READERS LETTERS

22 February 2002

READERS LETTERS

NFU vote was won by bottlers…

At the NFU conference elections most of the delegates ran out of courage and chose the weak option of voting the existing candidates back in. Just when change is so necessary, the union bottled out and we all stand to be the losers.

If ever there was a time for fresh faces with a new vision like Marie Skinner, it is now. The NFU is running the great danger of turning off its more proactive supporters when we need to embrace them. I am a loyal NFU member but believe, as I see my farm and countless others pushed into such desperate times, we need a new approach with the government. Also we have to start to try to win over the hearts and minds of the public – with fresh initiatives backed up by better public relations.

A mountain to climb I know. But at present, we havent even got our boots on.

T D Maufe

Branthill Farm, Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk.

Get tough with Whitehall cheats

We are told we must change. We can earn money if we do things in the way some idiot in Whitehall thinks may be environmentally more friendly than at present. I remember when we were told to use set-aside and were promised compensation payments. Like most other farmers in Britain I complied.

Now we are suffering because farm produce prices have been cut. If the exchange rate changed to affect our income we would be compensated, we were told. But we have been denied this compensation to which we are fully entitled. It is our money, promised but never given. We kept our side of the deal but they reneged on theirs. The new deal will be no different.

Its time to take action. If there is another march to London, its no use being nice; the meek and mild get nothing. Lets get tough, organised direct action and stop this government cheating us.

Richard Amies

Breck Farm, Weybourne, Holt, Norfolk.

A kick at seat of government

Mindful of the remarkable level of damage wreaked on the nations farms by central government and Whitehall, could I propose that from henceforth the national seat of government be renamed Blighthall?

That would, at the very least, enable a lot more Japanese tourists to find it.

A J T Carter

Kings Farm, Foxes Lane, West Wellow, Romsey, Hants.

Its taxation by another name

I am fed up to the back teeth with the word modulation when referring to the fixed percentage deduction from EU farm payments.

It is not modulation. When any other government has compulsorily deducted a fixed percentage from either your total income or specific part of it, such as a capital gain, it has always been referred to as a tax.

This is a case of where if our Glorious Leader says that a large animal with four legs, a long trunk, grey in colour and weighing a ton is called a mouse then it must be so. If the media were not so keen to lick his boots they might see that it is not necessarily so.

The deduction from this years payments and those proposed for future years are not simply modulation. They are yet another raft of taxes imposed on British agriculture.

K Thompson

54-58 Dunover Road, Ballywalter, Co Down, Northern Ireland.

University not a disadvantage

First, may I congratulate James Coleman on his award as NFU Young Farmer of the Year. But I was disappointed by Mr Colemans comments that the key to success is turning down a place at university — in this case Reading (News, Feb 8).

As a graduate of agricultural economics at Reading, may I dispel the myth that having a degree and starting your own agricultural business are mutually exclusive. Or that being in full-time study precludes you from doing groundwork for business come graduation.

When numbers studying agriculture and related subjects in universities and colleges continues to decline, it is unhelpful to report success in this way. Not only does such an education provide important skills in business management, marketing and farming policies, it also broadens ones horizons in approaches to work and people.

At a time when farming is being eased out of its comfort zone it may be that those who do not take their opportunities for study will get left behind.

David Barnard

Mill House Farm, Low Road, Shropham, Attleborough, Norfolk.

TOP move is not supported

I am saddened but not surprised to read that scientists have given the new TOP index the thumbs down (Livestock, Feb 1) before the first proof run has been published. Serious breeders have long known that breeding is part science and part art and that breeding by numbers does not work.

PIN and PLI have been the best tools available but their biggest fault has been that they rely on scientific data alone. TOP introduces some observations into an index for the first time from information gained from the classifiers. Although improvements will be made, the extra information should make TOP a big improvement on PLI for breeding tomorrows profitable cows.

Henry Hare

Henceford Holsteins, Henceford Farm, Black Dog, Crediton, Devon. hareandsons@ukgateway.net

Wheres the disinfectant?

During a recent visit to a North Yorkshire sugar beet factory, I was staggered to find on entry to the factory, that the disinfectant trough was empty. Furthermore, I was assured no disinfectant had been used during this campaign.

This factory processes 15,000t/day. At 25t a lorry, that equals 600 lorries/day, from farms far and wide. In the same week, we had to move some sheep home, from a farm one mile away, and go through the procedure of disinfecting vehicles. We also received two deliveries of lambs, which carried a disinfectant charge of £32/lorry.

