Have some of that Chris Packham

[Fallowfield]

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.

DDT was banned in the UK in 1986, 32 years ago.

There are concerns today that its use may be causing Alzheimer's disease.

It was banned as a result of research done by environmentalists, specifically into the decline of the number of peregrines.

No doubt today they would have been dismissed on here as urbanite tossers with clipboards and collage degrees and told to leave it to the real experts, who through thousands of years of selective breeding, were the only ones qualified to properly understand these matters.

 

[Storeman]

The ignorance is strong in this one .

 

[Fallowfield]

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?

Raptor numbers didn't decline because of lack of prey.

They declined primarily through persecution, but also to a lesser extent through the effect of chemicals on the ecosystem.

So when you talk about birds of prey making meteoric comebacks, you have to realise that in many cases they are coming back from near extinction.

And the main reason for the comeback isn't the amount of prey available, but the (comparative) lack of persecution.

So there is no discrepancy between the increase in the number of raptors and the decline in certain species.

And with regard to birds of prey, farmers aren't blamed or criticised by conservationists. The shooting industry is blamed by conservationists.

It suits the shooting industry to blame birds of prey for the decline in the number of other species, because they regard birds of prey as vermin, as they have always done, and want to be able to persecute them, as they have always done.

 

[Fallowfield]

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.

So in the UK very little farmland has been drained in the last 50 years.

Is that what you are saying?

 

[Cowabunga]

[

DDT was banned in the UK in 1986, 32 years ago.

There are concerns today that its use may be causing Alzheimer's disease.

If it has contributed to the vast increase in people living longer into extreme old age, then I suppose logically you might be able to make a case for that

It was banned as a result of research done by environmentalists, specifically into the decline of the number of peregrines.

No doubt today they would have been dismissed on here as urbanite tossers with clipboards and collage degrees and told to leave it to the real experts, who through thousands of years of selective breeding, were the only ones qualified to properly understand these matters.

As far as I know there was little if any objection in the UK agricultural community for the curtailment of DDT or indeed for chemicals like paraquat which was banned not because of any residual effect in food but due to its use in suicides.
As I have said before, DDT is still used sparingly in certain areas of the world because it is the most effective product for the job, just as Thalidomide is still used in the UK and worldwide for certain ailments and diseases, with more precautions as to its prescription.
There were many other chemicals that farmers were forced by law to use at one time that they did not wish to use and which caused farming families severe health problems. Insecticides for the elimination of warble flies was one but the worse by far was organophosphate sheep dip. Farmers actively lobbied against the use of these products, so don't get the idea that it is farmers who choose to use the more risky ones. Farmers generally have more sense than that and can tell when a product causes more harm than good.

Nothing invented by man or served by nature is without risk. That's a fact of life. Nothing you can say or do will change that.

 

[Cowabunga]

So in the UK very little farmland has been drained in the last 50 years.

Is that what you are saying?

That is indeed what I'm saying. Very few drainage contractors are left and most work on civil engineering rather than agricultural land.
Most land drained today is for having existing drains maintained where clay or stone drains have become misaligned or main drains silted up through neglect. Like everything, drains need maintaining periodically and mostly in specific patches. But there's no point me explaining any of this to you because you are absolutely clueless about any of it.

 

[beefandsleep]

Raptor numbers didn't decline because of lack of prey.

They declined primarily through persecution, but also to a lesser extent through the effect of chemicals on the ecosystem.

So when you talk about birds of prey making meteoric comebacks, you have to realise that in many cases they are coming back from near extinction.

And the main reason for the comeback isn't the amount of prey available, but the (comparative) lack of persecution.

So there is no discrepancy between the increase in the number of raptors and the decline in certain species.

And with regard to birds of prey, farmers aren't blamed or criticised by conservationists. The shooting industry is blamed by conservationists.

It suits the shooting industry to blame birds of prey for the decline in the number of other species, because they regard birds of prey as vermin, as they have always done, and want to be able to persecute them, as they have always done.

So it’s the decline in prey species that is exaggerated then?
Persecution or no predators require prey. Many predators surely mean good prey populations. The number of cats foraging my hedgerows must be an indicator of tremendous songbird populations.

 

[7610 super q]

Yet another nonsense industry has been spawned. Protecting " rare " wildlife. More non jobs created measuring, ringing, tagging, weighing, ( I wonder what the creatures make of being ringed, tagged, measured, stuffed in bags and weighed every 10 minutes, but I digress ).
Each crying wolf over the demise of their particular " interest " to gain funding for their so called research.
As I said, those that are unhappy with " modern farm practices " ( yawn ), can club together, buy some land of their own, and manage it as they see fit. Having seen the balls up the National parks / NT / RSPB etc make of it, would provide the rest of us with much entertainment.

 

[Fallowfield]

So it’s the decline in prey species that is exaggerated then?
Persecution or no predators require prey. Many predators surely mean good prey populations. The number of cats foraging my hedgerows must be an indicator of tremendous songbird populations.

###

I think the problem with your argument is what you mean by 'many'.

Yes there's more than there were when they were persecuted to the edge of (and in some species beyond) extinction. But there are far fewer than a healthy ecosystem could sustain.

Regarding domestic cats, I'd ban them if I could.

 

[C.J]

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

ON MY FARM

 

[Fallowfield]

Yet another nonsense industry has been spawned. Protecting " rare " wildlife. More non jobs created measuring, ringing, tagging, weighing, ( I wonder what the creatures make of being ringed, tagged, measured, stuffed in bags and weighed every 10 minutes, but I digress ).
Each crying wolf over the demise of their particular " interest " to gain funding for their so called research.
As I said, those that are unhappy with " modern farm practices " ( yawn ), can club together, buy some land of their own, and manage it as they see fit. Having seen the balls up the National parks / NT / RSPB etc make of it, would provide the rest of us with much entertainment.

