Tag Archives: food production

Land values- farming-Brexit

 

The Environment Secretary has repeatedly signally lately that support for farming will progressively shift from production support to environmental protection.  As we already import more than half of what we eat, that presumably means that the post-Brexit trade deals we hear so much of lately will sacrifice UK agricultural production to imports, in exchange for exports of cars, armaments, fashion, university places and computer programming.  That, in turn, implies a change in land values as production will be less economic and cash for the environment will be squeezed in favour of university tuition fees (or whatever is PC at the time). That implied fall in land values will then allow the builders to buy up land and build houses. Obviously an environmental improvement which will allow otters, beavers and bitterns to occupy urban gardens.

I remain unconvinced that government is thinking anything through.

Bill Butterworth, Land Research Ltd,  1st April 18

In a divorce, true friends stand out from acquaintances

Under threat from Russia, the EU shows support in a way the USA does not. that does not bode well for Brexit.

Like any divorce, Brexit is a time for finding out who your real friends are. Try clicking on the link below.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-latest-eu-russia-uk-allies-theresa-may-jean-clauke-juncker-putin-sergei-skripal-a8270636.html

The Liberal Democrats in the UK are pushing for a referendum when we know the final version of the Brexit deal. As we have pretensions to be a democracy, that sounds a good idea.  By the way, EU support for farming and home production is worth consideration, too.

Bill Butterworth, Land Research Ltd 25 March 18

Insanity of abandoning production support for farming

If any Minister forgets this effect of a slip in the jet-stream, he or she may well heave the death of maybe thousands of old people on their hands.

The cold snap at the beginning of March is easily forgotten,

BUT remember for a moment the empty shelves in the supermarkets for a day or two afterwards. Credit to them and their supply companies and truck drivers for getting it right so quick…

BUT, suppose the jet steam which dipped south for a couple of days and let in the “Beast from the East” had stuck for a couple of weeks…

BECAUSE the supermarkets work on Just In Time (JIT) supply chains, people would have actually starved and vulnerable people would have died.  Over-dramatising?  Well, possibly.  However, some years ago, I was working for TACIS (the EU technology transfer program) in Tajikistan and, because of a deliberate cut-off of the gas energy supply from further into the communist block, several million people dies in their sub=zero temperature winter. These things do happen.

AND, if and when we leave the EU and we do trade deals with overseas people, exporting services and manufactured goods, and allowing more food imports, and sell farm production down the line in favour of “environmental” correctness, and the same dip in the jet stream occurs, then more people will die.

Why do we put up with Ministers and a Civil Service that has no common sense?

Oh, by the way, climate is changing, it is quite likely the jet stream will dip again.

Bill Butterworth, Land Research Ltd,  March 18

 

 

 

NHS staff need a countryside break

The only way is up.

 

Farming and the Health Budget.4.Staff Recreation.

I have not heard anyone criticise NHS staff in recent years.  Most of them are underpaid, over-worked and exhausted.  Many feel under-valued.  Part of the cure could be give them a break, on a farm, in the countryside. Regularly, return refreshed and more productive with fewer mistakes.  Worth every penny. Able to prepare patients better and sooner for care in the community.By the way, if Michael Gove’s Civil Servixce advisors have a problem with the way farmers have taken care of the countryside, the should see it when God has it all to himself.

Food security and health security are complimentary.

Bill Butterworth, Land Research Ltd. 3 March 2018

 

 

Peace in our time – farming for others

THIS

Can deliver this to others

Farming and the Health Budget.2. Recuperation

Recuperation in the community clearly reduces the pressure on hospitals and GP’s.   organising close links and understanding between the health services and farms has some clear advantages in terms of relaxation, fresh air, exercise, good food and mental repair and re-building hope.  However, it only works if the farm used is a production operation because the hope of harvest, the hard work of others, the peace in that hard work, is what allows peace to the visitor.

What better place to learn about diet and health education than on a farm.

Bill Butterworth, Land Research Ltd. 27 Feb 18

 

Farming and the NHS Budget

Will any government keep its farm support promise, post Brexit? Should it? Will it be able to afford to? Here is an alternative if government gets short of cash – and it will!

Farming takes around £3 billion out of the EU pa.  If Brexit does go through, then that will disappear. The UK government has promised to match that for 5 years.  One has to suspect that there may be a certain amount of scope to interpret that. Most of the public cannot remember the country being short of food. The pressure from the voting public to support farming may pall into insignificance compared with pouring cash into the NHS. So can farming offer something to the NHS?  Farming manages the great outdoors and produces some of the safest food in the world.  These are directly related to both health (including all aspects of physical and mental health, preferably viewed holistically) and the cost of running the health services. Over the next 9 daily posts of this blog, I shall be raising some questions about the way farming could give the government two benefits for the price of one.

Bill Butterworth, Land Research Ltd, 25 February 2018

Vision of UK Farming

THIS

For half a century, the British government and (latterly) the EU have supported production.

OR THIS

Of late, the UK Environment Secretary has begun to signal a further shift in financial support towards a politically correct view of “the environment”.

We actually produce more per ha than any other country on earth.  We produce the most policed and safest food compared with every other country on earth.

So where will UK farming be in 10 years’ time?  By current political correctness, no doubt with awfully nice, “fluffy” environmental “improvements”.

We certainly do need to work very hard at environmental safety and care.  We certainly need to protect and encourage wild life.  However, stifling farm production will do little help on these matters.  If we really want to help “the environment”, whatever you understand by that, then we need to stop people breeding.  It is not about race, it is about numbers. Common sense tells us that uncontrolled population growth, globally and in the UK, by whatever route, must eventually destroy everything we value. But, then, common sense ain’t common any more.  For a larger, researched and balanced review of population growth and food production, see https://www.amazon.co.uk/Survival-Sustainable-Energy-Wastes-Shale/dp/1523264217

Bill Butterworth, Land Research Ltd 19 February 2018

We actually produce more per ha than any other country on earth.  We produce the most policed and safest food compared with every other country on earth.

So where will UK farming be in 10 years’ time?  By current political correctness, no doubt with awfully nice, “fluffy” environmental “improvements”.

We certainly do need to work very hard at environmental safety and care.  We certainly need to protect and encourage wild life.  However, stifling farm production will do little help on these matters.  If we really want to help “the environment”, whatever you understand by that, then we need to stop people breeding.  It is not about race, it is about numbers. Common sense tells us that uncontrolled population growth, globally and in the UK, by whatever route, must eventually destroy everything we value. But, then, common sense ain’t common any more.  For a larger, researched and balanced review of population growth and food production, see https://www.amazon.co.uk/Survival-Sustainable-Energy-Wastes-Shale/dp/1523264217

Bill Butterworth, Land Reseaarch Ltd 19 February 2018