The use of the State of Nature report and blaming everything on past subsidy schemes is shameless tosh
And there is no coherent thought about whether free trade will drive down prices and increase the forces that the State of Nature report highlights that destroy biodiversity
And I am literally laughing at the idea that exporting our food needs is good for the environment
It’s almost like our leading newspapers belong to rich people that want disaster capitalism - and will hire anyone who can write a sentence to try and defend their insanities
It is simply untrue
British farmers are more efficient than most others we import from - the Sustainable Food Trust did a blog on the stats for this
When we export an acre of British production abroad to many countries it is something like two acres there needed
And it’s often from places with pristine and previously not farmed habitats like the Amazon so devastating for biodiversity
These people don’t even know their basic shit
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Fascinating and valuable day doing some strategic grazing planning with @cags_grindrod that led to some bigger questions about the farm
Stuff we often don’t think through properly and clearly
What are we actually trying to achieve?
Have we the right amount of stock for our land? Can we reduce costs?
Or spend some of our costs differently to work better?
What’s the best balance between our different work?
Long and the short being that we probably have too many sheep and the benefit of the bottom fifth is very marginal
And our winter hay costs might be better spent on away wintering or renting some land permanently to provide respite for our land in spring and autumn
So this is what I think about the policy announcement
There is quite a lot of hope in it (and the people working on it behind the scenes are good) - but it is shrouded in vagueness
It seems to be based on a vision that is deeply flawed and likely to fail
Namely to get British farming to a point where it isn’t subsidised in 7 years
Why is that likely to fail?
Because we compete with trade rivals that almost all subsidise their agriculture - the EU through the CAP and the USA through federal crop insurance etc etc
What an absolute shambles this government’s farming and food police are
The current system starts being wound down next year and they are nowhere near having a well thought through system to replace it... ft.com/content/81009a…
You might think this has nothing to do with you, but actually whoever you are this affects you
We all need a farming and food policy that provides the right food, and the right kind of land management and environmental outcomes...
Most sensible people can see that a future policy can be better than that of the past
But the thinking from government on this is so bad and so flawed it looks like being a disaster...