Possible u Turn on government Environmental policy

[Goldilocks]

Educating Consumers : To get them to engage more with the provenance of their food purchases ,to think and research choices ( as a lot of consumers might do when buying new trainers or TV set ) rather than just filling a trolley at the nearest supermarket. To maybe encourage them to want to pay more for food produced in different ways that might make it more nutrient dense, be carrying less pesticide residues and its production has had a less detrimental effect on the ecosystems in operation where it was produced.
Educating Farmers : To demonstrate that there are different ways of generating acceptable profits from food production that might even involve lower yields but lower input costs. To show that natural ecosystems can provide benefits that might replace purchased inputs e.g. Mycorrhizal fungi accessing phosphate for crops , Carabid beetles providing slug control etc. To show that a complex environmentally friendly farming system might provide an acceptable profit rather than a maximised profit but may also provide mental and emotional stimulation in abundance compared with a more simplified " industrial" agriculture approach.
Educating Politian's and policy makers : To make them realise most farmers want to care for the environment but it is dependant on their businesses being profitable enough. To ensure they design user friendly ,realistic environmental schemes;( e.g. flexibilty needed not " do this by this date" mentality )
Educating Everyone : Long term thinking needed!

 

[Jackov Altraids]

Educating Consumers : To get them to engage more with the provenance of their food purchases ,to think and research choices ( as a lot of consumers might do when buying new trainers or TV set ) rather than just filling a trolley at the nearest supermarket. To maybe encourage them to want to pay more for food produced in different ways that might make it more nutrient dense, be carrying less pesticide residues and its production has had a less detrimental effect on the ecosystems in operation where it was produced.
Educating Farmers : To demonstrate that there are different ways of generating acceptable profits from food production that might even involve lower yields but lower input costs. To show that natural ecosystems can provide benefits that might replace purchased inputs e.g. Mycorrhizal fungi accessing phosphate for crops , Carabid beetles providing slug control etc. To show that a complex environmentally friendly farming system might provide an acceptable profit rather than a maximised profit but may also provide mental and emotional stimulation in abundance compared with a more simplified " industrial" agriculture approach.
Educating Politian's and policy makers : To make them realise most farmers want to care for the environment but it is dependant on their businesses being profitable enough. To ensure they design user friendly ,realistic environmental schemes;( e.g. flexibilty needed not " do this by this date" mentality )
Educating Everyone : Long term thinking needed!

In all honesty, I was wondering what level of sh!t answer you would reply with.

Your reply is excellent.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Horrified this morning to read reports in media that government supposedly considering trashing ELMs etc and returning to area based subsidy payments. Seems to be a misguided notion out there that Food production and care for the environment are mutually exclusive !.............. Just thinking about all the hard work put in by Janet Hughes et al and the possibility that it is all about to be shelved.
Time for the Regen Ag. community to jump up and down to counter this as i think the NFU are not going to be protesting much......

How much do environmental schemes actually do for the environment?

If you have a scheme that farmers can't make stack up then they won't do it.

I'm in Wales so this scheme doesn't affect me but although I already do a lot of "regen ag" stuff I'm a bit cautious about the term. I also feel a lot of environmental schemes are underfunded or ultra prescriptive and end up being a bit crap.

A speaker a Groundswell told me he though almost all ag-enviro schemes are an absolute load of tosh and waste of money and the best thing farms could do for nature is have some wild pigs roaming around on their grass areas or rotated and watch an explosion of nature behind them (albeit a very scruffy explosion)

 

[Guleesh]

Regenerative grazing is one of the buzz phrases with our government at the moment,can anyone actually define this term.

It's the opposite of degenerative grazing. The word 'regenerative' is just an adjective. I personally think the government should keep their noses out of how grazing is managed, but he who pays the piper calls the tune as they say....

 

[Levelsman]

Horrified this morning to read reports in media that government supposedly considering trashing ELMs etc and returning to area based subsidy payments. Seems to be a misguided notion out there that Food production and care for the environment are mutually exclusive !.............. Just thinking about all the hard work put in by Janet Hughes et al and the possibility that it is all about to be shelved.
Time for the Regen Ag. community to jump up and down to counter this as i think the NFU are not going to be protesting much......

Perhaps the government are waking up to the fact that hungry people don't like eating trees.

...and Carrie has been out of No.10 less than a month!!

 

[serf]

Perhaps the government are waking up to the fact that hungry people don't like eating trees.

...and Carrie has been out of No.10 less than a month!!

The amount of damage she done in no time
All because bozo was an empty vessel ...
Bout all he could do was waffle a bit of Latin wtf is that all about

 

[spikeislander]

I’m no expert on any of this but being forced to be as over 50 % of the productive arable area in my village is now not producing any food.
I find this difficult to accept but more than aware the environment needs to be protecting and I feel we do more than our bit with well placed mid tier scheme options .
This is where we should be I feel, the most helpful thing to do is to have lots of small areas of bird food and cover along side hedges etc , I’m not sure vast acres offer the same benefit per area .
possibly a percentage per farm ? These would go obviously in corners , bad areas but more than likely be near woods etc as that’s where the bad land is?
it needs a reshuffle it cannot be right to not produce food here then import it thousands of miles from countries where there is less environmental pressure under the guise of being greener than the farmer who grows good crops?
Just my pennies worth of a frustrating situation

 

[Ffermer Bach]

If sustainable means no inputs then is that not organic or very close to it? Or maybe regenerative whatever that means.
Even with the reduction in fertiliser use if we stopped it altogether then our forage for winter would be drastically reduced so our stocking would be too. Hardly a sustainable business model

Isn't diesel an input? How could we farm without inputs?