READERS LETTERS
READERS LETTERS
Soya in feed could be a GMcrop
Its ironic that many UK feed compounders are promoting ACCS farm assurance as a prerequisite of cereal and pulse purchases as of harvest 2000 but are happy to use imported soya. Soya which may, or may not be, from GM crops.
Have these companies lost the plot? UK-grown proteins and rapeseed prices have been under severe pressure partly due to cheap soya. A clear indication from feed manufacturers that they will not use this product in their feeds would demonstrate their intention to help provide a level playing field and to satisfy customer wishes. If they do not, how can farmers take ACCS seriously? A total ban until proved safe would have considerable benefit to the UK market for both pulses and rapeseed.
John Aprahamian
Walnut Farm, Blakesley, Northants.
Blair speaks: Its okay…
So now we know. Our gallant Prime Minister, aided and abetted by the Cabinet enforcer, has spoken.
Without as much as a twitch, they declare genetic manipulation by the big three global operators and their cohorts to be safe. Who knows – they could even be right? However the bigger picture shows a devastating situation of patented seeds, patented chemicals and patented animals. Farmers, including Mr Walston and Mr Richardson, must realise that these multinational organisations will never allow the common farmer to retain the extra fruits made possible from this technology.
They will exert an even greater squeeze on production methods aided and abetted by governments who are – or will be – up to their collective necks in this. No one will be able alone to withstand the financial repercussions of facing up to the bullies.
The fight to organise the saving of the grey partridge and the planting of forests are but a smokescreen to lull this countrys population into believing that the government is sound.
It will take more than another countryside march to halt this one. We must nip it in the bud if the world is not to be held to ransom by industrial science.
Peter Austin
Aldham Gate, Aldham, Ipswich, Suffolk.
No guarantee for total safety
Before the scare about GM crops we were thinking about converting a proportion of our land to organic production. What better way to release the potential of woodlands that have never seen pesticides?
We planned to fence the area and rear what the consumer would call organic meat. But now Im not so sure. If the public is so intent on total food safety how can we guarantee this? After all our animals may have eaten bluebells, mushrooms, various tree barks, leaf mould, rabbit droppings, bird droppings, wild herbs or, even worse, drunk the rain that falls from our skies.
T J Hollamby
t.hollamby@zetnet.co.uk
Win public by rejecting it
With the farming industry at an all-time low, why are farmers contemplating growing GM crops and risking diving into another disaster? Who got the blame for the BSE crisis? – the farmers. Who will get the blame if the growing of GM crops turns out to be a major environmental disaster? – the farmers.
Scientific co-ordinator Jeremy Sweet was quoted in FW as saying "the biggest impact of GM herbicide tolerant crops will come from the way the crops are managed rather than the crops themselves." Already scientists are placing the blame away from themselves and onto the farmers.
Modified foods are already banned from staff canteens, schools, old folks homes and meals-on-wheels by various authorities including, Carmarthenshire, Kent, Surrey, Lambeth, North Tyneside and Gloucester. One of the first places to impose a ban from its restaurant and canteens was the House of Commons.
As GM products creep onto the supermarket shelves, its no coincidence that the demand for organic produce has soared. This trend shows a total lack of support for the Frankenstein crops.
A recent survey showed that the high suicide rate and depression suffered by farmers is mainly due to them feeling that they are disliked by the public. If they stood up and said that they would back the public and not take the risk of growing GM crops they would turn overnight from villains to heroes.
J A Thornhill
Plasydderwen, Ferryside, Carmarthenshire.
Roundup label info accurate?
I might be able to help Monsanto in its quest both to boost sales and prove the accuracy of its science.
The companys registration manager reports that glyphosate is a non-residual, highly effective herbicide. Is his information based on data for the active ingredient or for commercial formulations such as Roundup for which many of the genetically modified crops have been designed? Perhaps the inert ingredients found in such formulations explain the reported persistence?
We do not need fancy laboratories to test some of the claims for Roundup which many of us were led to believe is almost harmless enough to drink.
Pop down to the supermarket and buy Roundup in the ready-to-use spray container. Although there are few health warnings on the container, avoid allowing leaks into your food trolley. Some eminent scientists have stated that it too has some low level cholinesterase depressant action.
Back on the farm, find a few insects. Flies will do as the government pesticide poisoning book tells us the chemical effects only amino acids found in plants. Squirt a little of the spray on the insects.
If you find dead bodies after this test you should ask some serious questions. Without answers, it should be most unlikely that you will ever believe a word the chemical companies tell you again.
We should remember that this "harmless" chemical is systemic and has been cleared for spraying grass before grazing by cattle and grain crops before harvest. If the likes of Monsanto has its way, we will be eating even more crops sprayed with it soon.
