Archive Article: 2001/01/05
Producers must make a stand
Have we removed the infectious materials from our government as well as our beef and sheep? Our local authorities, the Army and half the population would rather eat foreign beef, which is still fed meat and bonemeal, is over 30 months old and has a growing incidence of BSE.
The French banned our beef at the earliest possible stage, and still do, but we are not prepared to ban theirs. Is this a bad dream or is the UK agricultural industry already worse off than the miners? One show of what we can do, courtesy of the Farmers For Action group, restored my flagging faith. The government offered a pittance and round two went to them.
Meanwhile, the hardest workers in the country commit suicide at an alarming rate and the surviving farmers are represented by the captain of the Titanic. The industry is now left with consumers so confused and scared that they trust nobody. Milk is surely made in the supermarket as is all food and BSE is farmers fault. Why is farming letting this happen?
P Fletcher
4 Northlands, Harthill, Sheffield.
Hes detected an opportunity
In these days where every penny of income is precious, I have long thought about the following opportunity that many farmers have on their doorstep. The sport/hobby of metal detecting has recently begun to expand and many good detecting sites are found on farms.
Ancient footpaths and track-ways are nearly always close to fields and farms and from reading recent metal detecting magazines, it is obvious that this sort of site is much sought after. Would it not be an idea for landowners to agree to allow enthusiasts to search their land on a profit-sharing basis if anything valuable is found?
Why not advertise or arrange days for groups of them to hold a rally on your farm? You could charge an entry fee and organise food stands. Such events are held regularly and are well organised. The vast majority of detectors voluntarily agree to a 50-50 share of any find proceeds.
P Foster
PO Box 2169, King George St, Yeovil, Somerset.
Do farmers get M&S premium?
For the third time I have felt compelled to write to farmers weekly, but I wont be complaining about the government. I have a job in The Link in Dorchester, Dorset as well as on the farm and recently was sent to buy some milk.
Since it was raining, instead of going to Waitrose I visited Marks & Spencer. The milk was 95p for 2.27 litres compared with 83p at Waitrose. Does that mean M&S charges customers for the brand name or does the firm pay more to farmers for their milk? If the latter is true I will certainly be visiting M&S for milk more often.
Tim Burden
6 Milborne Wood, Dewlish, Dorchester.
Let MDC exist for levy payers
In reply to Peter Martins letter (Dec 8) concerning payment of MDC levy, I feel he is right not to pay the levy and I have not done so. Before my decision, I made enquiries as to the advantages of the council. I believe that some MDC policies are superfluous to requirements.
Education in dairy husbandry comes from many areas: Veterinary surgeons, feed, seed, chemical and fertiliser companies who are always on hand, often free of charge, to provide advice. Although MDC was heavily promoted, resulting in a poor "yes" vote, I believe farmers support for MDC has fallen considerably since its creation. I believe that MDC should exist only for those who wish to pay for the organisation.
Richard Robinson
Northfield Farm, Aggs Hill, Charlton Kings, Cheltenham, Glos.
BSE tax killing our pig industry
For nearly three years the British pig industry has laboured under a BSE "tax" estimated at £5.26/pig. This tax is a cost that is imposed by the UK government because of a ban on the use of meat and bonemeal in the UK. The BSE "tax" is one of the major reasons why nearly 25% of the British pig industry has disappeared recently.
France has just announced a ban on the use of meat and bonemeal in French pig rations. Will the French pig farmer pay his £5.26 BSE tax or will the French government pay those costs? We all know the answer.
What will happen to the mountains of meat and bonemeal in France? They will be scattered across Europe, especially eastern Europe, converted into pig and poultry meat and continue to end up on UK plates.
Food labelling regulations in the UK are a farce. The catering trade can source from anywhere. If you eat in a restaurant or a canteen, you have to shut your eyes and hope.
Robert Persey
Upcott, Broadhembury, Honiton, Devon.
GM firms, not crops are danger
Further to Alan Gueberts article (FW Dec 8), and as one who believes GM may offer new types of crops that can produce tremendous benefit to mankind, I do not believe that it is essential to have test sites throughout the UK. Millions of acres are already being grown in North and South America. Why do many of these crops have a requirement to be sprayed with glyphosate and, in some cases, offer no yield benefit?
Do Third World countries which often lose many of their crops to climatic conditions need to be tied to technology fees to obtain their seeds each year? The danger of GM may not be the crops, but the motives of the giant companies that control the growing of these crops.
