The many benefits of leaving the EU.

[Pale Rider]

for the tanked economy.

Another bold, but incorrect, assertion.

The latest Bank of England forecast is for modest growth this year.

It will never be brexit, there will always be something else to blame.

The only blame around here is from remainers who would try to blame Brexit if their milk went off in the fridge.

 

[GetFatty]

Another bold, but incorrect, assertion.

The latest Bank of England forecast is for modest growth this year.

ok for an economy not doing as well as it would have been if we’d stayed in the EU where we’ve had 40 years of growth

 

[mudsticks]

More immediate consequences to report.

I couldn't get my usual pallet of high quality peat free seed raising substrate from the continent.

Have made do with a UK sourced substitute.

I don't wish to be unpatriotic, but the germination rates are not good.

Other growers experiencing similar.
Not happy.

In slightly cheerier news, if the post CAP support system for sustainable farming delivers on any of its promised proposals then smaller more ecological farms like here may get a boost.

Hurrah for Brexit you may say.

But it was the UK gov that decided to take smaller farms out of the EU support scheme in the first place.

There was never anything to stop smaller agroecological farming from being supported, under the Cap..

In fact it was being rewarded already.


We'll see what actually comes of all this consultation, lobbying, research, and report writing.

I'm suspecting the usual vested interests - larger land owners, and the usual suspects and extractive middlemen such as the supermarkets will hold sway..

We'll see.

 

[oldworld]

I'd agree the sentiment, but I'd put tackling climate change as more urgent than the economy.

Although tackling CC could help with jobs and prosperity.

I can't disagree with you.
I know you're a farmer and I have a lot of respect for the hard work you farmers put in but, I'd say some need a few lessons in sustainability.
It's certainly needed here. The lack of respect for creatures habitat is shown by the grubbing up of hedges between fields and the practise of cutting down all the trees along a fields edge, not just every other one as was the practice for centuries.
I know it's not all farmers, some leave a wide uncultivated edge around their field for wildlife but these aren't in the majority.
I suspect the farmers want to use very large machines and hedges just get in the way. If this is the only way to make farming pay then something is wrong and needs to change.

Please don't get the idea I think you're one of these farmers, I've read your posts and know you aren't.
Sorry to have a rant but we get far less moths and butterflies than we did 18 years ago and I think the variety of birds has also declined.

 

[Andy in Germany]

I can't disagree with you.
I know you're a farmer and I have a lot of respect for the hard work you farmers put in but, I'd say some need a few lessons in sustainability.
It's certainly needed here. The lack of respect for creatures habitat is shown by the grubbing up of hedges between fields and the practise of cutting down all the trees along a fields edge, not just every other one as was the practice for centuries.
I know it's not all farmers, some leave a wide uncultivated edge around their field for wildlife but these aren't in the majority.
I suspect the farmers want to use very large machines and hedges just get in the way. If this is the only way to make farming pay then something is wrong and needs to change.

Please don't get the idea I think you're one of these farmers, I've read your posts and know you aren't.
Sorry to have a rant but we get far less moths and butterflies than we did 18 years ago and I think the variety of birds has also declined.

I must admit, I've often wondered about this. We rarely have hedges here: farmland is open and tractors turn around on the roads when ploughing. On the other hand I think we have more small patches of woodland which may balance things out.

 

[mudsticks]

I can't disagree with you.
I know you're a farmer and I have a lot of respect for the hard work you farmers put in but, I'd say some need a few lessons in sustainability.
It's certainly needed here. The lack of respect for creatures habitat is shown by the grubbing up of hedges between fields and the practise of cutting down all the trees along a fields edge, not just every other one as was the practice for centuries.
I know it's not all farmers, some leave a wide uncultivated edge around their field for wildlife but these aren't in the majority.
I suspect the farmers want to use very large machines and hedges just get in the way. If this is the only way to make farming pay then something is wrong and needs to change.

Please don't get the idea I think you're one of these farmers, I've read your posts and know you aren't.
Sorry to have a rant but we get far less moths and butterflies than we did 18 years ago and I think the variety of birds has also declined.

Yes I agree all that.

