Is Defra reckless and short sighted cutting Farm BPS payments and replacing with lower production environmental whilst the third world starve?

jackrussell101

Member
Mixed Farmer
Discuss.

On Jeremy Vine today most interesting and highly recommend.

Seems every caller in of the public was in favour of producing more food and becoming more self sufficient as a country...

Can't think our looming government policy is going too look to good in 6 months time?

I think Putin will end up killing more indirectly through fammine than bullets in Ukraine...

👀 @Janet Hughes Defra
 

Bald Rick

Moderator
Livestock Farmer
Location
Anglesey
Discuss.

On Jeremy Vine today most interesting and highly recommend.

Seems every caller in of the public was in favour of producing more food and becoming more self sufficient as a country...

Can't think our looming government policy is going too look to good in 6 months time?

I think Putin will end up killing more indirectly through fammine than bullets in Ukraine...

👀 @Janet Hughes Defra

Read recently that UK self sufficiency in basic foodstuffs such as wheat and milk has declined from.around 65% in the 80s to 40% now.
Whilst some of that is due to population growth, its also mainly due to static or falling production per hectare
Only self sufficient in lamb

Chops all round ...
 

JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
Read recently that UK self sufficiency in basic foodstuffs such as wheat and milk has declined from.around 65% in the 80s to 40% now.
Whilst some of that is due to population growth, its also mainly due to static or falling production per hectare
Only self sufficient in lamb

Chops all round ...
I very much doubt wheat and milk yields have gone down since the 80's?
 

JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
I think milk production is down since the 80’s. Quota held it down for years but by the time is was abolished production had fallen below the quota threshold anyway. Yield/cow will have increased, but there are less dairy farmers and less cows
Ah yes I was meaning yield / cow or per ha , also wheat
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
Discuss.

On Jeremy Vine today most interesting and highly recommend.

Seems every caller in of the public was in favour of producing more food and becoming more self sufficient as a country...

Can't think our looming government policy is going too look to good in 6 months time?

I think Putin will end up killing more indirectly through fammine than bullets in Ukraine...

👀 @Janet Hughes Defra
we as a country seem to be forever agonising over racism and our role in slavery in the past, well, I can not think of a more racist policy, than not producing food here during a world food shortage, and deciding to buy it from the rest of the world, when it will be the third world countries where people will starve to death as they can't afford to buy food.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
Read recently that UK self sufficiency in basic foodstuffs such as wheat and milk has declined from.around 65% in the 80s to 40% now.
Whilst some of that is due to population growth, its also mainly due to static or falling production per hectare
Only self sufficient in lamb

Chops all round ...
better all live on Cawl (or for those of you in the North of Wales - Lobscouse)!
 

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
we as a country seem to be forever agonising over racism and our role in slavery in the past, well, I can not think of a more racist policy, than not producing food here during a world food shortage, and deciding to buy it from the rest of the world, when it will be the third world countries where people will starve to death as they can't afford to buy food.
Not much this government touches that doesn't turn to ashes in a very short time, no sunflower oil because of Ukraine so West is now using rape seed oil, only problem is that after the seed treatment ban that is also in short supply, now they're rewilding arable land when half the world starves. Oil & gas has to be stopped & everything should go electric except that's not looking too sensible right now, ban all petrol & diesel new cars in less than 8 years except we will now probably need to import them instead.
You couldn't make it up!
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
What will encourage food production is less Government intervention not more let the free market sort it out prices go up and people will produce more.
I agree, the governments role is to sort out the pitch to allow the private sector to do it's thing, rather than in the 1970's civil servants deciding which industries to back (or nationalise) however, politicians and bureaucrats love to "control" everything, and we know what a disaster that ends up being. If during covid, the government had been in charge of distributing food, instead of the supermarkets, we would have had to apply for a number, apply for a slot, taken a recent utility bill with us to the distribution centre, been told to only arrive 10 minutes early, then done it all on line, meanwhile everyone without access to the internet would have starved!
 

delilah

Member
What two reasons are you referring to?

1) Defra had it put into their heads - by farmers - that there are 'good' ways of farming and 'bad' ways of farming. They thus set out to design SFI standards that would encourage the good and discourage the bad.
They have now come to realise, late in the day but just in time, that there are not in fact 'good' ways and 'bad' ways, but rather there are different ways. Thus they are trying to rewrite the standards, which is a good thing, but because they now find themselves up against a politically imposed time frame they are rushing a job that cannot be rushed. Hence the dogs breakfast the SFI currently resembles.
Any farmer - and you know who you are - who has made it their business to go around slagging off how others choose to farm, is directly responsible for this mess.

2) @Janet Hughes Defra came on here and invited you all to take part in what she called 'co-design'. That is to say, you set out what ELMS needs to look like for it to work for you and your farming system.
And what have you all done in response ? Tens of thousands of posts bellyaching about what ELMS/ SFI looks like. A small handful of posts actually saying what it could and should look like. If you can't say what the SFI standards need to look like for your business, how the hell are Defra meant to know ?
You have all wasted the opportunity to use co-design. At the 11th hour, pack up with the whingeing and make some constructive suggestions.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 76 43.7%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.6%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 27 15.5%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 3 1.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,284
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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