Have some of that Chris Packham

[Cowabunga]

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")

Most hedges were erected about three to four hundred years ago. Only a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things.
There is a map of my farm at the National Library of Wales where only about half the current run of hedges are present, the rest not having been erected and planted yet.

 

[joe soapy]

Still using DDT then?

Shooting buzzards?
counted 28 in one field

Leaving carcasses about?
nope, thats why the predators are having such a devasting effect on wildlife in general

Spreading raw sewage?
nope

Doing what you bloody well like?
yes

Or are you farming within the rules and regulations imposed by ignorant twits?
yes

 

[C.J]

###

And how have you arrived at that conclusion?

Because they have taken all our Hares,partridges and other ground nesting birds and the majority of Pheasants I see are males - The hens are taken while they sit on eggs or chicks whereas the males can roost in trees.

 

[Fallowfield]

There is no loss of habitat.

##

Just thought I'd post that again, as it sums up your level of knowledge and understanding.

 

[Fallowfield]

Because they have taken all our Hares,partridges and other ground nesting birds and the majority of Pheasants I see are males - The hens are taken while they sit on eggs or chicks whereas the males can roost in trees.

I think you might want to clarify what the word extinct means.

 

[Cowabunga]

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?

Because that is where the money is. That is where non essential jobs can be created and justified. There are more bureaucrats and hanger's on working on the next scheme to justify their continued existence than there are people working on the land. There are some essential elements that need to be in place both to ensure standards of safety and food security for the man on the Clapham Omnibus but the man on the Omnibus hasn't a clue what is going on, how or why, yet feels his voice to be superior and louder than those that do have the knowledge and skill required.

The rules were not actually imposed by the ignorant twits, of which you are correct, there are many, but by rather clever people to start with who do know the industry. Unfortunately it is a sign of the times that the lunatics are indeed now starting to rule the asylum. This is for a variety of reasons but 'entitlement' and an education system that makes people who know hardly anything, feel like they can run things their way. The same reason that we can't find anyone local to man our hospitals, harvest our fruit, gut fish any longer but can find any amount of people who will push paper and make a complete nuisance of themselves to people with real work to do. Living off their backs.

 

[Cowabunga]

##

Just thought I'd post that again, as it sums up your level of knowledge and understanding.

Repeating it again and again does nothing but show your not very good at comprehension. Habitat is not a static thing. It is not the same from one season to another and certainly from one year to the next. For every habitat that is thought to be lost there is another kind of habitat gained, even if land falls into the sea. The landscape is a living one unless tarred or concreted over, and even then there is a surprising amount left over where at first glance you might not expect.
Farming generally is less intensive now than it was in the 1960's and far less land is actually cultivated every year. Perhaps it is that which you are wanting back. All the hill land that was reclaimed for agriculture, drained and limed and put down to productive grass, taken out of environmental schemes and restocked and farmed that efficiently once more? Or more likely you had never considered that to be the case or an option.

 

[Cowabunga]

Unfortunately these threads can come up on google searches so it’s always worth balancing the BS for a while, then ignoring them, let’s be honest after about the second post they do a good job of making them selves look like muppets with out any help from the rest of us

I agree that they look like muppets to anyone sensible, but my challenge is to get them to see for themselves just how out of touch with the reality of nature, life and death they really are. I fear it is a lost cause, but entertaining nevertheless.

 

[Fallowfield]

Because that is where the money is. That is where non essential jobs can be created and justified. There are more bureaucrats and hanger's on working on the next scheme to justify their continued existence than there are people working on the land. There are some essential elements that need to be in place both to ensure standards of safety and food security for the man on the Clapham Omnibus but the man on the Omnibus hasn't a clue what is going on, how or why, yet feels his voice to be superior and louder than those that do have the knowledge and skill required.

The rules were not actually imposed by the ignorant twits, of which you are correct, there are many, but by rather clever people to start with who do know the industry. Unfortunately it is a sign of the times that the lunatics are indeed now starting to rule the asylum. This is for a variety of reasons but 'entitlement' and an education system that makes people who know hardly anything, feel like they can run things their way. The same reason that we can't find anyone local to man our hospitals, harvest our fruit, gut fish any longer but can find any amount of people who will push paper and make a complete nuisance of themselves to people with real work to do. Living off their backs.

###

Well it's a point of view, I suppose.

Gibberish, obviously, but it's a (relatively) free country, so carry on.

The reality is that the rules are there because, left to its own devices, the agricultural industry would have ruined the environment completely.

Not because individual farmers would want to ruin the environment, but because they have to make a profit to survive, and if farmer A is using, say DDT, farmer B would have to do likewise in order to compete.

 

[Cowabunga]

when hedges were first done they were kept to small fields because it was too much work to carry the stones any distance, in areas without stones the fields are generally much larger.
most of our main were at 40 acres except around the yard

Yes, that is indeed correct. Around here most varied between 1 acre and five. Nowadays my field vary from 4 to 13. Four being far too small for efficient mechanised agriculture and 8 to 15 being practical sizes considering the topography of the land along with the shape of valleys and ridges etc.
In some places there are no stones of course and hedges as such never were much of a feature, although shelter belts may have been more common.

