Ammonia and Mr Gove

[JP1]

Latest AHDB booklet

 

[spin cycle]

Thanks for the sharp stick but in my defence I think I've been raising the spectre of raising costs through increasing regulation simply leading to increased imports from places where farm costs are lower due to lighter regulation for a long time now.

good for you

was thinking this morning....perhaps it's time for nfu and cla to walk away from talks?....gove can hardly claim legitemacy if you're not there.....indeed absent he may well be in trouble with his 'boss' and he'd be an easier target for the media

 

[Bill the Bass]

There used to be considerable flexibility for example in timing of capital claims under the old CSS and HLS agri-environment agreements. As long as it was in the plan, then if you didn't get something done in one year you could roll it into the next one, subject to an overall completion (or lose the money) within 5 years (and as long as still within the period of your agreement). It can be done!

Yes I remember it well. You also used to be able to pop into our local RDS office and discuss things with your advisor over a cup of tea, he or she would know your agreement intimately from application through to mapping and then claim. Our local RDS office is now an engineering/machinery parts sales centre. Carrying out the same task now would involve a road trip to Crewe then Nottingham and then onto Newcastle to speak to three different people - none of whom will have been to your farm or even spoken to you in your life and most likely have no agricultural, ecological or land management experience or knowledge.

They call it it efficiency of delivery, I think it’s a shambles and sadly so do many of the front line staff who seem to be embarrassed by the whole sorry mess.

 

[DRC]

Not a fair comment. Currently we have problems, Gove or no Gove, free market or no free market, regulations or no regulations. Sitting on our hands and taking the Pension Fund top-up is not an option. We have more than enough time to comment, lobby and make a point. As usual, the majority will sit back and whinge from the sidelines !!!

It's time to secure our Children's future - stop whinging and do something !!!

I don’t agree. I think the ministers will quite happily take the moral ground, whilst exporting any environmental responsibility abroad . I’m all for doing more towards a better environment, but why should we then allow cheap food imports , where welfare and the environment are not seen as a priority.
Time for the public to dig deep and pay for quality standards, rather than double standards .

 

[Princess Pooper]

Yes I remember it well. You also used to be able to pop into our local RDS office and discuss things with your advisor over a cup of tea, he or she would know your agreement intimately from application through to mapping and then claim. Our local RDS office is now an engineering/machinery parts sales centre. Carrying out the same task now would involve a road trip to Crewe then Nottingham and then onto Newcastle to speak to three different people - none of whom will have been to your farm or even spoken to you in your life and most likely have no agricultural, ecological or land management experience or knowledge.

They call it it efficiency of delivery, I think it’s a shambles and sadly so do many of the front line staff who seem to be embarrassed by the whole sorry mess.

I know exactly what you are saying. We had to request a derogation recently and had to send it to Worcester to people we have never even spoken to. It did at least go across the desk of a proper adviser. We have 2 years left on our HLS and have just be allocated back to an adviser who started us off under CSS 18 years ago. At least he has visited the farm on several occasions, as we may have significant challenges coming up with a bypass probably coming through us!

 

[gone up the hill]

Should’ve come to Cornwall NFU management meeting last night. The stick is getting sharper and being sharpened as we speak. Time for some real reality checks with Mr Gove

Well well well what a turn of events...............................................

For the last 3/4/5 years you @An Gof have openly sneered at people like me who have said time and time again that the NFU need to take a much tougher line with the government and fight much harder for their members.

NFU will NEVER listen to grassroots members and GS reply's on here show that..
................................

Oh and just in case you don't get the FG, well in the letters page there is a letter from the AHDB's chief communications office @ Christine Watts openly telling the biggest porkie ever that the AHDB are NOT allowed to advertise UK produce as from the UK.............

 

[DRC]

Well well well what a turn of events...............................................

For the last 3/4/5 years you @An Gof have openly sneered at people like me who have said time and time again that the NFU need to take a much tougher line with the government and fight much harder for their members.

NFU will NEVER listen to grassroots members and GS reply's on here show that..
................................

Oh and just in case you don't get the FG, well in the letters page there is a letter from the AHDB's chief communications office @ Christine Watts openly telling the biggest porkie ever that the AHDB are NOT allowed to advertise UK produce as from the UK.............

AHDB and NFU got s bit of a kicking at the TFA meeting. TFA get an income of half a million a year , compared to NFU £25 million and AHDB £65 million, yet TFA seem to do more lobbying and meetings with ministers .

 

[spin cycle]

Well well well what a turn of events...............................................

For the last 3/4/5 years you @An Gof have openly sneered at people like me who have said time and time again that the NFU need to take a much tougher line with the government and fight much harder for their members.

NFU will NEVER listen to grassroots members and GS reply's on here show that..
................................