Failing to disinfect at beet factories stands biosecurity on its head while strict disinfectant rules are still applied to any farm movements.

Mr G C Lee

Lee & Company, Loversall Farm, Loversall, Doncaster, South Yorks.

Royal price for King Edwards

Evidence, if more were needed, as to the level of exploitation of both producers and consumers by our supermarkets was further illustrated on a recent visit to our local Sainsbury. I was both bemused and infuriated to find that a 2.5kg pack of King Edwards potatoes were on sale at £1.08/kg.

They were well presented in a nice plastic bag, which would justify a reasonable mark up. But bearing in mind the ex-farm price for such a product is £0.065/kg or £65/t compared with the selling price of £1080/t, that seems excessive. How is such exploitation supposed to support British agriculture? How many farmers enjoy a mark up of more than 1600% and a profit of 94%.

Colin Dickerson

Beechcroft, Fownhope Grove, 7Fownhope, Hereford.

Rhizo-resistant seed is needed

Following DEFRAs decision to suspend the rhizomania survey and lift the rhizomania-free zone, it is important not to rush into formulating a new strategy. There is a danger that the NFU and British Sugar may cobble up a scheme which will not be in growers interests.

The present scheme reveals only farms where the disease manifests itself enough in the crop to be detected. The true level of infection is about 10 times this level, indicating about 2000 growers have innoculum. Only the northern and western growers can state that rhizomania is under control.

Growing resistant varieties is the only way to slow the tide so it may not show for 20 to 30 years. That will give the plant breeders time to develop more varieties with better resistance.

Varietal choice must never be used as an excuse for poor crop hygiene, but it is important to remember that our industry relies heavily on contractors for sowing and harvesting. And its impossible to completely clean a six-row 25t harvester. Then, there are the veg growers who rarely disinfect machines between farms.

On the Continent, the rapid spread of rhizomania was caused by the use of factory wash water for irrigation and their hotter summers.

British Sugar has ordered only 6000 units of resistant seed for the coming season. That figure gives no incentive to breeders to develop new varieties. If everybody who was at risk used resistant seed, there would be many fewer outbreaks. There would also be less innoculum to cause new outbreaks.

We would be foolish to set up a scheme which costs growers thousands of £s to achieve nothing. If British Sugar wants to keep the survey that is for it to decide; we will gain nothing.

SJ Collett

Hall Farm, Garboldisham, Diss, Norfolk.

Misunderstood standstill rules

George Hill (Letters, Feb 8) has completely misunderstood the NBAs position on the 20 day farm standstill.

The Association was the first farmers organisation to condemn its permanent adoption when the idea emerged just short of a year ago. It was also one of the leading groups that helped construct the 13 organisation strong anti-20 day alliance that was so effective in making DEFRA aware of the width of the livestock industrys objections last June.

Since then, it has campaigned against the rule throughout the UK. It played a pivotal part in the break through announced last month in Scotland in which from Mar 18 cattle that can be (or have been) isolated for 20 days can move onto a holding without triggering a whole farm standstill.

A similar relaxation was adopted in Northern Ireland on Feb 4. The NBA, along with the other organisations, that have fought against the farm standstill from the start is now concentrating its anti-20 day effort on England and Wales.

Robert Forster

National Beef Association, The Firs, Blackmore Park Road, Malvern, Worcestershire.

Hunting Bill is a low priority

It was reassuring to see 28 Labour MPs calling on the government to "get its priorities right". It seems they rate attention to the NHS, schools and the manufacturing industry as a real priority and question the governments involvement with the k.

Can this union assume that these MPs would adopt a similar stance should anyone suggest the return of the Hunting Bill? Judging by its last appearance, the subject absorbed Parliament in months of needless and divisive debate.

Mrs Lindsay Hill

Union of Country Sports Workers, Union of Country Sports Workers, PO Box 43, Towcester, Northants.

No democracy in the eurozone

Although I have difficulty seeing the relevance of the Scottish parliament to Britains position in the EU, Michael Johnston (Letters, Jan 25) is right about the Scots participating in the £. No doubt he would prefer not to be reminded that the Scots have to accept Bank of England interest rates in the same way as the eurozone must live with the single interest rate selected by the ECB in Frankfurt.

Arguing that EU commissioners are appointed by democratically elected governments is irrelevant. Although rejected by British voters, Neil Kinnock and Chris Patten have more influence on our destiny than if they had returned to Westminster. Unlike Eddie George, who answers solely to the British government, EU commissioners have to swear not to consider the interests of their own country.

