- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
As several of us have noted lately, the mainstream media – and I’m not including such a rural regional paper as the Mornin Noos- seem determined to stick the boot into farmers of late. And one of the chief culprits has to be the BBC. I’m sure they don’t mean to say such horrible things, but by implication, and borne of ignorance, they have surely spun some recent news reports in such a light as to damn British farmers. The climax was their shockingly biased reporting of a complex and lengthy UN report, simply drawing from it the conclusion that everyone should stop eating meat…especially beef. This drew a concerted criticism from right across the farming lobby, which has stung the Beeb into responding.
Johnathan Munro, their ‘head of news gathering’ bigwig, has assured industry that his newsdesk pilots are instructed to report fairly and impartially, and tried to defend their handling of the UN report. Regrettably, he’d missed half of the point about the objections – still carping on about the methane business. I would have thought honest reportage would have questioned any emphasis on methane, when the chemistry simply doesn’t back up the mud being slung. The methane cycle is short, and the methane my cows burp up is made from components drawn out of the sky in the previous few weeks. Compare with burning oil or gas, it simply isn’t the story ……and that is what honest journalism should be flagging up. But no, the Beeb simply drew what they fancied from the UN paper, unquestioningly.
One of Mr Munro’s responses to our criticism has been a series of reports called ‘Focus on farming’. And indeed, I caught just one of these myself. In it, the nice TV newscaster explained that many people nowadays want to ‘rewild’ a lot of British farmland, and handed over the flagship national news show to that ‘Isabell Tree’ woman. She, you’ll recall, has taken her husband’s family estate in Sussex, on which he struggled for years to grow corn on the heavy Wealden clay, and switched off the farming operations. And, as she gushingly enthuses, nature has returned, trees are growing, and the world has been made whole again. She omitted to mention that the EU is currently still pouring a six figure sum into the ‘farm’ annually, or that if it was actively managed it for oak silviculture, it could be sequestering something like 14,000 tonnes of carbon annually, in such a form that it could be locked away for centuries. Instead, output in food has dropped away to effectively no more than a hunter gatherer society could take.
This latter point is of particular note. Just as the EU are agreeing to accept thousands of tonnes of South American beef, and the arch free-marketeers in charge of the UK are clearly intent on following suit, the Brazilians are razing huge areas of Amazonian rainforest to accommodate our requirements.
Instead of challenging her twisted logic, the Beeb countered with about 20 seconds of Robin Milton on Exmoor pointing out that his burping cows and sheep do in fact live side by side with some wildlife – the camera panning across one well grazed green field, rather than the rich buzzing twittering vibrant wider landscape.
Sorry Jonathan Munro, a charitable view would be that you simply don’t understand the yawning chasm that exists between what the urban majority grasp, and the reality out in the sticks. And it shows in how you report matters beyond the reach of streetlights.
By happy contrast, I witnessed a little slice of the minutiae of how the world actually works, quietly getting on with it so as Jonathan can be so sure of himself. Meeting a timber wagon to uplift some oak and chestnut logs, I noticed my haulier had happened upon the dairy farmer whose grassland we had to cross to access the woodland edge. Now these 2 men didn’t know each other, and labour in very different occupations – technically conflicting ones at that. Both, I might observe, are very proficient, doing highly skilled work in heavily capitalised high-risk ventures. Both are in sectors the BBC criticise from a position of blissful ignorance. In the simplistic urban view, wicked ‘loggers’ tear down forests for financial gain, while the cruel dairy industry rips baby calves from their poor crying mothers so humans can ‘steal their breast milk’.
In fact …massed urban societies are wholly reliant on blokes like this, in such sectors, keeping at their respective work. I noted they’d easily fallen into conversation, comparing notes and each happily nodding acknowledgment to the others profession.
If only the BBC could see past their urban blinkers eh?
-------------------------
Anton's articles are syndicated exclusively by TFF by kind permission of the author and WMN.
Anton also writes regularly for the Dartmoor Magazine and the NFU
He has published two books; the second "The Complete Bullocks" is still in print
http://www.anton-coaker.co.uk/book.htm
Johnathan Munro, their ‘head of news gathering’ bigwig, has assured industry that his newsdesk pilots are instructed to report fairly and impartially, and tried to defend their handling of the UN report. Regrettably, he’d missed half of the point about the objections – still carping on about the methane business. I would have thought honest reportage would have questioned any emphasis on methane, when the chemistry simply doesn’t back up the mud being slung. The methane cycle is short, and the methane my cows burp up is made from components drawn out of the sky in the previous few weeks. Compare with burning oil or gas, it simply isn’t the story ……and that is what honest journalism should be flagging up. But no, the Beeb simply drew what they fancied from the UN paper, unquestioningly.
One of Mr Munro’s responses to our criticism has been a series of reports called ‘Focus on farming’. And indeed, I caught just one of these myself. In it, the nice TV newscaster explained that many people nowadays want to ‘rewild’ a lot of British farmland, and handed over the flagship national news show to that ‘Isabell Tree’ woman. She, you’ll recall, has taken her husband’s family estate in Sussex, on which he struggled for years to grow corn on the heavy Wealden clay, and switched off the farming operations. And, as she gushingly enthuses, nature has returned, trees are growing, and the world has been made whole again. She omitted to mention that the EU is currently still pouring a six figure sum into the ‘farm’ annually, or that if it was actively managed it for oak silviculture, it could be sequestering something like 14,000 tonnes of carbon annually, in such a form that it could be locked away for centuries. Instead, output in food has dropped away to effectively no more than a hunter gatherer society could take.
This latter point is of particular note. Just as the EU are agreeing to accept thousands of tonnes of South American beef, and the arch free-marketeers in charge of the UK are clearly intent on following suit, the Brazilians are razing huge areas of Amazonian rainforest to accommodate our requirements.
Instead of challenging her twisted logic, the Beeb countered with about 20 seconds of Robin Milton on Exmoor pointing out that his burping cows and sheep do in fact live side by side with some wildlife – the camera panning across one well grazed green field, rather than the rich buzzing twittering vibrant wider landscape.
Sorry Jonathan Munro, a charitable view would be that you simply don’t understand the yawning chasm that exists between what the urban majority grasp, and the reality out in the sticks. And it shows in how you report matters beyond the reach of streetlights.
By happy contrast, I witnessed a little slice of the minutiae of how the world actually works, quietly getting on with it so as Jonathan can be so sure of himself. Meeting a timber wagon to uplift some oak and chestnut logs, I noticed my haulier had happened upon the dairy farmer whose grassland we had to cross to access the woodland edge. Now these 2 men didn’t know each other, and labour in very different occupations – technically conflicting ones at that. Both, I might observe, are very proficient, doing highly skilled work in heavily capitalised high-risk ventures. Both are in sectors the BBC criticise from a position of blissful ignorance. In the simplistic urban view, wicked ‘loggers’ tear down forests for financial gain, while the cruel dairy industry rips baby calves from their poor crying mothers so humans can ‘steal their breast milk’.
In fact …massed urban societies are wholly reliant on blokes like this, in such sectors, keeping at their respective work. I noted they’d easily fallen into conversation, comparing notes and each happily nodding acknowledgment to the others profession.
If only the BBC could see past their urban blinkers eh?
-------------------------
Anton's articles are syndicated exclusively by TFF by kind permission of the author and WMN.
Anton also writes regularly for the Dartmoor Magazine and the NFU
He has published two books; the second "The Complete Bullocks" is still in print
http://www.anton-coaker.co.uk/book.htm
