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.
Mirlo. Would really like Mark to tell you about all the good work farmers are doing with help from RSPB with farmland birds but surely you do not have to stick your head in the sand,look it up on RSPB website as the RSPB has just rewarded a farmer for a competition for conservation and if you go back over Marks previous blogs far enough you will find what farmers are really doing.
I find it astonishing the things you get wrong and argue you are right.
Repeat and you can look it up on the Internet but it is a well known fact that the milk and milk product imports are £1990 million,exports are£726 million.meaning as I said before the difference of a deficit and cost to the U K of £1226 million.
Please do a bit of homework and get things right,for sure all the figures Ihave quoted by sights easily found on Internet cannot be wrong or maybe even you will suggest everybody else is wrong and you are right.
Surely you know that from when milk quotas came into force around 1983 the U K became a serious importer of milk and milk products as U K not allowed by E U to supply all U K needs(really for someone who in your comment professes to know about farming you show a serious lack of it so would assume the same is true of what is happening on U K farms with improving the lot of farmland birds)
Look up the evidence on the Internet,farmers are even helping with re-introduction of Cranes and Sea Eagles.
Sooty
There is a large milk processing factory quite close to where I live and from what I have heard much of the products from there are exported to China. Also some of my friends are dairy farmers and they have told me that the fact that they getting a good price for milk is because of the demand for milk products in China. Your examples are of dairy imports not exports.
Sooty please address the facts that 97% of wildflower rich meadows have disappeared from our countryside . Also that many of our butterfly and other insect species are close to extinction. That almost all ponds in agricultural areas have been destroyed. Most of our wildlife now lives in towns and cities because intensive agricultural practices have destroyed any natural wildlife habitat. If you can show me that farmers have not caused this destruction of habitat and wildlife I shall be amazed.
You also mention the corncrake . This is the only farmland bird that has increased because of environmental grant aid. ironically it is still doing the best of all on RSPB farms in the hebrides.
please give me an example as to why we should continue giving environmental grant aid to farmers. Are there any wildlife success stories out there?. I certainly do not know of any. Quite close to me there was a barn owl nest site . The owl was doing pretty well because of the set aside scheme. As soon as the government withdrew the grant the land was put down to wheat and the owls are not doing very well now.
i know of a church commissioners demonstration farm near here. This held a lot of wildlife. The farm owner was passionate about wildlife and put a lot of effort into increasing the amount of wildlife on the farm. When he died his sons were not quite as passionate. First of all herbicide spray drift affected the hedgerows and destroyed akll broad leaved plants. Very soon the hedgerows supported only 1 breeding pair of chaffinches in 150 acres which is a pretty bad show. What this shows is that if the farmer is keen on wildlife then the chances are that wildlife will thrive on the farm but if not then the wildlife will decline. This is why our British wildlife and its habitat cannot be trusted to farmers, but should be placed in the hands of conservation groups such as the RSPB.
And Mr Avery I would appreciate your input to this debate for this is the reasons I have put forward my comments in the first place
Here is the truth about milk exports Mirlo
When making butter there is bound to be milk powder and if no market for it in U K it must be best to sell it where you can.It is only a by-product
The facts about milk are 1)we have to import 10% of our liquid milk 2)we import 314,000 tons of cheese
3)we import 119,000 tons of butter 4)the deficit in money terms between export and import of dairy products is £1266 million.
Hardly makes us exporters except for a little bit of by-product milk powder to china
You are good enough at twisting figures to be a politician but do not expect my vote.
The fact if true that farmland birds declined last year means nothing as woodland birds declined at least as bad or worse,suggest you look at the work farmers are doing with RSPB.Cannot see anywhere I said only grants for Hebrides but my meaning was that they get much more financial help than the English mainland and of course with seasons being later it is less inconvenient for them to make hay instead of early silage which was the death knell for the Corncrake.
This report contains an interesting analysis of how Britain could change its land use to have a largely sustainable and zero carbon agricultural system. www.zerocarbonbritain.com
Somewhat idealistic in suggesting that we could reduce C emissions and increase output from agriculture, but it is only a scenario and is only for Britain. There are also some broad assumptions in there about such things as the increasing price of carbon. It will not produce a landscape that many of us would desire and its conclusions about biodiversity may be a little ambitious, but it is a holistic view which I think adds a lot to the debate rather than the usual discussions about specific issues. One key feature is that, to work, diets must also change to reduce the proportion of meat and dairy. There must be a place for livestock, for agricultural necessity, biodiversity and cultural reasons, but it seems to difficult to perceive a sustainable agricultural system which will feed the world in 10 years time on the proportions of animal derived products that we consume at the moment.
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 !