and the population has greater life expectancy than ever before. This myth that turning the clock back 50 years will save the world needs challenging. That is difficult while The Archers and other BBC programmes portray a biased and unrealistic story about farming methods.
Good luck to those who have opted to supply the organic niche but please do not denigrate the good wholesome food produced by the vast majority of British farmers.
P J Fairs
hjfwarrens@farming.co.uk
Conception rate was higher
I wish to correct a mistake in your report of the MDC Focus Day at Reaseheath College (Livestock, Feb 4). The first service conception rate in the Langhill select line is 39% and not 30%.
Although this may seem low to those who believe theirs is substantially higher, in intense and accurately recorded herds the conception to first service rate is lower than average because the average is probably overstated. These figures are consistent with other research herds estimates and those from accurate surveys.
Likewise, the purpose of research herds like Langhill is to demonstrate what happens when selection for production is intense. We want to see the consequences, not overcome them by increasing management input. That way we can work out ways of incorporating suitable information into future breeding indexes so future generations of cattle will not exhibit the same consequences.
Mike Coffey
Animal Biology Division, Bush Estate, Penicuik, Midlothian.
Time for young to step forward
I am looking forward to seeing the results of your fox hunting survey (Farmlife, Feb 11). I do not live on a farm, but in a small village in Quorn Hunt country. My family has been associated with agriculture all of my life. My father now works at Brooksby College and his brother works a small family farm in Lincolnshire. We have a selection of animals , presently owning around 40 head of cattle with a similar amount of sheep and a selection of poultry.
As farming pushes its way through the worst times in living memory, I am still enthusiastic about agriculture and of my future within it. As farm incomes fall, family farms such as the 50-acre farm owned by my fathers family seem to become increasingly rare. Even I, a 17-year-old – have noticed the increase in the sales of such farms in recent years. It seems to be a sad sign of farming in this country today, and of peoples apathy towards it. Like all other people my age I know that farming will recover. It has to, but I also recognise the fact that we need to help the process along.
I am writing in the hope that other people sharing the same belief as I do may be able to help me. I want to do my bit to help British agriculture, as I am sure all of your readers do. I am a member of Melton Mowbray Young Farmers Club, and have recently been posted with the position of Press secretary. I am currently at school studying A-levels in Geography, Environmental Science and Economics, and after a talk to the school by the RSPCA on foxhunting, I decided that it was time to make a stand.
I was horrified at how people in the Melton area – an area renown for its hunting were taken in by the biased propaganda from the RSPCA. The school enticed us in telling us that we were going to see a debate on fox hunting. There was only an RSPCA spokeswoman there. There was nobody to give the other side of the debate. I have decided that I should attempt to give the other side of the debate.
I am planning to write a series of articles giving a young persons perspective of how country issues and agriculture look at the moment and how they look to be in the future. I then want to get the articles published in a national newspaper, which should be possible, because people are interested in this subject. I hope to be able to educate people about the facts, which at present many people are unaware of.
I would like young FW readers to send me their views, and any facts that they wish to be included because after all it is our future we are controlling. Then I hope to interest a national newspaper in running this story.
Andrew Payne
4 Ash Way, Frisby on the Wreake, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.
Make farming an election issue
I am not a farmer, but I have lived close to the farming community for 40 years. I see the accelerating decline of a prosperous industry caused by a lack of political will on the part of the government and the NFU. I have spent my life in an industry that has seen enormous growth, rapid technological change and brutal commercial forces reshaping it. I have seen the contrast between an industry controlled and directed by politicians, and one run by private enterprise.
Any commercial activity run by politicians will fail. That is the prime problem besetting British farming. The secondary problem is how to break away from management by political whim and expediency without destroying the industry. The government and the NFU are the problem, and so it is foolish to think that it can to solve the secondary problem.
Agriculture is in the political wilderness. Tony Blair has only one thought – how to win the next election. Farming is not on his critical list. There are no votes for Labour in farming country.
The industrys new leaders will have to come up with a realistic plan for Mr Blair to support. But if the choice is: Support farming, or lose the election, support it he will. The plan is likely to require all farmers to operate their businesses along subsidy-free, commercial principles and there will be casualties. Certainly, the countryside will change, but no more so than the changes wrought by the demise of coal mining, the railways, public transport and most other services in rural areas.
If the industry does not gather its wits, decide to make its problems an election issue, and strike hard before the next general election, it will have condemned itself to a painful and lingering death.
Bryan Pearson
PO Box 2, Umberleigh, Devon.
