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Category Archives: farming
Wolves Dogs and Sheep
Where’s the wolf Fido? By User:Squigman (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons I used to be quite good at statistics, but that was a very long time ago. Now I marvel at my colleagues at Footprint Ecology, who painlessly … Continue reading
Posted in agriculture, farming, grazing, rewilding, sheep dogs, wolves
Tagged Agriculture and Forestry, Business, Dog, France, Livestock, Mike McCarthy, Sheep, Wolves
6 Comments
Sacrifices, ancient and modern
We like to think we live in such settled, civilised and rational times. It wasn’t so long ago though – up to the 19th Century – that farmers feared the effect of evil spirits on their livestock and made Land … Continue reading
Posted in animism, badgers, churches, farming, self-willed land, spiritual value, Uncategorized
Tagged Badger culling in the United Kingdom, Beltaine, Bonfire Night, Caithness, Church, Golden Bough, Goodman, Goodman's Fields Theatre, Goodmans Fields, Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes Night, Murrain, Self willed Land
9 Comments
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
4 Comments
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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Bye Bye Benyon
So Richard Benyon, Biodiversity and Fisheries Minister, has gone. One of the innocents sent for sacrificial slaughter yesterday in the first reshuffle run almost completely on Twitter. Benyon had done nothing wrong, he was just too old and too rich. … Continue reading
Posted in bees, biodiversity, climate change, farming, George Eustice, Richard Benyon
Tagged Bees, biodiversity, Cameron, David Cameron, Fisheries Minister, George Eustice, Liberal Democrat, Richard Benyon, Twitter
1 Comment
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
6 Comments
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
15 Comments
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
2 Comments
a new nature blog 