The sacrifices of two World Wars were indeed for freedom and democracy, which includes the right to live in an independent and sovereign country. They were also about preventing a germanised united Europe of the kind the EU seeks to achieve by other means.

The k introduction cost cited by Mr Johnston looks like that from a discredited study that covered only part of the economy. But even if the 0.4% of GDP for saved transaction costs was correct, the calculation seems to have omitted the fact that clearing banks would charge for handling ks.

Mr Johnston is free to put his faith in a EU Treaty article that relieves us of having to provide for Italian pensioners. But that is not the same as having to share other countries debts when they are all part of the single European economy. Thats what qualified majority voting will be used to spring on us.

Tony Stone

1 Home Park, Oxted, Surrey.

This packaging is irresponsible

I wonder how we are to cope with the new legislation on the disposal of farm plastic? We do not appear to have a nationwide recycling plan. Here in Wales there is a facility to collect silage wrap but what should we do with the bale nets, feed bags and woven polypropylene?

Are farmers once again being singled out for unfair treatment? Every business involved in moving palleted goods is using shrink-wrap, which is usually disposed of by burning.

Why are the supermarkets getting away with the environmentally, irresponsible packaging which fills my dustbin?

I shop regularly at the German owned supermarket Lidl where the goods are reasonably priced, of good quality and presented on recycled paper trays. That is with the exception of some British goods.

Is it not time that milk packaging is changed, as the polythene containers represent a far greater landfill nightmare than silage wrap? A reconstituted papier mâché or strengthened card container with a thin waterproof liner would be a far more environmentally friendly option.

Wendy Rowlands

Brynonen, Henllan, Amgoed.

How to kill off mature docks

It is possible for Mike Allwood to get on top of his mature dock problem (Livestock, Feb 3). The first thing he should do is disregard the inexperienced advice he has received from the instant experts at Elm Farm, the Soil Association and elsewhere.

Second, he should find the biggest and longest shed on the farm and hide his rotavator at the back until his dock problem is cracked.

Whether he likes it or not, he will have to plough the affected fields deep enough to upturn the whole dock roots without breaking them. When dry enough, the field should then be power-harrowed. Then the roots should be picked off by hand or the whole field passed over a well-manned potato harvester with picking-off table and the roots carted off and incinerated.

Do not make the fatal mistake of trying to compost them. All muck on the farm should be hot composted to kill weed seeds as routine.

Keep disc harrows and all cutting implements off the land until the fields are dock free. Keep dragging the rigid and spring-tined cultivators and harrows until clean. That may well involve a short or long half-fallow and will certainly involve many man-hours.

This is not the first time organic growers have got into trouble from following the half-baked, ill-considered and desk-based advice trotted out by inexperienced instant experts employed by the organic fundamentalists.

The dock problem is a bridge I crossed 30 years ago and the memory is still painful.

Stuart Pattison

Church Lane, Calstock, Cornwall.

Send postcard in protest

Rural businesses are again under threat and we have to muster a united rural voice in their defence. The Postal Services Commission recommends that the postal service should be opened to competition from private companies.

But the private sector will be interested only in the more profitable deliveries and collections, and these wont be the rural routes. Given the absence of adequate transport links or alternative communications networks in rural communities, the postal service is a lifeline to rural business.

The government says in its Report on the Future of Food and Farming that it wants to attract more businesses into the countryside.

This proposed privatisation would have the opposite effect of closing existing rural business or driving them from the countryside and discouraging new ones.

The Rural White Paper, published last November, promised "rural-proofing" – policymakers must consider the impact of policies on rural areas. But where is the evidence in relation to these plans?

Local communities can still have their say during the consultation period. The Country Land and Business Association is encouraging all members of the rural community to make their views known.

Lets do it in a novel but united manner which will get our feelings noticed. We want residents of the rural north-west to highlight the importance of their local post office and services by sending a postcard of their own area with their response to the Postcomm recommendations.

Cards must arrive by Mar 15 and should be sent to: Ms Tasneem Azad, deputy director, Competition and Regulation Directorate, Postcomm, Hercules House, Hercules Road, London SE1 7DB.

Together we can make a difference. A thriving post office means a thriving community.

Douglas Chalmers

NW Regional Director, Country Land and Business Association, Dalton Hall Stable Yard, Burton, Carnforth, Lancs.