And if we cannot trust them on basic chemical information, how can we trust them when they tell us their life form changes are safe?
Richard A R Bruce
Hill Place Cottage, Thorley, Yarmouth, Isle of Wight.
Olivers critics merely envious
My patience has snapped. The response to the Great Ones TV show in the letters pages has consisted mainly of trivial personal attacks reeking of envy. This attitude is moronic. If that is the total intellectual ability available to defend our industry then no wonder the rule makers walk all over the best interests of UK farming.
Stephen Crossman
Court Place, Withycombe, Minehead, Somerset.
Farm assassins are self-seekers
Following his appearance with Oliver Walston, Sean Rickard turned up on Countryfile recently. Does the BBC never question the motives of these would-be destroyers of the farming industry?
I believe Mr Walston does it solely to promote his career as a TV personality; never mind back-stabbing other farmers in the process.
As for Sean Rickard, he helped draw up Labours manifesto, so who knows whos pulling his strings? Is he a surrogate for MAFF? Indeed with the current GM controversy, who are MAFF acting for? We all thought that Dr Cunningham was no longer food minister.
Its no good denying that Mr Rickard is a hired gun. He used to work for the NFU when he sang to a different tune.
Before the multinationals can control the food chain, and with GMO foods they do so already, they have to get rid of awkward farmers. And the way to achieve that is to cut their subsidies.
Who could put the case for cutting subsidies and have the greatest impact with the public? How about a whistle blowing arable farmer, and an economist who used to work for the NFU?
So while the BBC examines the veracity of guests on The Vanessa Show, perhaps they could do the same with those who appear on the screen to talk about farm subsidies. They are given party political broadcast treatment but no one asks why they campaign so hard against farm subsidies.
Malcolm Read
Broadmead Farm, West Grimstead, Salisbury, Wilts.
Tax inputs and scrap subsidies
Lets go the whole hog. Tax pesticides, tax fungicides, tax herbicides and tax fertilisers. Scrap set-aside payments and stop subsidies. Would this be ruin – or transformation?
Michael A Lees
Petersfinger, Salisbury.
Make subsidy a good word
It is good to hear the Family Farms Alliance speak out for small farmers (Talking Point, Feb 12). It is vital that the family workforce is maintained, especially so in the hills.
BSE and the strong £ have shown LFA farmers what it is like to compete in the world market. Our high cost production base coupled with long winters, restrictive regulations and welfare codes have left us at the mercy of world production bound by none of the same rules. Take away the subsidies and financially we will not exist.
But subsidy is a dirty word in this country because it is perceived to be targeted badly and does not give value for money.
The Hill Farming Initiative has, for some time, been calling for a multi-choice scheme to address this problem. It is designed to take into consideration not only the needs of farmers but also those of wildlife, the environment and the public. Farmers will be paid to do a job which will bring benefit to the public and maintain good husbandry. The scheme has been presented to ministers Meacher and Morley and was well received.
Future EU payments will be direct and almost certainly on a reducing scale. More emphasis will be placed on the environment. It is up to farmers to produce a workable scheme, taking into account other peoples needs before one is imposed which they cannot live with. I am sure the HFI multi-choice scheme can be added to and the menu of choices tweaked, but it provides a sound base to work from.
If the public see the benefit of such a scheme, more funds would be available including perhaps Lottery money.
Alastair Davy
Hill Farming Initiative, Low Oxque Farm, Marrick, Richmond, North Yorks.
Need to protect small-scale units
Your editorial (Opinion, Feb 5) pleads with the unholy cabal at the helm of the NFU to bear in mind the interests of small-scale, as well as large farmers.
Nick Brown appears, after relatively few months at MAFF, to have quickly taken on board the unions inwardly canted stance. The more questionnaires that MAFF sends out over the heads of this organisation, the better it will be able to develop policies, albeit within the confines and provisions of CAP, that will suit the average to smaller scale farmer and, in particular, the countryside.
R G Iliffe
Poole Farming, Old Park Stables, Park Farm, Ogbourne St George, Marlborough, Wilts.
Taxes wont help bunting
Your item (News, Feb 12) correctly reports the conclusion of our Sussex Downs study on the decline of the corn bunting caused by the loss of traditional mixed farming and associated increased use of pesticides. It is the effects of the latter that has led the RSPB to call for a tax on pesticides.
The Game Conservancy Trust, however, is concerned that, by itself, a tax on pesticides would reduce the profits out of which conservation-minded farmers pay for the measures its research has developed. Those include conservation headlands, beetle banks and wild bird cover options and set-aside.
In FW, from time to time, (stretching back as far as Oct 1971), we have outlined the precarious position of the grey partridge and now the corn bunting seems to have been affected in a similar way. A most serious problem for both species at present is the pressure that diminishes traditional ley farming, almost to the point of extinction. We believe farm wildlife conservation policy makers should focus on this problem.
