Farmers

Only a tiny minority of rural Britons are farmers – so why do they hold such sway?

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Thought provoking typical Monbiot article…. Government figures show that there are 115,000 people, across all categories, working on English farms. They comprise 0.2% of the total population, and 1.2% of the rural population. If you include everyone who might be involved in farming, including farmers’ spouses, partners, directors and managers, the total reaches 306,000, which means 0.5% of the total population, and 3% of the rural population. In other words, using the most generous definition of farmers and farmworkers, 97% of rural people are not employed by the industry. But as far as government policy is concerned, farming and the countryside are synonymous. If you’re not a farmer, your interests are overlooked, your voice unheard. You’re a second-class rural citizen.

Car-flip farmer cleared of dangerous driving and criminal damage

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I personally can’t fully understand why the farmer here was so keen to get this vehicle off his land if a rescue vehicle was on the way. The fact that the owner but passenger was drunk does not seem not seem material either. This story tells us a lot about rural/urban tensions….                                   

A farmer who used a telehandler to pick up a car and dump it in a road to defend his property has been cleared of dangerous driving and criminal damage.

Robert Hooper, 57, had told Durham Crown Court he felt “frightened and threatened” when he took the action.

He had argued an “Englishman’s home is his castle”, and he had been assaulted before he used his vehicle to remove the Corsa in County Durham last June.

His partner Kate Henderson said he had been through “eight months of hell”.

Supporters cheered the couple outside the court after the jury cleared Mr Hooper following a four-day trial.

Tractors drive through Melton Mowbray in farming rules protest

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Melton Mowbray has one of the most dynamic livestock markets in England. It is a true food town. I feature this story because it is one of many small rural settlements which are likely to face severe disruption post Brexit. So whilst we all focus on restricted access to Christmas shopping opportunities over the next month this story serves to remind us that Brexit is creeping up on us. I suspect much will hang on the outcome of the US election in terms of determining our Brexit policy. Watch this space…..

Dozens of tractors circled Melton Mowbray to raise concerns over post-Brexit farming and food standards.

Farmers said they are worried ahead of the EU transition period ending.

An Agriculture Bill will return to the House of Commons next week after a House of Lords session this month.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said it “will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards”.

“We are a world leader in these areas and that will not change,” a spokesman said.

Steve Elnor, who runs a family farm near Grantham in Lincolnshire, said his business faces “a massive threat from the government’s apparent determination to tear apart the USP of British food in order to strike trade deals in desperation”, adding farmers “have the overwhelming support of the public”.

“We are facing a revolution and I worry it is something that we, and many other family farms up and down the country, won’t be able to adapt to,” he said.

“We face uncertainty from 1 January, 2021, not knowing what the market and prices will be.”

Lord Tyler, a Liberal Democrat peer on the House of Lords Agricultural Committee in Lords, said he backed efforts to “support British farmers and protect our food supplies from adulterated and expensive imports”.

UK food standards: why No 10’s lack of commitment is making farmers furious

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Coronavirus can seem all consuming, however as we approach the groundrush of Brexit I fear stories like this will begin coming to our attention with increasing regularity. It tells us:

Farmers facing one of their toughest years in recent memory have received little comfort this week from a usually reliable ally: the Conservative party.

Their pleas to the government to enshrine in law a commitment to the UK’s high standards of food safety and animal welfare were ignored. In a long and impassioned debate in the House of Commons on Monday, amendments to the agriculture bill that had almost universal backing from farming leaders were defeated, steamrollered under the government’s 80-strong majority.

The stakes could scarcely be higher: British farmers are worried that post-Brexit trade bills with the US and other countries will allow the import of food and agricultural products that are currently banned under EU regulations. Produced to a lower standard than the UK mandates, these foods would undercut British produce – yet if the UK were to lower its own standards, the export route for British food to its biggest market, Europe, would be blocked.

They have been arguing, alongside food and environmental campaigners, for legal status to be given to UK standards, which would prevent any future deals that undercut them.

British farmers will be trampled in the rush for free trade deals

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An interesting opinion piece from Poly Toynbee, this article tells us:

As he fielded PMQs on Wednesday, Boris Johnson wore a wool and wheat sheaf badge on his lapel. Behind him many of his MPs sported it too, as did Keir Starmer and Labour MPs: it was the symbol for Backing British Farming Day.

But in the Financial Times, the National Farmers Union’s combative leader, Minette Batters, was calling the Tories “immoral and hypocrites” for refusing to vote to give parliament – themselves – the final say on any post-Brexit trade deals. If deals with the US, Australia or anywhere else threaten to flood the market with lower-quality food, produced using hormones, pesticides, antibiotics and chemicals, with weaker animal welfare standards, MPs should have a vote on that. 

A million people have signed the NFU petition calling for the government to ban any food imports of a lower standard in quality, welfare or environment. This has reached far beyond farmers, rousing food campaigners and animal welfare activists.

Amendments are being put to the agriculture bill reaching the Lords next week, but to date all such attempts have been struck down by the government. Donald Trump has listed “comprehensive market access for US agricultural goods in the UK” as a goal for any trade deal. Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, has given verbal assurances that food standards will not drop, but this is no “my word is my bond” government.

On Thursday, Brexit edges dangerously closer to a no-deal precipice. Once commentators sought method in the Boris Johnson cabal’s politically perverse actions. No longer. Divining their political strategy is perplexing. Just brinkmanship, many hope – but others say their priority, above any sense of the country’s good, is a determination to have no enemies on the right. They are still afraid of Nigel Farage’s leery grin, as he waits to pounce on Brexit betrayal.