I've been trying to go in the opposite direction regards land management and food production (and distribution) for decades.

But don't blame the farmers, they've been 'advised' by those who 'know better' agronomists, economists, buyers trying to nail down prices, so they can make more profit from farm gate commodities.

They've been told that they've got to get bigger, and use more inputs, for decades.

Now they're being bashed for doing what they were told to do..

Get big, or get out.

EU supported its small farmers far better on the whole.
The buying public did, and the system as a whole generally.

We've gone down the industrialised route to get more food at supposedly cheaper price

- IF you ignore the externalised costs.

Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
But not the songbirds so much.

Still deafening spring right here, but scant little patches here and there aren't enough.

And the blame for that, is being laid at the feet of the farmers.

Which isn't fair, its the system as a whole.

Who were told to get big, tool up, or get out.

It's also down to the buying choices of those who can afford better choices, if course.

But government also has a strategic, and supporting role.

You can't have your ecologically and visually lovely landscape, and dirt cheap food of every sort, available all year round.. It's just not how it works..

The food and farming system needs to transition to a better model..

Can also help with CC too, if we do it right..

Oh well better go practice what I preach..

 

[Mo1959]

Yes I agree all that.

I've been trying to go in the opposite direction regards land management and food production (and distribution) for decades.

But don't blame the farmers, they've been 'advised' by those who 'know better' agronomists, economists, buyers trying to nail down prices, so they can make more profit from farm gate commodities.

They've been told that they've got to get bigger, and use more inputs, for decades.

Now they're being bashed for doing what they were told to do..

Get big, or get out.

EU supported its small farmers far better on the whole.
The buying public did, and the system as a whole generally.

We've gone down the industrialised route to get more food at supposedly cheaper price

- IF you ignore the externalised costs.

Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
But not the songbirds so much.

Still deafening spring right here, but scant little patches here and there aren't enough.

And the blame for that, is being laid at the feet of the farmers.

Which isn't fair, its the system as a whole.

Who were told to get big, tool up, or get out.

It's also down to the buying choices of those who can afford better choices, if course.

But government also has a strategic, and supporting role.

You can't have your ecologically and visually lovely landscape, and dirt cheap food of every sort, available all year round.. It's just not how it works..

The food and farming system needs to transition to a better model..

Can also help with CC too, if we do it right..

Oh well better go practice what I preach..

On my morning walk I passed a field newly planted with spring barley. Must be at least five or six years in a row with no crop rotation or rest for the field. No doubt more and more fertilisers will be required to produce a decent crop?

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Sorry, I've not been keeping up this thread.
Too depressing.

Still waiting for the BB's to arrive here, but that's the southwest for you.

We're a bit slow on the uptake.

But what's with the meteo maps??

Am I right in thinking that Brexit has affected the weather now?

There was a dusting of snow here on the ground this morning!!
Here!!
In April!!

Have those pesky Eurocrats stopped our free access to the gulf stream now.??

I wouldn't put it past those fiendish coves!!

It was a meteorological diversion driven by a spurious claim about the Ruhr/Rhine and their nasty lower standards contributing to the worst UK pollution and a mistyping of Icelandic with the letters A-t-l-a-n-t-i-c.

Anyhow, in a link posted up, I learn that:

UK concentrations of PM2.5 were not routinely monitored until 2008, when the New Air Quality Directive was introduced by the European Union

The bastards!

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

If we're spared this 4th wave who will then blame for failure to deliver the golden age of post brexit ?

Long covid at your services....

 

[ClichéGuevara]

It was a meteorological diversion driven by a spurious claim about the Ruhr/Rhine and their nasty lower standards contributing to the worst UK pollution and a mistyping of Icelandic with the letters A-t-l-a-n-t-i-c.

Anyhow, in a link posted up, I learn that:

UK concentrations of PM2.5 were not routinely monitored until 2008, when the New Air Quality Directive was introduced by the European Union

The bastards!

Actually, one of the posts deleted was the response to that, which very clearly showed that you were wrong, and my claim was 100% accurate, apart from a mistype in putting Atlantic instead of Icelandic.

