Nocton Dairies – planning for a better future?

At long last the planning application for Nocton has been submitted. With fewer than half the original cow numbers, the people behind the development will be hoping this will be enough of a change to enable the permission to be granted with fewer objections.

But almost 4,000 cows is still a lot by anyone’s standards. And there will be little doubt that people in the villages surrounding the proposed development will think there are about 3,500 cows too many.

Farm safety – vital, but too often ignored

NO-ONE ever plans to have an accident. In farming, most people are fairly aware of the risks they face. And many are also aware of the risks they take – often on a regular basis.

But few, perhaps, take the time to consider the consequences for them or their family or friends should that risk turn out to be the one time things go catastrophically wrong.

Organic and conventional producers must pull together for UK farming

‘Yes, perhaps we have upset the conventional farming community by continually saying we were right and they were wrong.’

 It is one of the most surprising quotes in Farmers Guardian this week, most of all because it came from former Soil Association director Patrick Holden.

For too long, the Soil Association has worked on the premise that organic is good, while conventional farming is inferior in some way.

For its former director to say organic farmers should ‘not be out there thinking and talking of ourselves as organic farmers because that separates us from the rest of the farming community’ is such a massive change of direction, it beggars belief.

Having retired from the post, Mr Holden is free from having to toe the party line, but it is a line about which he was very clear as director.

His latest comments will not have gone unnoticed by his previous employer.

Spending cuts will test Defra to its limit

Farmers and civil servants are not natural bedfellows.

Ask anyone who has been on the receiving end of an RPA inspection or who has been subject to an Environment Agency investigation.

For many, the very mention of bureaucracy and inspections is enough to bring on a feeling of impending doom. So, is it any wonder that the story most commented on this week at www.farmersguardian.com is headlined Defra spending cuts will be bloody.

There were precious few people on our website willing to stick up for Defra, and even fewer who were positive about Natural England and the Environment Agency.

Food scams break a sacred trust with consumers

If you ordered lamb on a menu and it made a point that it was from a farm in Hampshire, that is exactly what you would expect.

And you would be surprised to discover it was actually from New Zealand.

But it is a discovery made recently – among others – by local authorities. And, more worryingly for Welsh farmers, they also discovered in one area that about half the lamb sold as Welsh didn’t actually come from Wales.

In a day and age when the provenance and authenticity of food is a major selling point, the temptation to “add value” by being less than truthful about its origins must be increasing.

Don’t let AgriLive demise damage shows

Is it a case that the RASE is damned if it does, and damned if it doesn’t?

Is it better that it cancels an event which is likely to lose more money rather than ploughing on with it regardless?

Or will many people just see it as another indictment of an organisation that is out of touch and has lost its way?

The news that it and its event partner the Royal Smithfield Club have taken the decision to cancel this year’s AgriLive event will have come as a shock to some.

Launched last year, it was perhaps quieter than many would have liked, yet it was a good attempt to provide a technical and showing event for the red meat industry.

But for trade exhibitors and sponsors, finding money to attend and support additional events – and new ones at that – was always going to be difficult at a time of tight budgets.