Oh and just in case you don't get the FG, well in the letters page there is a letter from the AHDB's chief communications office @ Christine Watts openly telling the biggest porkie ever that the AHDB are NOT allowed to advertise UK produce as from the UK.............

i noticed this....but point scoring isn't nice.....i'm liking an gof's posting just now

 

[gone up the hill]

i noticed this....but point scoring isn't nice.....i'm liking an gof's posting just now

Given the way he has treated me with contempt for so long over the NFU issue I think im very entitled to point out what I did above!

 

[gone up the hill]

AHDB and NFU got s bit of a kicking at the TFA meeting. TFA get an income of half a million a year , compared to NFU £25 million and AHDB £65 million, yet TFA seem to do more lobbying and meetings with ministers .

NFU carry out lobbying but the problem is that Stoneleigh HQ don't listen to grass roots members on issues before they lobby but instead listen to a few select large farmers/ under qualified staff ( ie staff that are too young/ just out of Uni etc who don't have any experience of the issues they are giving advice on ) and lobby on their viewpoints alone.

 

[kfpben]

NFU carry out lobbying but the problem is that Stoneleigh HQ don't listen to grass roots members on issues before they lobby but instead listen to a few select large farmers/ under qualified staff ( ie staff that are too young/ just out of Uni etc who don't have any experience of the issues they are giving advice on ) and lobby on their viewpoints alone.

The opinion of grass roots members is pretty broad though isn’t it? And will vary from branch to branch.

You only have to read TFF to see there is no farmer consensus as to the way forward for ag.

 

[Chips]

NFU carry out lobbying but the problem is that Stoneleigh HQ don't listen to grass roots members on issues before they lobby but instead listen to a few select large farmers

Since the start of this year I have been asked to attend the NFU Dairy Enviromental Issue Group Meetings at Stoneleigh . It meets every couple of months on different subjects like water quality , ammonia etc. Representatives from Defra ,Enviroment Agency , water companies etc are there along with about six farmers of which I am one and at half a million litres I would not be a select large farmer and at least one other would be below 1 million litres .

 

[Sid]

grass roots members

Explain what you mean by a grass root member?
What critera makes someone a grass root member in your opinon.

 

[organicguy]

I don’t agree. I think the ministers will quite happily take the moral ground, whilst exporting any environmental responsibility abroad . I’m all for doing more towards a better environment, but why should we then allow cheap food imports , where welfare and the environment are not seen as a priority.
Time for the public to dig deep and pay for quality standards, rather than double standards .

Excellent post, there is the same danger with the new enviromental standards and food production as there has been with plastic recycling. Such high standards here that no one can afford to do it and the problem is exported. We meet the standards and the planet suffers.
Classic case of the law of unexpected consequences, just like fence stakes and creosote!

 

[Henarar]

Excellent post, there is the same danger with the new enviromental standards and food production as there has been with plastic recycling. Such high standards here that no one can afford to do it and the problem is exported. We meet the standards and the planet suffers.
Classic case of the law of unexpected consequences, just like fence stakes and creosote!

Export the problem

 

[milkloss]

I agree it’s a common belief that the problems will be exported and so we become uncompetitive ans the other countries get away with lower expected standards. What I’m curios about, so as to avoid any counter argument, is if these exporting countries are indeed meeting our expected standards already? If they are then how was the regulation implemented, did they have assistance in order to meet the expenses required of them and do they have an administration team to make sure they comply (ahem ) ?

Some governments will do their best to help their own comply even if the results are a little shady and some governments will just heap a load of regs and expect them to be complied with, gold plated and expect punishment if not toeing the line.

 

[thesilentone]

Excellent post, there is the same danger with the new enviromental standards and food production as there has been with plastic recycling. Such high standards here that no one can afford to do it and the problem is exported. We meet the standards and the planet suffers.
Classic case of the law of unexpected consequences, just like fence stakes and creosote!

However, in this case all we will be doing is catching up with others..........


http://cphpost.dk/news/business/den...issions-by-24-percent-proves-unrealistic.html

 

[spin cycle]

However, in this case all we will be doing is catching up with others..........


http://cphpost.dk/news/business/den...issions-by-24-percent-proves-unrealistic.html

firstly they can't do it....secondly we we be expected to do it whilst competing with south american hormone .rain forest fed stuff

also inteesting is the dutch......hailed by cla as very productive....killing 150k cows

 

[Agrispeed]

I struggle to disagree with anything I can see there. I do all of those already as I am an environmentally responsible farmer.

You can talk about exporting problems and being uncompetitive but at the end of the day if you feck the plant and pee all your usable N into the atmosphere then everyone loses. Why not become an industry that leads by example? The only reason we have to have rules imposed on us is because no one bothered to follow best practise and took the pee.

 

[DRC]

At a TFA meeting last week , George Dunn was holding a 30 page document which he’d been privy to, but not yet allowed to talk about. It was Defra’s lasted proposals for a new environmental scheme !!
They’ve got to do something to keep all these people in jobs