Please God, let it be true. According to the Sunday Times, the Prime Minister is beginning to row back on ‘Net Zero’. The increasingly woke newspaper clearly regards this as a mortal sin – but, unfortunately, the only instance it offers of Boris’s reverse ferret is a reduction in the money the Government is willing to pay farmers to ‘rewild’ their land. Hardly surprising the Government doesn’t think bribing farmers to grow wildflowers instead of crops is a great idea, given the looming food shortage.
Ministers last year announced a post-Brexit scheme that would pay farmers up to £800 million a year — a third of the farming budget — to transform agricultural land into nature-rich forests, coastal wetlands, peatlands and wildflower meadows.
But the fund, called the landscape recovery scheme, has been quietly slashed to just £50 million over three years, less than 1% of the budget.
The policy change is a significant victory for the farming lobby, which had opposed diverting money from food production.
Government insiders say the conflict in Ukraine has heightened the need to channel more support towards food production rather than large landowners.
The U.K. is hugely reliant on imports, producing roughly 64% of our food, down from 78% in the 1980s.
A new national food strategy, due to be published tomorrow, will confirm a shift in emphasis, saying that land management schemes should reflect “farmer demand”.
Conservation groups last night described the U-turn as a “massive betrayal”. Others suggested a link to the Tiverton and Honiton by-election, due to be held in rural Devon on June 23rd.
Senior figures in Whitehall fear the change is part of a wider paring back of Johnson’s net zero goals.
I blame Brexit.
Worth reading in full.
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“A new national food strategy, due to be published tomorrow,”
‘New’ as in we haven’t had one since WWII. What a bloody indictment of every government since. Properly sorted this country could virtually feed itself but no let’s implement a ‘programme of carbon capture,’ i.e tree planting on viable farm land so that we can bung the eco loon Windsors more tax payer’s cash.
By my calculations the country could more than feed itself. I once worked out that if the land was divided equally, a family of four or five would have somewhere over three acres. Admittedly some parts of Britain would be quite difficult to farm. Still, with modern farming methods, I reckon that a quarter of an acre should be more than enough to feed a family (and as I’ve noted before, hydroponic farming could be used at a pinch to produce high yields in a small area). Make no mistake, if we go short, it will be because of a failure of government.
(Actually, I reckoned we could do rather better than feed ourselves. I calculated the world’s population could theoretically be fed from an area of land equal to the Isle of Skye. It would involve 150 stories (at say ten foot per story) and quite a lot of hydroponically grown vegetables on shelves, and then there’s supplying water, minerals, climate control, electricity for lighting etc. I did say theoretically…).
I remember reading a long time ago that Uganda could feed the whole of Africa due to it’s fertile land and having two growing seasons per year instead of one.
Simple answer…..no….not on your life. We still have a Climate Change LAW that sets the zero green agenda…
in the ‘Telegraph’ over the last couple of days there have been stories of Boris urging farmers to plant more fruit and veg, as opposed to farming animals…and a push to make vegetarian/vegan meals available in Schools and pretty much everywhere…
(As if they haven’t always been available..just don’t eat the meat??)
Its also a WEF agenda (you vill eat ze bugs)…and as we all know they are in charge…..
Still, it would be no bad thing from a health point of view if some people had a little more vegetable in their diet, and they take less land to grow.
Someone mentioned the Inuits, and indeed they were very healthy. I think the thing about them was that they ate natural whole food (and possibly raw?).
As I have said before, I think regenerative farming has a role to play in good health.
In principle, yes. Personally, I think the people who eat nothing but meat are exactly as crazy as those who don’t eat any. OTOH, so-called vegan food is usually industrially produced substitute products lab-conditioned to resemble animal-based products[*] and veganism is really just about selling more of that.
[*] eg, plant-based McDonald’s burgers. This always makes the chuckle as cows are certainly plant-based, hence, they could as well use the label for all of their products.
I understand they have a lot of soya, which I’ve heard is not particularly healthy.
I think the general idea is to take some source of protein and fat, mix this together and then add flavourings, especially, monosodium glutamat. That’s an organic salt which, for instance, occurs naturally in beef, although never in such high concentrations as are usually employed when used as so-called flavour enhancer. That and sugar are the two additives I usually avoid (actually, I never consciously by anything with added glutamat and sometimes, buy something with added sugar, if it really can’t be helped). IMHO, addition the former is always a sign of someone trying to dress up a pig with lipstick.
