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You decide what you do with your land within a framework of legislation, regulation and subsidies, and subject to the overriding imperative to have to make a profit to survive.
We can only speculate as to the state the environment would be in without the restrictions imposed by legislation and regulations, and the financial support available to encourage eco friendly management.
Just imagine if there were no restrictions on the use of herbicides and insecticides. Or run off. Or disposal of carcasses. Or removal of hedges. No SSIS to bother with. No restriction of what wildlife you could kill. Imagine what it would be like if you had free rein, governed only by the need to make a profit to survive.
I, for one, am glad that the semi educated idiots have some measure of influence and control.
I do find the rubbish they spout interesting, it shows what utter rubbish is being spread as fact and influencing people who don’t know any better, it really makes me wonder what as an industry we can do to put some balance back
If one wants to ignore trolls,press on their name /avatar, then press ignore on their profile page.
If one wants to ignore trolls,press on their name /avatar, then press ignore on their profile page.
You got that bit right. I'm going to do what I bloody well like on land I've paid a mortgage for. If you want to see something different done with the land, you can buy it from me.
Never done any of the above. You really are a piece of work.Still using DDT then?
Shooting buzzards?
Leaving carcasses about?
Spreading raw sewage?
Doing what you bloody well like?
Or are you farming within the rules and regulations imposed by ignorant twits?
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Sorry, but that's not how eco systems work.
Apex predators don't threaten the existence of species they prey on.
It would be an evolutionary dead end if it did work like that. Both the apex predator and its prey would be wiped out.
The primary threats to wildlife are loss of habitat and lack of food, not natural predation.
Still using DDT then?
Shooting buzzards?
Leaving carcasses about?
Spreading raw sewage?
Doing what you bloody well like?
Or are you farming within the rules and regulations imposed by ignorant twits?
maybe because, it was government policy to remove hedges and encourage farmers to do that, so large fields became the norm (culturally, as well as economically) and once government pressure causes culture to change, it is hard to change it back, therefore legislation was needed to make a 180 degree about turn in ideas. Agriculture being in many ways a traditional system (I do or THINK this, because my father did, as did his father!) when government prioritises production above all else, farmers continue to do or think that, even when government priorities change.Good for you.
Why was it thought necessary to introduce legislation to stop hedges being removed?
How much has been paid out in Hedgerow and Boundary Grants?
Never done any of the above. You really are a piece of work.
also point of interest, somewhere here I have a copy of the enclosures act, for the top of the farm, so I guess if we go back far enough, a lot of hedges did not exist, and were planted by landowners (lucky that then there was not such a big conversation lobby, as I can imagine "stop planting hedges in our lovely open countryside")The biggest irony here for me is that hedgerows are not a natural occurrence - they are a man made thing! The species that we put into our hedgerows wouldn't naturally grow in tight rows & would grow into large bushes & trees without our trimming - great for pigeons and other large birds, not so good for smaller birds which require dense cover for protection.
As ever statistics can be used to support any given agenda - for instance we are often told of the decline in certain small birds compared to say 60 years ago; what those statistics don't say is that bird numbers may well of been higher than natural due to the decline in predators caused by us and by the encouragement we gave the small birds in providing nice artificial habitats.
There is no loss of habitat.
The point is you can't do what you bloody well like on your land.
You operate within the rules.
And the rules were imposed by ignorant twits who live in towns.
The question you should be asking is why the ignorant twits who live in towns thought they had to impose those rules.
Why wouldn't they let farmers do what they wanted?
If all posters did game over for the troll.
60 years ago the priority was very much slanted to food production at whatever cost it took to feed our population from our own resources. There were grants for farm amalgamations, mass drainage, training for improving ground and productivity and schemes to reduce rabbits badgers, foxes and birds or prey. Trapping of birds and animals was encouraged and widespread.
And yet, we are told there was more biodiversity and more birds. Those idiot 'conservationists' or 'greens' of today just cannot accept that unless those animals at the top of the food chain are kept to manageable numbers, they decimate the animals and birds that they prey upon. It has to be 'the farmer's are the buggers at fault!'
As you say in your first sentence, hedges are NOT natural features of the countryside. They were physically erected, not so long ago actually, to improve the management of farm livestock. To improve productivity and provide shelter when necessary.
While I'm not against hedges, there are parts of the country that have at least twice the length of hedges required for efficient production with modern machinery and often where there is no longer any grazing livestock present. There is as much shelter in a twenty acre field as there is in a five acre field. The both generally have four hedges boxing them in.
Over this side of the country, hedges only make up a tiny proportion of wooded and 'waste' areas and where farmers were sensible enough to make use of the grants of the 50's to late 70's to amalgamate field, they are generally now at a sensible size of between 5 and 25 acres, depending on topography and land use, which is acceptable to everyone. Where they are smaller, it become uneconomical to farm in many cases and the temptation then is to develop them into caravan sites or just build houses on them if in a suitable location.
We are extremely fortunate that it is farmers that decide what to do with their land rather than some Council committee made up of semi-educated idiots like some mentioned in these types of topics on TFF, otherwise the place would be a complete shambles. Where farmers are totally prevented from managing their land you get dozens of birds of prey following tractors rather than songbirds and animal life dominated by aggressive predators like badgers, foxes who decimate the biodiversity so sought after by the soppy do-gooders, who then project the blame back to farmers who are doing exactly what they are told and getting the very results that they were warned would happen by those farmers.
I'll just leave that speak for itself.