Discriminating herbicide use

Im afraid that Jeremy Sweet, who you quote in your article (News, Feb 8) on our gene stacking research, has misunderstood my views on the use of Roundup and Liberty in agriculture. I have never written that these herbicides are "harmful to the environment". Used in the proper way, as pre-emergent applications, they are probably the most environmentally friendly herbicides available.

Having said that, I have written that if they were used during the growing season over the top of herbicide-tolerant crops, there is a risk that biodiversity both within crops and in hedgerows and field margins would be damaged. This risk is currently being evaluated in the governments field scale trials of GM herbicide tolerant crops.

English Natures research shows that in Canada, many herbicide tolerant volunteer plants can no longer be controlled by Round-up and Liberty. That is forcing farmers to switch to herbicides that are less benign to the environment. If these plants with multiple herbicide tolerance were to emerge in Europe, even farmers who did not grow GM crops could find it difficult to control volunteer plants resulting from cross-pollination with neighbouring GM plants.

As you rightly report, eliminating these plants could have adverse consequences for wildlife. We remain confident that regulatory authorities in Europe will learn from the Canadian experience and would not allow the emergence of stacked gene weedy crops on this side of the Atlantic.

Dr Brian Johnson

English Nature, Roughmoor, Taunton, Somerset.

Modernise the water wheel

I would like to help explain the use of water to produce electric power. More than 2000 years ago the Romans came to this country with the water wheel. By the early years of the 1800s there were thousands of water wheels driving machinery on farms and factories.

Only a few water mills remain in use. But the power they produce could be used. After all, windmills have been modernised to produce electricity for the national grid.

Now is the time to bring the water wheel up to date, perhaps with a series of horizontal wheels in fast flowing streams and rivers. Many farms could produce electricity if not to sell, then to fulfil all their electrical needs.

Lets bring the water wheel into the 21st century.

JR Blake

Homefield, Hanwell, Banbury, Oxon.

Use water to add calcium

David Peers rightly recommends dairy farmers to use calcium (Livestock, Dec 14). Calcium is probably the most neglected of elements, both in terms of animal health, and this includes the human animal, and the soil.

Many soils today are deficient in available calcium and the crops that are grown in these soils are also deficient in the nutrient. So how is the animal to get this essential element? Not by feeding calcium limestone as some herdsmen try to do. The cow is not designed to consume rocks. The calcium carbonate will be flushed out but not before causing considerable upset to the poor cows digestive system.

The best possible way of increasing calcium uptake is via the water. There is a system used in Japan and now available here, which allows calcium to be introduced into the water in the ionic state in the exact quantities required. Results in Japan and in the USA have shown dramatic increases in milk production from using this technique.

For more information contact us at the address below.

Robert Plumb

Independent Soil Services, Hall Farm, House Back Street, Gayton, Kings Lynn, Norfolk.

Live exports a cruel trade

The EUs veterinary committee has given the green light for live exports to resume. Despite this, I urge sheep farmers not to return to this trade. At a time when farmers need public support more than ever before, it makes no sense to come back to a trade widely condemned as cruel.

Many of the about 800,000 sheep exported each year for slaughter abroad are sent all the way to Italy, Greece and Spain. The animals often suffer terribly during these long journeys. Moreover, once in southern Europe, UK animals are often killed in abattoirs using cruel slaughter methods.

I believe that an end to live exports need not be financially disadvantageous.

About three-quarters of UK sheep exports are already in meat form; with vigorous marketing on the Continent by the MLC, much more of the trade could be converted into meat exports.

Moreover, many of the lambs traditionally exported live could be marketed here in the UK. Last year, UK supermarkets successfully sold the light lambs, which are usually exported live to southern Europe, to UK consumers.

We urge supermarkets to do this again this year. I would stress that the UK imports more sheep meat than its combined exports of sheep meat and live sheep.

If UK consumers could be persuaded to substitute domestic for imported sheep meat, all the animals formerly exported live could be marketed in the UK.

In conclusion, I urge farmers, in the interests of animal welfare and their reputation with the public, to find a way forward which does not involve the cruel live export trade.

Peter Stevenson

Political and legal director, Compassion in World Farming, Charles House, 5a Charles St, Petersfield, Hants.

Export like the Kiwis do

New Zealand has had a thriving export market in frozen meat for many years. sIt works for them and it can work for us.

Quality meat, slaughtered humanely in the UK, could be frozen and exported around the world. It is a question of marketing and we have the expertise to do it.

That would be an effective way of dealing with animal welfare issues.

Peter Telfer

peter@teltowers.screaming.net