Farm Diary Nov 4 2009

It is still very mild though, and there is still bone in the ground after such a great dry spell, but it's only a matter of time now before our weald clay at Crouchlands turns into that wobbly jelly that just sticks to everything; the best thing is to keep off the land until the spring.

All vehicles baring the quad bike are now banned. Sheep only from now on!

At Tillington the sand allows the calves to run in and out on the lush grass without a mark.

This week we bolted some rubber flooring in the calf shed, which will be better for their hoofs than concrete, and is so simple to keep clean; the scraper just glides over it.

It is a little slippery, but once the sheen has worn off, it will be fine. We have also a pressure washer installed which will make it easier to keep everything clean and sparkling.

I see that shadow Secretary of State Nick Herbert is against the appointment of a supermarket Ombudsman, although recognising the need for a strong, enforced code of practice.

The grounds for opposing such an appointment are that the Conservatives are going to be in the business of abolishing quangos rather than increasing them. The Competition Commission specifically proposed an individual supermarket ombudsman, and on the evidence in the UK and in Europe, there is a desperate need for some form of curb on their worst excesses.

When 'The Grocer' magazine leads with an editorial that writes 'the most clear cut example of profiteering in the grocery sector since the days of Al Capone'; we now there is a problem.

Just as the Tories seem to rule out an ombudsman, the European Commission announced last week that it is to step in and curb supermarket power, alleging that shoppers may be paying too much for their food, whilst suppliers receive too little for their produce.

The Commission has announced its intention to identify unfair contractual prices, increase awareness amongst suppliers of their rights and assist them report any abuse.

The Commission is also suggesting that it might publish an EC funded price comparison service. This may well assist in the struggle against excess profiteering, but the real need is for an enforced proper code of conduct and practice, and I am very interested in how a future government might put this in place with effect if it refuses to appoint an ombudsman.

I spent last Friday in Brussels at various meetings with the farming Unions, economists and advisors at the Commission and with other representatives from other countries discussing this very issue in dairying, and the need for proper contracts and codes of practice at both farmer processor level, and supplier retailer level in the supply chain.

We have been driving this for months, and we are at last seeing some action in Brussels. I'm surprised that given the coverage to dairy farmers in Europe protesting, striking and spreading their milk on the fields that the media in this country have failed to see what is at the root of this problem.

With higher retail prices despite plummeting prices for farmers, consumer resistance in recession with the resulting loss of demand has exacerbated the problems for dairy farmers.

I was interested to see a call for 'honesty' in the debate over climate change recently. Senior scientists are rightly worried that exaggerated and inaccurate claims about the threat from global warming risks undermining efforts to cut greenhouse gases.

Environmental lobbyists, politicians, researchers, journalists, vegetarians and the usual rag bag of people looking for a 'cause' have all done more harm than good, as ordinary people have seen through their nonsense and are at best confused.

The scientists who study and understand what is happening are concerned at the excessive statements concerning the decline of the Arctic sea ice, severe weather events, with extreme weather predictions, detracting from the robust findings about climate change.

Inconvenient truths, such as the fact that polar ice caps have recovered in recent years are overlooked or denied by those who have hijacked climate change to suit their own agenda, whilst serious scientists acknowledge that normal variation is always present and they found the claims of arctic sea ice passing the 'point of no return' (Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre) two years ago, unhelpful.

The temperature trends over the last twenty years have also been misinterpreted by those who almost salivate at the prospect that the end is nigh!

Rapid warming in the 1990s, culminating in the hottest year on record in 1998, was wrongly used to claim that global warming is accelerating, but temperatures have stabilized since then, and scientists who find this as exasperating as those of us who want to deal with scientific fact, are urging everyone to look at the underlying trend, and ignore normal and seasonal variations.

We saw another example of gross exaggeration by 'The Times' newspaper last week, when it shamelessly became a 'red top' for the day with a front page which screamed for people to become vegetarian! It had picked on a tiny part of Lord Stern's report into climate change, where he suggested that eating less meat might be part of the solution to the problem.

I was rung up by The Times, asking if this was Lord Stern working covertly for Hilary Benn (Secretary of State) and Jim Fitzpatrick (Minister for Farming), who of course are both vegetarians! I'm afraid my answer was both short and to the point.

Lord Stern has again strayed into the dangerous area of predicting climate change and the effects it might have.

He also showed how little he really knows about livestock farming, and that a vast area of this country is unsuitable for any form of production other than grass, grass which produces sheep and cattle, and absorbs vast amounts of carbon.

Discussing our use of land and water is of course a sensible and responsible approach to the challenge of feeding the world and minimizing our impact on the environment, but we need to resist the temptation to speculate, as we are always running the risk of being proven wrong.