This is getting ridiculous

Jackov Altraids

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
He expects farmers to stop work, which is the harvest of food, because some idiot sees a bird flying above. There is no two sides to that. It is patently ridiculous. As was the event that spawned this topic. There is no two sides. One lot are absolute unmitigated spoilt brats with nothing better to do and no truck whatsoever should be given to them.
He didn't say that.
A troll is Internet slang for a person who intentionally tries to instigate conflict, hostility, or arguments in an online social community.
Understanding both sides of an argument is the opposite to trolling.

If you shouldn't be working on a hedge/field when birds are nesting, you have to accept somebody might complain if they think you are. That doesn't mean either party is wrong or right.

It does raise some interesting questions as to what might happen if people complain when an area is farmed differently after being in any enviro-scheme.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
He didn't say that.
A troll is Internet slang for a person who intentionally tries to instigate conflict, hostility, or arguments in an online social community.
Understanding both sides of an argument is the opposite to trolling.

If you shouldn't be working on a hedge/field when birds are nesting, you have to accept somebody might complain if they think you are. That doesn't mean either party is wrong or right.

It does raise some interesting questions as to what might happen if people complain when an area is farmed differently after being in any enviro-scheme.
one reason I would not join an environment scheme.

I will add, I have planted almost 2km of hedges here, I paid for most of it, and it was me out in the winter planting it up and doing most of the fencing. So it really irritates me, when someone who had nothing to do with my hedges telling me what I can or can't do with them, my hedge so really all the interfering environmentalists can do one as far as I am concerned!
 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
Next someone will be standing in front of my plough telling me to stop because I'm releasing carbon into the atmosphere or damaging earthworm populations. Completely ridiculous and needs nipping in the bud immediately
Oh there’s no doubt that this will happen. They’ll also want to stop you using glyphosate too and stop hurting all living creatures that are thereafter gonna eat all the food. Oh and they’ll demand you stop breathing too. Only farmers breathe out CO2.
 

Kevtherev

Member
Location
Welshpool Powys
Bought the seeds from Derrick eh ?:rolleyes::ROFLMAO:
9ABF5521-B2C8-4BAD-A7D0-F3F22F873D26.gif
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
Let's look at this rationally.

The thing is that most of the general public don't understand the economics or the practicalities of farming. They specialise in other stuff which we don't know so much about either.

This happens to be about skylarks. They are easy to identify and crucially, they survive and thrive in open farmed landscapes. The public see them, they think they're all going to die because they a mower in the field (despite having survived and thrived under this type of farming since it began). Something must be done.

They haven't thought about the rotation, cattle nutrition, cash flow, input costs, species, varieties timing and weather. All they care about is the one species of bird that is probably going to continue to do ok in this particular farming system.

The farmer has got enough to think about, so if he sees the skylarks, he hopes they'll bounce back as usual. He has a business to run supplying food which the protesters will probably buy on their way home, probably from a supermarket which says it does lots for the environment.

Despite the supermarket's claims I doubt there is a farmer in the country who doesn't like to see and hear a skylark, never mind deliberately harming one. It's just that there isn't much room for the environment in the corporate food system.

Of course every problem has a solution and as this comes down to money, what about the nice protesters putting some money up for habitat creation to take some of the onus off the farmer? We all know the government offers this type of thing but not all farmers think it's worthwhile.

Maybe there's room for some type of crowd funding for habitat creation, maybe lumped together elsewhere so smaller farms don't lose economies of scale?
 
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steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
Badgers eat pretty much all the ground nesting birds around here only the other day I saw a pheasant nest eaten by brock.
Thought this when I saw @Phil P piccie.

Used to do this here, same with nesting curlew, but 'kin Badgers hoover up most things now. Although the autumn sown Bumblebird mix seems to be a magnet for skylarks this time. Peewits quite like it in the right place too...
 

Dry Rot

Member
Livestock Farmer
Before everyone gets excited and goes off on one perhaps it would be an idea to have a look at the law which has been carefully drafted after all the above considerations and 'experts' from both sides consulted. Cut-and-pasted from the Wildlife and Countryside Act......
  • All birds, their nests and eggs are protected by law and it is thus an offence, with certain exceptions (see Exceptions), to:

  • Intentionally take, damage or destroy the nest of any wild bird while it is in use or being built.

  • Intentionally take or destroy the egg of any wild bird.

  • It is not illegal to destroy a nest, egg or bird if it can be shown that the act was the incidental result of a lawful operation which could not reasonably have been avoided.

  • there are more exceptions which you can look up for yourself because I can't be bothered.

    Back in 1958 I worked in a timber yard. We were not allowed to touch any stack of timber with a nesting bird in it. I rather liked my boss, and his daughter even more!:)
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.1%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.2%

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

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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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