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.
.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
I followed the debate live Mark and thought the approach adopted by the NFU and CLA representatives were predictable including the "red herring" of the RSPB criticising farmers. I did make a comment myself but it didn't seem to get posted. I thought both those parties were quite dismissive of the RSPB and the comment about, you should be in the pub or something like that, was unnecessary. I thought they glossed over the fact that the farmland bird index is not improving at all and that wildlife levels are the best indicators of the health of the natural environment generally. They seemed little interested in the example you made of making skylark patches. As you say, they get a lot of tax payer's money. Also I felt like saying to them, there are over a million people in this country alone (RSPB members) who are concerned about skylark patches, so DO NOT dismiss skylark patches or the RSPB so lightly!
redkite