Dr G R Potts
Director-general, Game Conservancy Trust, Fordingbridge, Hants.
Dear seed = cheap ware
Controllers of varieties wanted it all – control of production, and royalties plus levies. But what a mess they have made of it. Increased sales of small ware, and now we see in the farming Press that standards of inspection are being temporarily lowered. You can also sell and plant twice grown.
Do not blame the weather. The bureaucracy placed on seed growers has reduced their numbers in England, Scotland and Wales to the degree that they have changed direction. In 1994, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Seed Growers included 14 growers compared with one last year. Judging by a recent visit to Scotland good seed growers are reverting to growing potatoes for packing and processing.
A letter drawing the industrys attention was published in farmers weekly on Aug 30, 1993.
Remember the old saying: Dear seed, cheap ware. Some varieties are not available and others at a price of between £400-£525/t.
I T Justice
Retired seed potato grower and ex vice-chairman of BSPA, Hill View, Averham, Newark, Notts.
Co-ordinating animal science
I commend the comments made in your leader (Jan 15) "Staunching the lifeblood essential to British farming health" in which you refer to the need for a more dynamic approach to research funding; new management structures with commercial tie-ins and partnerships.
That supports our view, derived from the consensus achieved from a multidisciplinary workshop organised by the British Society of Animal Science, attended by 50 people representing supermarkets, research, higher education, commerce, primary producers and funders of research.
The need for a co-ordinated approach to animal science research funding, and the transfer of research findings into practice is crucial for all involved in the food chain. Our proposed remedy is a stakeholder board approach to the co-ordination of animal science research. This would co-ordinate animal science R&D funding from the full range of sponsors; ensure end-user involvement in R&D contracts; facilitate technology transfer; determine the right balance between fundamental and applied research and ensure that strategic research linking the two is adequately funded. It would also encourage research in some areas and recommend contraction in others; have a verydetailed understanding of the infrastructure and human resources and advise on their best utilisation.
Prof Colin T Whittemore
President British Society of Animal Science, PO Box 3, Penicuik, Midlothian.
Help save our school farm
I have been a member of Oathall school farm since I started at the school almost two years ago. The farm was one of the reasons I wanted to join Oathall.
I very much enjoy working on the farm because I like animals and learning how to take care of them. I particularly like the showing season, where all the members of the farm club have an opportunity to look after an animal to train it and take it to shows.
When I heard that the farm is under threat because the government is taking the money away from the farm, I was very upset because I would miss the animals and the farm activities.
Its not only me who is going to miss out; its also the children in Year 6, who want to join Oathall because of this unique farm.
I would be absolutely devastated if the farm was to close, so I hope this letter will help make a difference.
Anna Taylor
Year 8 pupil at Oathall, 50 College Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex.
No substitute for being there
In response to Clair Jewsons letter (Jan 29), I feel she is putting down the part played by open farms in childrens education. Talking to children is valuable and being addressed by people who know their subject is better than nothing.
As a teacher and farmers wife who has school parties round the farm and organises childrens talks, I can honestly say all the talking in the world is no substitute for being there.
To breathe the smells, hear the sounds and see the farm animals and the size of the fields is something which has to be experienced. Perhaps this can best be illustrated by a seven-year-old girl who visited our farm last year. She stared for a long time at one of our beef cattle and whispered in amazement "Its breathing". No talk could have replaced that experience.
Lynn Farquharson
The Beech House Farm Visits, The Beech House, Seisdon, Nr Wolverhampton.
High regard for MLC campaign
Your correspondent RG Bartle (Letters, Jan 29) seems to be unaware of the vast amount of work done by the Meat and Livestock Commission, so I am sending him some of our many publications.
His reference to a lack of a professional advertising campaign is puzzling as MLC, under the "British Meat" banner, spent £30m last year promoting the red meat species on TV and radio, in national magazines and national and local newspapers.
MLC also helps farmers at grass roots level with advice and research into cost savings and breed improvements. But we realise that work alone will not sell what farmers grow.
The launch of the British Quality Standard Mark for pigmeat, backed by £2.5m, is not only a high profile advertising and promotion campaign but, with its guarantee of top quality and high welfare standards, a genuine leap forward in assurance for consumers and a boost for British pig farmers.
And so far as professional advertising campaigns are concerned, MLC won three awards for its Recipe for Love TV adverts last year from the advertising profession. These awards put MLC advertisements in the top 11 in Britain – an achievement of which we are justly proud.
Colin Maclean
Director general, Meat and Livestock Commission, PO Box 44, Winterhill House, Snowdon Drive, Milton Keynes, Bucks.