Sensible way to grain assurance
In response to Mr Wilsons letter (Feb 18) stating that ACCS has a monopoly on grain assurance in the UK, I assume he is unaware of an alternative whole farm scheme that covers cereal enterprises as well as others.
The Genesis Quality Assurance Scheme has been classed as a sensible approach to assurance and is a not for profit scheme, with any surplus funds being spent on marketing. By publicising the best methods of production to the consumer, it is giving them the confidence to buy assured produce in preference to other supplies.
There is no front to the scheme and transparent accounting is backed up by publishing and issuing annual accounts to all members, in much the same way as a plc.
The combined assurance solution can typically save the farmer more than 50% in assurance subscriptions and benefits can completely outweigh the cost of assurance to the farmer, thereby creating a premium for being assured.
Martin Barker
Managing director, Genesis Quality Assurance, Ryknield House, Alrewas, Burton on Trent.
Selenium and cow conception
Nottingham University researcher George Mann reported at a Milk Development Council meeting that the average dairy cows first service conception rate is now 39%. He warns that if the trend continues the UK dairy herd will not breed enough replacements.
Certainly pushing cows for high production at all costs and at the cost of other traits is a factor in endemic infertility. There may be a copper deficiency problem and stress must always be avoided. But it is astounding that a major research department should be unaware that the major cause of failure to conceive in the cow and of impaired performance in the bull is selenium deficiency. Farmers report that raising selenium intakes increases first service conception rates by up to 90%.
Selenium intakes are deficient because UK soils are deficient, often lower than 0.3ppm, from years of removing it in intensive agriculture and not returning what has been taken off in crop, meat and milk. Acid rain also leaches it out. Ammonium sulphate fertilisers have the same effect.
Mineral blocks, fortified feed and injections are emergency aids but selenium levels need to be restored to pasture arable land so that our animals take it in the way nature intended, from grass, forage and feed.
Since 1985 the Finns have recognised the problem that our agricultural pundits refuse to recognise, and by law 6mg selenium is incorporated per/kg NPK, providing 3g/ha a year and bringing intakes in both animals and humans up to where they should be.
Soil levels should be 0.8-1.2 ppm. Have them analysed and corrected by the right amount. There will not only be increased fertility but also a marked reduction in other selenium deficiency symptoms: Mastitis, lameness, difficult births, malpresentation, retained placentas in cows, contractile ankles, scouring and pneumonia in calves.
Helen Fullerton
Farming and Livestock Concern, 5 Bryngelli, Carmel, Llanelli.
Live exports are our last lifeline
Has Mr Prosser, Labour MP for Dover, given any thought to his actions in trying to ban live exports?
There has been much made in the news of cull sheep being dumped or given away because there is no market for them due to the rules regarding the splitting of adult carcasses and inspection charges. Thanks to live exports a market has been found which gives some of these sheep a home. It may even be less stressful for livestock from south-east Kent to be slaughtered in France than in England. Thats because the nearest French abattoir is closer than the nearest English one – in Luton.
Most sold for live export are for fattening and farming and not for meat. Carcass exports will not be the answer, as yet another slaughterhouse has stopped slaughtering for this trade in our area because it is not viable. Fewer carcasses will be exported in the future.
Each live export ban has been followed by a new wave of EU regulations which shut more slaughterhouses and make our slaughter industry less competitive. Eventually, it will close completely.
Is Mr Prosser a typical MP who just wants to keep himself in the news rather than think of the consequences to agriculture? Or is he a vegan or a vegetarian?
In that case he may not care if the industry survives or dies.
About 25% of the price of a carcass is paid to the government in inspection charges. Many of these are set to treble over the next three years.
The same inspection costs on the Continent are as little as 10% of the price.
That will force the British slaughter industry out of the Continental carcass market, thereby leaving live export as the only avenue left for the British farmer in Europe.
S Martin
65 St Dunstans Street, Canterbury, Kent.
Quantity in – quality out
Henry Fell (Letters, Feb 4) mentions the new GM rice which will apparently solve the problems of micronutrient malnutrition.
It was new crop varieties (and hubris) which largely caused these problems in the first place. That view is developed in the article Hungry for a new revolution, New Scientist, Mar 30, 1996. Plant breeders sacrificed quality for quantity.
Traditional crops were richer in vitamins and could extract minerals such as iron and zinc from poor soils.
Conventional plant breeding with traditional rice varieties at the International Rice Research Institute, has already produced high yielding rice, rich in iron and zinc.
Ian Sanders
Walton Farmhouse, Craibstone, Bucksburn, Aberdeen. ab456@ab.sac.ac.uk