Farming used to be part of the core identity of the Conservative party. But here’s a reminder of what no deal and trading on WTO rules will do to farming and the much larger UK food industry: a 48% tariff will be slapped on British lamb exported to the EU, along with 57% on Cheddar, 37% on poultry and 84% on beef.

Coronavirus: Farmers herd flock of sheep to spell out tribute to NHS workers

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Couldn’t resist finishing with some performing sheep – you can watch them via this link!

A farming family have herded a flock of 150 sheep to make a tribute to NHS workers who are treating coronavirus patients which could be seen on a hillside for miles around.

The effort, which was timed to coincide with the fourth “Clap For Our Carers” on Thursday, took an entire family three attempts to herd the flock to spell “NHS” on the hillside in Luss in Argyll & Bute, Scotland.

Sixty-six-year-old Bobby Lennox drove a quad bike to produce the shape of the three letters, while his granddaughter Katie Nicholson followed behind with buckets of sheep feed which the animals stopped to eat.

“We feed the sheep every morning and they come and follow behind the quad bike,” Kay Wilson, Mr Lennox’s daughter, said.

British farmers fret about losing their protection and their subsidies

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I’m not sure anyone has fully scenario planned life outside of the common certainties of the common agricultural policy yet. This article speaks to some of the uncertainty around the issue and its stress causing propensity for those involved in farming it tells us:

It is a truism that farmers like Conservative governments. The party has deep roots in the shires and has traditionally supported country pursuits. Yet the present Tory government worries farmers. Their biggest concern is about whether and how it will replace their £3bn ($3.9bn) of annual subsidies under the European Union’s common agricultural policy, which make up nearly two-thirds of total farming income. They are right to fret. Some Tories believe that escaping the ludicrously lavish and protectionist cap is among the biggest benefits of leaving the eu.

Drenched by recent floods, farmers will have drawn little comfort from this week’s conference of the National Farmers Union (nfu). George Eustice, newly promoted to the job of secretary of state at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, spoke enticingly of a prosperous future, but also of the biggest change in agricultural policy in half a century.

Half of council-owned farms have shut down, campaigners say as they call for rest to be protected

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It’s not the Councils that need to be chastened directly in the context of the future of their farms, its their agents, who have, in my experience, little regard to public good in the way they manage these assets. Any land agent appointed by a local authority to manage its farm estate should be forced to read the history of the Rural Development Commission. If they do that they will realise they are managing important community assets. This story tells us:

Half of all council-owned farms across England have been closed down, as campaigners say authorities could profit from selling their produce.

The farms, set up at the end of the 19th century to encourage young people into farming, are in “terminal decline”, according to the Campaign To Protect Rural England (CPRE).

Now, cash-strapped councils are shutting them down, losing over 15,000 acres of farmland in the last decade, with 60 per cent of this sold off in the last two years.

This is despite the fact campaigners argue that they have a “huge potential to generate income, provide an opportunity to promote innovative farming methods and deliver environmentally sustainable farming” as well as being carbon sinks, tackling the climate emergency. 

A new report from CPRE done in conjunction with the New Economics Foundation, Shared Assets and Who Owns England shows  more than 50 per cent of county farm estates have disappeared over the past 40 years.

Farmers blame market uncertainty for lack of growth

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More proof if any were needed of the troubled state of the farming sector. This article tells us:

The number of farmers who say market uncertainty has prevented them from investing has increased sharply in the past six months.

Survey figures show that almost a third (31%) of businesses blamed the questionable outlook as the biggest reason for a lack of investment.

The survey of 1,200 farmers carried out in October by YouGov for lenders Hitachi Capital Business Finance (HCBF) and compares with a figure of just 19% citing the same reason in May this year.

The results also revealed that 78% of farmers felt external factors beyond their control hampered the development of their businesses.

HCBF director Gavin Wraith-Carter explained: “We wanted to uncover which issues are proving to be the big obstacles to growth and to see which, if any, are having a bigger impact now in the run-up to Christmas compared to the summertime.

“As expected, the picture is very different. Market uncertainty continues to be a barrier to growth for small business leaders in the agricultural sector, along with volatile cash flow, which is often a reflection of an uncertain market.”

Farmers who help turtle doves should be rewarded with government cash, RSPB says

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It’s good to see the RSPB getting alongside farmers in the context of this story which tells us:

Farmers who set up reserves to help at risk turtle doves should be given government subsidies, the RSPB has said.

The birds, which were once abundant in the UK, are now hurtling towards extinction as their numbers have halved in five years. There are barely 1,000 breeding pairs left in the UK, a 98 per cent decline since 1970, making it Britain’s most endangered bird.

The decline of the turtle dove is largely due to agricultural changes including the loss of mixed farming, high production focused arable and livestock management, increased effectiveness of herbicides and weed removal from crops. 

These have all led to huge reductions in annual plants (usually called ‘weeds’) on our farmland – the seeds of which were turtle doves main food during the summer. 

One farm, backed by the RSPB,  has set up a reserve specifically for the embattled bird, and it is thought to be the biggest dedicated farmland space for turtle doves in the country.

The arable farm in Cambridgeshire is run by the G’s Fresh growers association, and farmers have planted turtle dove friendly seeds and given them space to roost.

Over the last two years, the farmers have dedicated over 10 hectares of land – roughly 10 football pitches – to helping turtle doves by providing the food, water and nesting habitat they need.

While they had not had any turtle dove pairs land in years, since they planted seeds and strew bird feed in the land dedicated for the birds, some have made the habitat their home.

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