On Tuesday Morning BBC’s Farming Today asked listeners to send in ideas for future programmes. They certainly need some to vary their diet of stories on climate change, the dangers of free trade and the need to wild the countryside. We have had five years of anti Brexit and climate change dominance.
So here’s some of the missing stories and viewpoints they can catch up on
1 The dangers of free trade with the EU to our farms. Why did we lose so much market share to the EU as members of the single market and how can we correct now?
2. The way we can raise animal welfare standards now out of the EU, and how we can enforce higher standards on EU imports
3. The scope for a much bigger timber industry in the U.K. as the plans for planting so many more trees are rolled out
4. Why DEFRA has still not set out its subsidy and support packages for more food growing and farm productivity improvements.How can we expand our food production?
5.When will the U.K. ban the large industrial foreign supertrawlers overfishing our waters and damaging the marine environment?
6. Will the U.K. regulators and water industry put in more reservoir capacity so farms in future will have access to irrigation water in dry spells?
7.As there is growing demand for U.K. fruit and veg What more needs to be done to expand the U.K. industry. Can we reverse the damage done by past EU grants to grub up U.K. orchards.
8. An evaluation of training, wages and career prospects in farming to nurture more home talent and increase the number of better paid jobs.
9. An assessment of damage to dairy in the U.K. from keeping U.K. short of milk quota for many years.
10. Opportunities to reclaim land for agricultural use through better drainage, water management, and sea defences.
Yesterday I was relieved to learn from this programme’s expert witness on landslips in the Brecon Beacons indicating climate change that landslips are the “canary in the mine” and the canary is “singing loudly” at the moment. That is a relief, so no undue landslips then. The canary in the mine did not sing but passed out if dangerous carbon monoxide gas was present. How do the BBC find such well informed experts?
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