There is still a reply on the thread citing another study which confirms what I posted.

As for the comment on 2.5, you may want to look at how that came about.

You need to move on, and just accept the very clear fact you called it wrong.

 

[oldworld]

Yes I agree all that.

I've been trying to go in the opposite direction regards land management and food production (and distribution) for decades.

But don't blame the farmers, they've been 'advised' by those who 'know better' agronomists, economists, buyers trying to nail down prices, so they can make more profit from farm gate commodities.

They've been told that they've got to get bigger, and use more inputs, for decades.

Now they're being bashed for doing what they were told to do..

Get big, or get out.

EU supported its small farmers far better on the whole.
The buying public did, and the system as a whole generally.

We've gone down the industrialised route to get more food at supposedly cheaper price

- IF you ignore the externalised costs.

Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
But not the songbirds so much.

Still deafening spring right here, but scant little patches here and there aren't enough.

And the blame for that, is being laid at the feet of the farmers.

Which isn't fair, its the system as a whole.

Who were told to get big, tool up, or get out.

It's also down to the buying choices of those who can afford better choices, if course.

But government also has a strategic, and supporting role.

You can't have your ecologically and visually lovely landscape, and dirt cheap food of every sort, available all year round.. It's just not how it works..

The food and farming system needs to transition to a better model..

Can also help with CC too, if we do it right..

Oh well better go practice what I preach..

You have insider knowledge of what's wrong with the farming industry, I only see it from the outside.
I think sustainability is possible while still making a profit. About a mile away we have an organic milk farm that farms in a large but more traditional way. It has grown over the years and provides enough income to support the two brothers who farm it. This must be understood to be at a time when many milk farmers are giving up due to low prices and being unable to make a living.
What ever they are doing they've got it right and a plus is the hedgerows are managed properly and not torn out.
If I find it I've a photo of the cows lying down in the shade of a huge oak tree in the middle of the field. It could have been taken 100 years ago but was in fact taken last summer.
I think the search for ever cheaper food hasn't helped the health of the nation, only guessing but the gross tonnage of an average person seems to have shot up so something has caused it.

 

[Andy in Germany]

It was a meteorological diversion driven by a spurious claim about the Ruhr/Rhine and their nasty lower standards contributing to the worst UK pollution and a mistyping of Icelandic with the letters A-t-l-a-n-t-i-c.

Anyhow, in a link posted up, I learn that:

UK concentrations of PM2.5 were not routinely monitored until 2008, when the New Air Quality Directive was introduced by the European Union

The bastards!

You mean European pollution is causing British people to misspell the names of geographic features?

As well as simultaneously not having standards and having standards, and stopping the UK from having standards?

 

[ClichéGuevara]

You mean European pollution is causing British people to misspell the names of geographic features?

As well as simultaneously not having standards and having standards, and stopping the UK from having standards?

Oh dear. What I put was totally correct (barring the mistype) That seems to be really stinging you.

Do you know Germany is being taken to Court for their air quality levels? I believe it's NH4 this time around, but it's not the first time this has happened.

 

[Rocky]

You mean European pollution is causing British people to misspell the names of geographic features?

As well as simultaneously not having standards and having standards, and stopping the UK from having standards?

I’ve read the paper. To summarise: when the wind blows from Europe it spreads pollutants. Presumably when the wind blows the other way, the UK’s pollution heads to Europe.

It seems obvious to me that leaving the EU gives the UK no influence in its (the EU’s) pollution policies. This paper simply demonstrates the damage done by Brexit.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Oh dear. What I put was totally correct (barring the mistype) That seems to be really stinging you.

Do you know Germany is being taken to Court for their air quality levels? I believe it's NH4 this time around, but it's not the first time this has happened.

Yup. Largely due to Stuttgart as far as I know, which has truly awful levels of pollution caused by too many cars in a city in a narrow valley. It's a nice place but way too over trafficked. It's a matter of social justice as well, because the more heavily polluted areas are generally where poorer people and first generation migrants live. Until recently the centre right local government wasn't interested in helping.

Thank goodness for the EU laws that make sure it doesn't get any worse...