 

[Fallowfield]

For every habitat that is thought to be lost there is another kind of habitat gained, even if land falls into the sea.

##

Weasel words, and of little comfort to curlews and other waders deprived of nesting habitat due to land drainage.

 

[beefandsleep]

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?

Because they make the rules to suit their own self interest. That self interest is rarely to the benefit of either nature or the farm businesses which have to abide by said rules.

 

[Fallowfield]

Because they make the rules to suit their own self interest. That self interest is rarely to the benefit of either nature or the farm businesses which have to abide by said rules.

Can you provide an example of this type of rule?

 

[Cowabunga]

###

Well it's a point of view, I suppose.

Gibberish, obviously, but it's a (relatively) free country, so carry on.

The reality is that the rules are there because, left to its own devices, the agricultural industry would have ruined the environment completely.

Not because individual farmers would want to ruin the environment, but because they have to make a profit to survive, and if farmer A is using, say DDT, farmer B would have to do likewise in order to compete.

DDT has been banned from use for probably 50 years. Very many practices and chemicals have come and gone for all kinds of reasons before and since then. The main reason for withdrawal of many practices and chemicals and the reduction in use of others is indeed economical. Not only from the user perspective but for testing and registration.
Without all these 'weapons' at farmer's disposal, your food would be very scarce and much more valued, as would the farmers that produce the food, purely because food would be in short supply and bellies often empty, as indeed they were from the early 1930's until the end of food rationing in the UK in, if I remember correctly, 1958.
The land is still here as beautiful as ever. Raptors at the top of the food chain have multiplied in number by a massive order of magnitude, so they at least must have habitats and certainly are more common than most other birds apart from seagulls and starlings [in season] around here these days. The land is alive and productive. Farmers are far poorer and need much more land to make a living to keep the ungrateful trolls stocked with cheap food available at all times.
Until this year, life expectancy has been increasing consistently since probably the 18th Century, for the most part due to safe, available, clean food and water.

Yet you still find things to bitch about.

 

[NLF]

What if wants to post telling others not to post?



Weird.

At a guess they find you dull, a bigot?

 

[beefandsleep]

Many previous posters on this thread have done exactly that from the war ag to the misguided and misinformed policies of the present day. Do you really believe the intensification of agriculture over the last 80 years was to the benefit of the rural population? The ones left maybe or do the tens of thousands of families that have left the land not count? Once thriving communities are now ghost towns

 

[egbert]

##

Weasel words, and of little comfort to curlews and other waders deprived of nesting habitat due to land drainage.

sorry...say that again? Waders disappearing because of due to land drainage?

Well funny enough, we have never got on the modern land drainage bus, and since the old mans day, when you could contemplate paying a man with a spade, almost none has been done.
We've been in enviro agreement for over 3 decades, hardly use any fert/pesticides, and struggle to keep enough stock to keep on top of summer growth.
(mowing ground/wintering facilities is the stumbling block)
There is far more vegetation than in my parents day.
And our wading birds still appear to have lessened/changed.
The over wintering species have massively reduced, apparently because they don't like the surplus vegetation. Although I'm told they're still about, and it's reckoned most are now kicking about various regional estuary habitat instead of my hillside.
I don't know much about it, or them, but hear what my ornithologist betters say.

And I'll tell you summat that i do know 100% for sure.....attitudes like yours drive farmers away from coming to the 'habitat' discussion table.
If field officers approached me in the manner you address this forum, no deals would be done, and the only control over me would be the 'big stick'.
And that has proved a very unsatisfactory way of going forward.

 

[beefandsleep]

The point is, you blame farmers but you should be aware that you are barking up the wrong tree

 

[beefandsleep]

I have been told all my life that most farmland bird species are in decline but avian predator species have made meteoric comebacks. Many people have also expressed concern for the effect these avian predators seem to be having on said dwindling little brown jobs. The stock answer of those that call themselves conservationists is that predator numbers are an indicator of ecosystem health and their numbers are self regulating according to the numbers of prey species. So tell me, what’s the problem? It’s a head scratcher isn’t it?
To spell it out Mr F Field, one of those claims made by your ilk and oft used as a stick to beat farmers with is false, so which is it?

 

[Cowabunga]

##

Weasel words, and of little comfort to curlews and other waders deprived of nesting habitat due to land drainage.

Their habitats have not been generally drained and hardly had the drains even maintained for about 50 years or more. Very very little drainage of any land has taken place in that time, let alone land that was their habitat during those 50 years. Most drainage of otherwise fertile land was undertaken during WW2 and the following 20 years, at the behest of the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food, so can no way be attributed to any decline in waders over the last 30 years, if any.

Your logic skill does not even extend to working out how to quote properly, let alone to how nature works or its relation with agricultural practices historically, so do yourself a very big favour and stop showing your complete ignorance up for all and sundry to see.