Novartis, as one of the worlds largest providers of GM seed, food and pharmaceuticals, confirmed on Aug 3, 2000 that it had banned GM modified ingredients from all its food brands worldwide from the end of June last year.
I also note that in December 1999 Novartis rival Monsanto banned GM foods from its own staff canteen run by an independent caterer at one of its British offices. I assume that if one of the GM multinationals acquires ownership of one of the worldwide grain traders and controls the growing of seed to the marketing of crops, it will have UK arable agriculture under firm control.
Gordon Day,
The Pheasantry, Panton, Market Rasen, Lincs.
Spud growers in retailers hands
Mr Walker, who wrote the letter (Dec 15) about the rise in price of potatoes and British farmers keeping them in store, must have his head buried in the sand. The same goes for others who might share the same thought.
I grow pre-pack potatoes in Herefordshire and last year my average price was £70/t while my cost of production was £90/t. So when Mr Walker remarks about foreign imports coming into our country and suggests that the farmers should sell their potatoes at the current levels and move a greater quantity, how long will we remain in business? Foreign imports increase when our prices are high and when they are low, potatoes stop in their own countries.
The British Potato Committee cannot understand that supermarkets want crop assured potatoes and Tesco requires Natures Choice potatoes. On my farm, I invested about £30,000 to meet these requirements. After being audited two years ago, I was able to sell my potatoes to them. Traceability, what a joke? I would like to see the paperwork on the traceability of some of these foreign imports. If the supermarkets drop all their standards that we have achieved, theres no loyalty whatsoever to British farmers. When we have a better year selling our potatoes, which compensates for a fall the previous year, BPC should not knock potato growers otherwise it may not be in business for long.
Mr Walker should get behind UK farmers instead of allowing himself to be dictated to by supermarkets and packers. If there are no UK potatoes because growers have gone bust, Mr Walker will have no job and the supermarkets will be selling dust.
PD Vaughan
Oakfields Farm, Kingsland, Leominster.
NBA has bias for live selling
I write regarding your report "Call for more transparency in beef prices" (Stock and Sales Update, Dec 15). It is stated that the average live market price for cattle w/e Dec 9 was 90.1p/kg up 5.5p/kg on the previous week. I agree with MLCs Duncan Sinclair that this rise was due to an abundance of primestock shows held at live markets during the week.
Robert Forster claims that in order to reflect this price rise, D/W base price for R4L animals should be 190-195p/kg. Mr Forster is way off the mark. It would be worthwhile for him to obtain from the MLC a "Liveweight/deadweight conversion table". This table shows that the equivalent D/W price of an animal sold at live auction for 91p/kg which kills out at 56% (average for R4L animals) would be 162.5p/kg.
That is below the average base price of the two meat companies referred to by Mr Forster in the above report for w/e Dec 16.
On the other hand, if according to Mr Forsters calculations, D/W base prices should be 190p/kg then the equivalent live auction average should be 106p/kg. It is no secret that the National Beef Association is biased towards the live auction method of selling finished beef cattle. But I am surprised that Mr Forster, its chief executive, seems to manipulate figures to such an extent in order to scare producers away from selling D/W direct to meat companies.
FJ Williams
Berthlwyd Uchaf Farm, Llandovery, Carmarthenshire.
No threat from composting
I write with regard to the letter (Nov 17) from A R Horton regarding composting. There are several inaccuracies in the content of this letter.
First, no extra journeys are created during the transportation of green waste. It would all have to be transported irrespective of whether its final destination is to landfill or a centralised composting facility.
Second, all effluents arising at composting sites are also created within landfill sites. Also in a landfill site the gas formed from the rotting material is methane, a far more damaging greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Third, composting is a carbon neutral process because all the carbon dioxide released during the process has previously been taken from the atmosphere by the growing plants.
Fourth, pathogens are destroyed by the high temperatures achieved during the composting process. Composting is a safe and sustainable alternative to landfill, which is a benefit not a threat to agriculture. The final product can be successfully applied to agricultural land as a soil conditioner and long-term nutrient addition. Our recent studies at the University of Liverpool showed that yields of spring barley were equal on trial plots receiving compost as the sole source of fertiliser to those grown under the farm standard fertiliser regime.
Philip Putwain
Nicholson Building, School Of Biological Sciences, Liverpool University, Liverpool.
Insatiable greed at root of ills
The recent presidential election in the US should remind us, particularly in farming, that we have to tolerate the influence of politicians who are in office only by default. Even more important in farming are the large number of scientists who extract financial gain from agriculture without giving true value in return.
