Was it just me - maybe it was - but was Peter Kendall in a bit of a bad mood today?
Have a look at the Farmers Guardian debate and judge for yourself.
Peter seemed very keen to have a go at me and the RSPB whatever I said.
And how predictable to see NFU mouthpiece Guy Smith going back to criticising the FBI - there is precious little acceptance, by the NFU President or by Guy Smith, that there is a problem with farmland birds. The NFU's attitude to the environment may be summed up by Peter Kendall's phrase 'wrapping (farmers) in green tape'. Remember please, NFU, that's the taxpayers' money you get and so there do have to be some rules attached to it.
But very good to see lots of good comments - many I guess from farmers who are working closely with the RSPB in all sorts of ways.
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A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
essex peasant, roundup had just been introduced, so more fallows for couch and systemic fungicides were and short straw varieties were just coming in. We'd just realised it wasn't such a good idea to feed pigs antibiotics as a feed supplement because it could build immunity in human-crossover microbes. annual ryegrass really taking over from permanent semi-natural pasture. Thats about 1975.
It would be unfiar to go back to the completely unimproved medows you can still see in the safety zone around the MOD tank training area in Dorset, but then that is a completely different situation again.