In the end, this is literally artifical meet (or cheese or whatever), ie, it’s composition is as identical to the natural product as the people who design this stuff believe to be necessary, with the remaining deficiencies basically papered over by adding lots of salt. I’ve sometimes entertained the thought that the people who buy this stuff are simply afraid of anything which just grew out there, without some expert being involved in its production. I mean, look at a cow: It’s hairy and often dirty and eats god only knows what kind of unhygenic green stuff — how can anyone dare to eat something like this?
The whole Green agenda looks to have been dreamed up by junior schoolers. It is weak and counter-productive, it has no nuance, and it clearly bears none of the burden of making sure we have a plentiful supply of cheap food and energy.
I do understand that some people have swallowed the hysterics of climate emergency. As the years drag on, the predictions of the sky falling in are unfulfilled and have become more and more stale and unlikely. Turning up the hysterics to 11 isn’t the solution. At some point, some grown-ups, able to think critically and use a calculator have to take precedence. Its amazing it has taken this long for the sceptics to get a toe-hold.
There is not a serious problem with the long term climate. However there is a problem with people’s health being compromised by some practices of big pharma and big food.
As usual with this government it’s too little too late. Fruit trees take years to mature, and as for crops – apart from a few quick growing things like lettuce – the season is already half gone, so there will be no benefit this year. Meanwhile, our wonderful English asparagus (grown less than 20 miles from me) is twice the price of Peruvian asparagus. It’s crazy as well that I could have the utmost difficulty getting a short haul flight to Spain, yet asparagus, which has to be consumed fairly quickly, gets an easy ride in from Peru.
Again too late, but think of all the allotments that have been built over and all the prime farm land lost to solar farms. Every time I drive down to Cornwall there are more and more of these either side of the M5, on some of the richest farmland in England.
If I think too much about all this, I will go mad!
Today was the first time I could buy English peas since last year. That’s unusually early: peas are what comes next after asparagus but so far, the first ones for each year always came from Italy. I think that’s an improvement.
Some crops are ready early this year, e.g. my broad beans sown in Autumn are about 2 weeks ahead, on account of the mild weather we had over the Winter, in the main. A lot of the plants were nearly ruined by one of the storms, but I got away with it. The plants were taller than they usually are at that time of the year.
Maybe they could set up some polytunnels in those empty Nightingale hospitals…
“Fruit trees.”
Another topic I have espoused for many years. It would appear there is now a mad push to plant millions of trees although our Borough has just chopped down 10,000. The trees had some sort of infection although this did not mean the trees could not be sold to saw mills. Presumably the trees were suffering the woodland equivalent of C1984. And Krankie has chopped down millions in Jockland.
Anyway, the point is, if we are planting millions of trees, to ‘capture’ all that nasty Co2 why are they not fruit trees?We live at a height of 600ft above sea level and apple, plum and cherry trees have no problems. There is even a commercial orchard in Holmfirth producing very good cider. The fruit bounty would have been very helpful given the food shortages that have been manufactured for us.
Oh……
I wonder how many civil servants now are former WEF young leaders?
Who else but the government would employ them ?
If my friend at the pub is right, and Carrie is having an affair with Zac Goldsmith, that might be the driving force behind this.
It must be me. No matter how hard I look, all I see is bull.
Hmm so do you need to pay to comment?
This is good news.
Are you referring to the article or ‘pay to comment?’
The headline gave me hope, the reality that its about the trivial issue of rewinding, left me in despair.
Boris’s political skills are overrated and he doesn’t see that his only chance of political survival rests with rejecting net zero entirely. I
n a stroke he would reduce everyones energy bills by 30% with the removal of the green taxes. He would lower the cost of petrol and diesel and everything that is transported to shops and restaurants. Ending all of the net zero subsidies would free up room for responsible tax cuts and he would open the door for a manufacturing revival in the UK.
Of course, he will never do this as the luvvie class would hate him for it but they already hate him for Brexit so there is no net loss of support and the new found prosperity in the UK would drown out all of the idiots at the BBC and the Times.