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Category Archives: agriculture
Goodbye Peter Kendall
Peter Kendall, President of the National Farmers Union, has announced his intention to retire from the role next February. I for one, will miss him – simply because he provides me with so many easy blogs to write. Peter is … Continue reading
Posted in agriculture, anti conservation rhetoric, anti-environmental rhetoric, badgers, bees, biodiversity, Common Agricultural Policy, deregulation, environmental policy, farming, NFU, Peter Kendall, public goods, regulatory reform
Tagged Agriculture, Bedfordshire, common agricultural policy, Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, deregulation, Intensive Farming, National Farmers' Union, NFU, Peter Kendall, Whitehall
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Paterson: Badgers ate my credibility
By BadgerHero (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons “It woz the badgers wot dunnit ossifer, honest.” It’s embarrassing isn’t it, when a Cabinet Minister appears on national TV and makes such crass statements. Owen Paterson … Continue reading
Posted in agricultural pests, agriculture, anti conservation rhetoric, anti-environmental rhetoric, badgers, David Heath, environmental policy, farming, George Eustice, Owen Paterson, Richard Benyon
Tagged anti environmental rhetoric, Badger culling in the United Kingdom, Conservative Party, Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, George Eustice, John Gummer, Owen Paterson, Somerset, Wikimedia Commons
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Party Time 2: Owen Paterson’s Speech at the Tory Party Conference
I don’t have time to write an analysis of Owen Paterson’s speech at the Conservative Party Conference, but you can read it here. I’ll try and take a look at it this evening. At a fringe meeting Paterson also appeared … Continue reading
Posted in agriculture, Common Agricultural Policy, Conservative Party Conference, farming, Owen Paterson
Tagged Agriculture, Conservative, Conservative conference, George Osborne, Global warming, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, National Farmers' Union, Owen Paterson, Paterson, Politics
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Return to “Any Room for Scrub?”
While I may be painted by some as a reactionary fighting against the forces of progress (in the form of the re-wilding movement), I have been thinking about this stuff for quite a long time. Reading George Monbiot’s rant about … Continue reading
Posted in agriculture, biodiversity, Common Agricultural Policy, ecosystem services, farming, George Monbiot, grazing, management, rewilding, scrub, self-willed land, uplands
Tagged Cumbria, England, English Nature, European Union, Fell, Foot and Mouth Disease, George Monbiot, Habitat, Heath, juniper, Lake District, overgrazing, Park, rewilding, scrub, Wordsworth
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Feral by George Monbiot – a review
The Feral Shore I have promised myself, and some of you, that I would write a review of Feral by George Monbiot. I enjoyed the book, at least in parts. Although I will try and refrain from Ad hominem criticism … Continue reading
Posted in agriculture, animism, anti conservation rhetoric, anti-environmental rhetoric, biodiversity, carbon storage, climate change, Common Agricultural Policy, Cultural Cringe, Downland, ecosystem services, environmental policy, farming, forest elephant, George Monbiot, invasive species, management, Mesolithic, neoliberalism, rewilding, self-willed land, soils, straight tusked elephant
Tagged Feral, George, George Monbiot, Mark Avery, Monbiot, re-wilding, Straight Tusked Elephant, Trophic Cascade, Yellowstone National Park
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What are we paying for?
So it seems that having successfully killed off the valiant attempts to get the Common Agricultural Policy reformed so it provides Public Goods for Public Money, The National Farmers Union is now campaigning to to ensure that the UK government … Continue reading
For the Greater Good
Yesterday’s Guardian (or it may have been the Observer) carried an interview with NFU President Peter Kendall, in which Peter observed sagely that climate change is now the biggest threat to British Farming – not through gentle warming, but extreme, … Continue reading
Posted in agriculture, anti-environmental rhetoric, biodiversity, carbon storage, climate change, ecosystem services, European environment policy, farming, grazing, neoliberalism, public goods, soils
Tagged Agriculture in the United Kingdom, Bedfordshire, Christopher Booker, common agricultural policy, Genetically modified organism, James Delingpole, National Farmers' Union, Peter Kendall, Public good, Roger Scruton
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Dams and Dredging Update
Coincidentally, following Monday’s blog I received an email from Natural England yesterday. They informed me that “A member of our Land Management Team has investigation the situation and we appreciate your concerns about the work undertaken. The farmer was … Continue reading
Posted in agriculture, Beavers, deregulation, Dredging, ecosystem services, Environment Agency, environmental policy, farming, Floodplains, management, Natural England, regulatory reform
Tagged beavers, Business, Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, deregulation, dredging, ecosystem services, Environment, Environment Agency, Governmental, Natural England, Organizations, Water Framework Directive
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On Dams and Dredging
Dredging a main river in May On May day this year, it was a lovely morning, and being between jobs, I decided to go out for a walk along a local river flooplain. The hedges were alive … Continue reading
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