So shouldn't your argument be:

'Yes changes in farming practices have led to a decline in biodiversity, but it's a price worth paying'

rather than

'There's been no decline in bio diversity, and if there has been, it's nothing to do with the agricultural industry.'

At least it would be an honest argument.

 

[Cowabunga]

So shouldn't your argument be:

'Yes changes in farming practices have led to a decline in biodiversity, but it's a price worth paying'

rather than

'There's been no decline in bio diversity, and if there has been, it's nothing to do with the agricultural industry.'

At least it would be an honest argument.

Farming practices very much encouraged by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food meant that biodiversity declined due to farming practice between 1939 and around 1975. Since then any further biodiversity decline is more the result of 'conservation policies', some of which have been rather too successful but which have been followed fairly diligently by farmers. Despite the warnings given by farmers as to where these policies were going wrong, they still persist with them in many cases and the harm done to true biodiversity will continue until some balance is restored at the top end of the wildlife food scale. Unfortunately the voices listened too by townies tend to be the ones that anthropomorphise the larger cuddlier predators which survive by raping the countryside of the more defenceless smaller but more important creatures.
This is a direct result of the policies of wildlife and nature pressure groups. Do not project their abject failure of policy approach onto farmers who tend to cooperate whichever way the wind blows.

 

[Bootneck]

How many miles of hedges has Fallowfield planted, or even maintained? How many trees has he planted? How much land has he managed for the benefit of wildlife? None, none and none. Yet he comes on here and tells others, all of whom have done more for the environment than he ever will, that they are all wrong and he knows better!

 

[Raider112]

So in the UK very little farmland has been drained in the last 50 years.

Is that what you are saying?

To be honest only a fool would say otherwise.

 

[Jerry]

@Fallowfield can I ask if you are just an interested bystander or do you have a professional interest in the subjects covered in this thread?

What real world experience do you personally have of farming and the countryside? I mean real experience, not just what you have read in books/papers/online/tv etc

 

[Fallowfield]

Since then any further biodiversity decline is more the result of 'conservation policies', some of which have been rather too successful but which have been followed fairly diligently by farmers. .

##

Do you have a specific example of such a conservation policy?

Just one will do.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

To be honest only a fool would say otherwise.

a big part of my course in college was drainage, not a good move, as I left college in 1985, which was just about the time all the drainage grants stopped, so did virtually all the agricultural drainage.

 

[Bootneck]

Here’s an example of a conservation policy that has led to a decline in biodiversity. Protection of badgers has led to their population exploding, resulting in a subsequent decline in hedgehogs, bumblebees and ground nesting birds, as well as rampant spreading of Tb.

 

[joe soapy]

[

If it has contributed to the vast increase in people living longer into extreme old age, then I suppose logically you might be able to make a case for that


As far as I know there was little if any objection in the UK agricultural community for the curtailment of DDT or indeed for chemicals like paraquat which was banned not because of any residual effect in food but due to its use in suicides.
As I have said before, DDT is still used sparingly in certain areas of the world because it is the most effective product for the job, just as Thalidomide is still used in the UK and worldwide for certain ailments and diseases, with more precautions as to its prescription.
There were many other chemicals that farmers were forced by law to use at one time that they did not wish to use and which caused farming families severe health problems. Insecticides for the elimination of warble flies was one but the worse by far was organophosphate sheep dip. Farmers actively lobbied against the use of these products, so don't get the idea that it is farmers who choose to use the more risky ones. Farmers generally have more sense than that and can tell when a product causes more harm than good.

Nothing invented by man or served by nature is without risk. That's a fact of life. Nothing you can say or do will change that.

the active ingredient was the same in both cases,, the very best of this type was diealdrin? and was still being used till recently and maybe still is by the bulb industry, despite being found in the eels in the Fal estuary

 

[honeyend]

Any one who lives on the out skirts of any town will have noticed more fields going under concrete, its drainage by another name. As its done by Highways England or some other big money project, that's all good then.
The fields I walked and rode over as a child, the old farm buildings that had cobbled stables and amazing cart shed roofs are now a pub, a car park and main roads. I am not talking about a village of about fifty houses but literally hundreds of acres of concrete and tarmac, with main arterial roads that has covered a golf course as well as farm land. A small pocket that is left is the 'nature reserve' divided from the small amount of land that is at the moment to uneconomic to develop. The area is unrecognisable.
However they dress it up with SUDs, the water is full of runoff from roads and tarmac, and what ever wildlife that lives in them has a barrier of street lighting and urbanisation to cope with or the dog mess that people leave as they walk their dog for 20mins morning and evening.
I drive round estates in towns and villages, and god do we like gravel and block paving, all the better to park our cars on. I grew up in the area where there was often hedgehogs and rough ground to play on, it now all housing and concrete, so even if no pesticides are used there is no place or space for anything but the scavengers who manage to live on the rubbish we leave behind. And do not get me on about the no biodegradable rubbish that people through out of the car as they pass down the country lane. Our resident fox brings sandwich wrappers and crisp packets and the odd non biodegradable nappy to munch on in the roadside field
Its so easy to target one group, when anyone's car pollution, lifestyle and spending habits effects our environment. At lot of farmers make active choices to improve the environment but they are up against the many that just want to dump their rubbish with no concern and very little comeback.
Who wants to upset the majority when it could affect your Christmas book sales. Is it me but does Kate Humble make your hand itch?