Forests? More like Balkans
Farmers should note the debate hotting up about "exotic species" in our "native" woodlands. Recent papers from the Forestry Commission refer to the "domination by non-native species" and to trees as "desired invaders". They suggest that "no non-natives are introduced where they do not already exist" and the "non-native areas should be returned to native trees".
Some of this language may seem more reminiscent of the Balkans than the normally polite world of silviculture. The Forestry Commission has now produced a paper advocating that at least 14,000ha of conifers in lowland woods should be felled and not replanted within the next 12-15 years.
Their crime? Most conifers are "exotic" species. Their value: perhaps £250m to the local economy at maturity. So much for government support of rural areas.
How long will it be before ethnic cleansing extends from trees to farm animals? Forced culling of our Continental breeds, to replace them with Dexters and Gloucester Old Spot, may be good for our "native species", but it will not do much good for farm incomes.
Jack Tenison
Pontypool Park Estate Office, Pontypool.
Keep CAP cash inside Britain
I read the bad news (Feb 5) that farming minister Nick Brown pledges to fight the Agenda 2000 CAP reform proposals to scale back the largest subsidy payments by 20% and 25%. He should not be fighting against this proposal but for the money saved in the UK to remain in this country.
Even Dr Cunningham was prepared to consider ceilings if the money could be kept at home. It seems ironic that a Labour minister should seek to perpetuate the system whereby size governs the state aid you collect. The bigger the farmer, the higher the subsidy.
How can he imagine that the way to make large farmers efficient is to give them large cheques? How can the NFU not realise that these large cheques, as well as annoying taxpayers, are used to buy more farms, keeping prices out of reach of would-be new entrants? Everyone I know has noticed this phenomenon and would prefer it to end.
How does the NFU have the audacity to say, in a letter from the president to members, that any new milk quota should be distributed across the board? This would not be so bad if it meant that we could all have equal shares. But presumably it means every milk producer will receive the same additional percentage of his quota.
A 300 cow farmer will be able to keep three extra cows. A 50 cow man will be able to add half a cow to his herd. Agenda 2000 proposed that extra quota should go to new entrants. Why does the NFU not approve?
Lets hope the NFU heeds your excellent, if somewhat moderate, editorial (Opinion, Feb 5) and starts to consider the future of most of its members.
Mrs Pippa Woods
Osborne Newton, Aveton Gifford, Kingsbridge, Devon.
P does threaten environment
Further to your report (Arable, Jan 22) I must take issue with the assertion that phosphorus poses no threat to water environments and that farmers are causing no harm by applying P to the land.
Enrichment of waters by nutrients, particularly P in inland waters, can cause adverse effects on both the ecology and water uses. This process is called eutrophication. Enrichment causes excess growth of water plants and algae, including blue-green algae which can produce toxins, posing a health risk to humans, pets, livestock and fish.
The impacts and risks associated with eutrophication in England and Wales are significant, particularly for fresh waters. The government has, to date, designated 61 rivers (some 2500km) and 14 lakes/reservoirs as affected by eutrophication for the purposes of the Urban Waste Water Directive. In addition, Environment Agency monitoring data shows that from 1989 to 1997, some 3,000 different fresh waters have been affected by algal blooms, with potentially toxic blue-green algae the dominant species. Some of our waters of high conservation value (SSSIs) have also been impacted adversely.
As regards the agricultural contribution to eutrophication, this will vary between catchments. In urban catchments, sewage effluents are the main source of P entering our waters. In rural catchments, P inputs from agriculture are significant (typically 505 of the total). It is misleading to advise farmers that they are not involved and need not concern themselves with P losses.
MAFF recently updated its Codes of Good Agricultural Practice. The Water Code now includes a specific section on P, with advice on how farmers can minimise P loss to waters, based on the outcome of UK and international research. Farmers must be encouraged to follow this sound advice in order to reduce nutrient pollution. Much of the guidance regarding nutrient management also makes good business sense.
Simon Leaf
Nutrients manager, Environment Agency, Ecotoxicology and Hazardous Substances Centre, Wallingford, Oxfordshire.
Whose side is government on?
I wonder whose side the government is on. You report (News, Jan 29) that government scientists have studied brain tissue from nearly 3000 sheep selected randomly at abattoirs and found no evidence of transmissible spongiform encephelopathy. That number of sheep, chosen randomly, should be a fair cross-section.
But our no-friend-of-the-farmer, junior farm minister Jeff Rooker, said in a parliamentary written answer: "The preliminary findings are inconclusive with no cases of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy definitely confirmed."
If ever there was an evasive answer inferring that there could be a problem, that was it. His parliamentary written answer should have reflected the true situation and not left doubt in peoples minds. With friends like him, we do not need enemies.
P Deeley
Flower Farm, Flower Lane, Godstone, Surrey.