The Mail on Sunday ran a 'story' yesterday on the 'fact' that Richard Benyon, A Defra Minister, earns £2m from EU farm subsidies. On closer reading you will find that the £2m is over a 10-year period and so averages out at £200k per annum.
And the Mail on Sunday states that 100,000 UK farmers share £3bn in farm subsidies which means they average out at around £30k per farm per annum. Because of the way the subsidies are allocated, big farms get big amounts, and I am a little surprised if Mr Benyon's farm, at, we are told, 20,000 acres, receives as little as £200k but it could be right.
The Mail on Sunday also says that Agriculture Minister James Paice, who is a farmer, has received 'several thousands' of pounds too over the last decade. I'd be very surprised if he hasn't!
And, the RSPB gets these payments too - as written about before on this blog. Anyone who owns farmland would be mad not to claim the money on offer.
Last year we wrote in the Guardian about the faults of the CAP - they are manifold and manifest. But the faults are in the fact that most CAP payments are in the form of income support and aren't encouraging more environmentally friendly farming. If we want to give all farmers, including Mr Benyon, the RSPB and the President of the NFU, income support that is fine, I guess. It's support that hasn't suffered at all in the recession which the rest of the economy is experiencing. But the real need is to make sure that that money produces a better countryside for us all. I am sure that Mr Benyon and the RSPB would both want to be near the front of the queue to receive money from a reformed CAP which paid farmers for farming sustainably. The fact that the CAP does not do enough to encourage sustainable farming practice is a real scandal.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
Hi Mally thanks for your comment and seems we are in broad agreement,this was obviously done for maximum embarrassment as usually photo appears as exclusive in one paper whereas this appeared simultaneously in at least 5 papers.What should not be discounted that someone put a dead lamb where Eagle was bound to find it for a photo.
Think it has been essential on Mull for broad payments which fosters good relations because obviously sheep farmers can look at things slightly differently if compensated and they probably help Eagles through the winter with sheep losses.
As a retired dairy farmer have a good idea about animal behaviour and I very much doubt if Sea Eagles are much of a threat to live animals such as lambs as after watching admittedly older lambs reaction to Sea Eagles in their field in close proximity they see no threat and quite happy.
Hi Sooty
It appears that the picture was taken in May last year, but the article fails to tell us that!
It concerns me as to why this story would suddenly appear in the press at such a sensitive time for breeding Golden and White Tailed Eagles. It is alarmist and inaccurate in the extreme, with barely a fact correct. I wrote a small piece for the Raptor Politics website (raptorpolitics.org.uk) about White Tailed Eagles and the hysteria surrounding the predation of live lambs. Numerous studies have shown that there is no real impact to sheep farming on a broad scale, and that losses of live lambs to eagles is insignificant. The lure of compensation for 'perceived' lamb losses appears to be at the root of these stories.
I agree with your comment regarding sheep farming on Mull, and it appears that in general crofters are tolerant of Eagles on Mull. However I feel that local problems concerning real losses of lambs should be dealt with on an individual basis and not via any broadscale compensation payments.
As for the article printed in this particular national newspaper (and numerous others) it is complete rubbish. It never ceases to amaze me how this claptrap can be printed by leading broadsheets with no attempt whatsoever to research the subject or offer a balanced viewpoint.
Mally
Hi Mally well I have some thoughts on Eagle and they are that it is very suspicious because it is really early for hill lambs to be born as if any bad weather wet and cold would kill them off and Eagles generally take carrion if available but tend to take live prey for chicks which are probably 4 weeks away and I suspect if Eagle was going to eat the lamb for itself it would have eat it where it either found it dead or where it killed it why spend energy carrying it.Think perhaps 5% of hill lambs either stillborn or die soon after so it could have been found dead.
So is it a old photo or doctored photo but we all know that Golden Eagles do take in all probability a small number of lambs.
One interesting fact is that a sheep farmer very close to where that photo supposedly taken found a Sea Eagle injured with badly broken wing alerted Dave Sexton the Mull RSPB officer and Kellan the Eagle taken to mainland,fantastic vet and team looked after him for 3 months and he is now enjoying wild flying on Mull again.
I am well aware of the tight-rope walk that the RSPB have to perform around such topics, but hey aren't you leaving soon?
Go on Mark, I dare you.
Mally - welcome to this blog. I saw that photo and had some thoughts about it. Shall I share them - I'm not sure.