I mentioned that MP Robert Flello had done well in the Private Members' Ballot and would be trying to introduce a Bill into Parliament on the subject of sustainable livestock management. This is a really tricky subject, and because of its difficulty it does not get as much government attention as it should. What would a sustainable livestock industry look like?
It probably wouldn't involve the import of soya-based animal feed from areas of destroyed rainforest. It probably wouldn't involve using so much of our productive farmland to grow grain to feed to cattle - we could grow food we could eat directly on that land instead. Might it involve keeping animals indoors for longer and scrubbing their greenhouse gas emissions out of the air in their sheds before it escapes into the atmosphere to worsen cliamte change? Might it involve eating less meat? Or more poultry and less red meat?
Tricky stuff indeed. But Mr Flello also has an Early Day Motion which is attracting many MPs' signatures. It is one of the most successful EDMs of this parliamentary session and gives a flavour of the thinking behind the Bill..
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
Sooty
I was brought up on a small farm and have worked on the land for 35 years.
To your second point about grants only for the hebrides, farmers were given environmental grants of £460 million last year and still the decline of farmland birds has carried on at an even higher rate.
Milk powder is being exported to China and this has held up the price of milk to farmers.
For a spell I taught agricultural science and have even done some voluntary wiork as a farming and wildlife adviser. I may know more truths than you could imagine !