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.
Mark, I think you are really very tolerant, far from extreme. Remember forgotten memory syndrome ? Since I completed my agriculture degree I've watched farming intensify, and then intensify again. In forestry we ran the technology as hard as we could - and crashed in the Flow Country. farming is still running hard and Peter kendal continues to pursue traditional NFU tactics - one moment its global policy, the next we've switched to the poor individual farmer. Bluntly, farming is about sequestering nature for our human use. If the crop grabs more there's less for others - birds, insects, weeds. Its a simple equation. The only additional factor is what proportion of the land you subject to the treatment - and that keeps going up, if prices are low for economy's sake, if high because demand is there. Its not surprising bird numbers have gone down - but isn't it time we had (1) a debate about where intensification stops on both axis, in field & proportion of land intensified and (2) farmer's contract with the public who are both their customers & subsidisers ? Maybe we'd all like something different - clean water that doesn' have to be nutrient stripped by our water supplier or land to absorb water to prevent flooding, or even birds, and maybe, if we're asked we might be ready to pay for it.