Insatiable greed is eating away at British agriculture and is the main factor involved in the industrys problems over the past few years. In fact, they threaten the industrys very existence.
Farming capital is being drained away at an alarming rate just like the blood that flows from a slaughtered animal in an abattoir. We have acquired a large number of theoretically qualified people who extract unrealistic financial gain from the blood that flows in abattoirs and from efficient farmers. This financial gain is backed by laws made by politicians.
Time is running out to take a truthful look at the realistic qualifications and abilities of our scientists, vets and inspectors. That is before they kill off the real experts in agriculture who are the generations of farming families who live and labour as guardians of not only food production but, more importantly, guardians of the countrysides future.
Sam Millward
36 Scalby Road, Burniston, Nr Scarborough, North Yorks.
CLA and NFU back members
John Hardmans letter (Dec 15) makes allegations about our two organisations that we feel demand an answer.
Our respective files show that in March 2000, Notts County Council advised Mr Hardman that, as the result of evidence submitted to them, they intended to issue a modification order to upgrade parts of a footpath to bridleway and to add a further bridleway to the definitive map.
Mr Hardman asked our organisations for advice since the order affected part of his land. Both CLA and NFU reviewed the evidence, discussed the proposal with the rights of way officer and made submissions to the county council on behalf of Mr Hardman.
As a consequence of these submissions, the county council agreed that the status of the route to be inserted should be footpath only and not bridleway, a result that favoured Mr Hardman.
Unfortunately, it will always be the case that some members feel that not enough was achieved on their behalf, or that the advice they received was not what they hoped to hear. In this case, the evidence for minimum status of the footpath was, in our opinion, incontrovertible.
As most of your readers will appreciate, Mr Hardmans suggestion that CLA and NFU are unduly influenced by our interests in the British Horse Society and the Ramblers Association is entirely fanciful. That is much though we respect both those organisations and seek to work with, rather than against them.
Peter Geldart
Regional director CLA, Goodbodys Mill, Albert Road, Retford, Notts.Jack WardRegional director NFU.
Lessons to be learned on TB
As a former member of the governments Badger and Bovine TB Panel, I was not in the least surprised to hear that the Phillips BSE Report found widespread selective partial half-truths, as orchestrated by the "Sir Humphreys" within MAFF.
Many civil scientists have been, and are still, avoiding the obvious robust scientific answers already available that could help recover lost ground on worsening TB. And, as with BSE, government scientific experts seem to have been chosen more because they wouldnt rock boats than through any basic understanding of TB.
To take just two examples, Britains textbook TB scheme into the 1970s included movement bans of stock into TB-free areas, and annual tests of all cattle. Relaxing those measures is why TB is spiralling out of control both geographically and in doubling in some areas every one to two years. But sadly, MAFF seems unwilling to alter testing procedures or test frequency other than in triplet study areas. The comparative skin test uses both bovine and avian tuberculins, but hence produces more than 50% false positive cases. Elsewhere in Europe they achieved eradication using only bovine tuberculin, and this ought to be considered here. Also, MAFF has very belatedly decided on a trial of gamma interferon, with no results until summer 2001. And yet, this has been very extensively trialled in New Zealand, Australia, the Americas and Ireland in the past decade or so.
And the commercially available Bovigam TM has major advantages in terms of sensitivity, and de-restricting herds faster. It presumably comes down to the old chestnut – who pays?
But many farmers would probably be delighted to foot the bill if it meant getting back in production sooner. This should not be necessary though, the government are the ones signed up to meeting EU directives.
As to the restriction on movements. It is absurd that some record of TB test history isnt included on cattle passports, giving traceability – witness the debacle over swine fever. Lessons ought to be learnt, some are blindingly obvious.
M Hancox
29 St Peters Street, Tiverton, Devon.
Must play with a straight bat
The food manufacturers (supermarket controlled) and the government (supermarket influenced) want the right to forage the dustbins of the world for their raw material to feed the British public. I expect they say it is uncontaminated with little Red Tractor bits.
But the foreign food they prefer, wrapped in a fancy wrapper with a dubious country of origin and organic stamp, is a complete mystery.
After all, BSE from Britain appears to be more dangerous than BSE from France. Is it the effect on health or on bottom lines that stimulates "scientific decisions".
It might be something to do with the fact that the French and other Europeans never did learn to play cricket. Perhaps the government and its paymaster (the supermarkets) should have more practice in the nets, to brush up on the established rules.
Then at least, they might learn the benefits of a level playing field.
John E C Lawrence
West Hall Farm, Longburton, Sherborne, Dorset.