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Trouble In Paradise.....part N....
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It’s always good, Tora, to have a laugh at our Continental friends when the EU (leaving which, apparently according to some contributors on here, has been an “absolute disaster” for the UK) treats them so badly. However, looking closer to home, some UK farmers are in precisely the same position.
In order to ensure “sustainable food production” and to “help combat climate change” Welsh farmers have been told that in order to qualify for subsidies (formerly doled out by the EU but now under the control of the Welsh Parish Council) they will have to stop farming 20% of their land (10% must be planted with trees and 10% “returned to nature”). There are lots of other conditions, including all farm owners and workers having to undergo six modules of “training” (aka indoctrination) annually, but the set aside issue is the most controversial.
Mark Drayford (the current Welsh First Minister who is retiring soon to spend more time with his Druid friends) accused the farmers of being the architects of their own misfortune for voting to leave the EU. I imagine he was not aware that precisely the same lunacy as his government is proposing has gripped the Euromaniacs, as demonstrated by your article. Mr Drayford (who has never worked in farming or indeed in anything of much use to mankind at all as far as I can see) seems somehow to fail to grasp that reducing the acreage that farmers can cultivate or use for pasture reduces its value by about 80%. This will have a profound effect on the capital value of their land, against which many farmers have secured loans to invest in their businesses. With this sudden reduction in collateral, many of them are concerned that the banks will call in the loans. As well as that, reducing their production by 20% will put many farming businesses close to, or beyond collapse. This will have a profound effect not only in farming itself, but also in peripheral businesses such as abattoirs, food processing plants and veterinary practices. It may also not have occurred to him that the people who consume the Welsh farmers’ produce are not suddenly going to cut their eating down by 20% and the shortfall will simply be made up from elsewhere. Perhaps from places like Brazil, where huge swathes of rainforest are being cleared to establish cattle ranches. In short, whatever small benefit is achieved in Wales by this nonsense will be simply moved to places where producers are not too fussy what they do to make a buck.
Wales' farming minister, Lesley Griffiths, says "changes will be made" to the post-Brexit agriculture policy following the protests but she wanted to hear "all the responses" to the consultation (the third on the same issue) first. The farmers have been trying to secure changes for over two years and it seems only now, that they have taken to the streets in their tractors, that anybody listening to them.
The UK may have left the EU, but there is no doubt that there are large elements among politicians who still believe we must follow their lead, especially when it comes to the utter nonsense that is “net zero”. That will never be achieved in the UK and certainly not in Wales, unless ridiculous schemes like this are allowed to go ahead.
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