Ragwort Alert

Ragwort, is blooming at the moment, and as every horse owner and farmer knows, ragwort contains toxins which can have debilitating or fatal consequences if eaten by horses and other grazing animals.

Whilst Ragwort has its place in the countryside; it supports a wide variety of invertebrates and is a major nectar source for many insects, but it must be controlled, especially where there are horses and livestock. Therefore it is important that the dangers posed by Ragwort is circulated to reach the widest possible audience.

There is an especial, and growing, concern that some public bodies who own land, such as Local Authorities, are not taking the problem seriously and managing their land appropriately, but there really is no excuse for a Code of Practice on how to stop the spread of ragwort is available to all on DEFRA’s website.

The threat ragwort poses to animals cannot be underestimated and is something that all landowners, whether public or private, must take seriously.

If you see it growing anywhere near you, do contact the farmer or other land owner and report its presence.

Thank you!

Further information on this deadly weed may be obtained here

A farming supporter of Land & People recently described the difference between the Labour and Tory parties thus:

Labour is the crazed madman who runs at with a knife with the obvious intention of doing you harm. The Tory is the quietly spoken type who smiles to your face before plunging a dagger into you as soon as you turn your back!

The recent history of the farming industry would appear to bear that observation out. We’ll give you three examples to demonstrate the point.

Example One: When the debate over fox hunting raged and Labour was preparing its anti-hunting legislation, Tories the length of and breadth of Britain were telling the hunting fraternity how much they supported their cause. Yet despite Labour arguing for a ban on supposed animal welfare grounds the Tories refused to play the one card that would have seen Labour dropping their proposed anti-hunt legislation faster than the proverbial hot potato. That “card” was �“ ritual slaughter.

Ritual slaughter, is an imported and barbaric practice, which requires the slitting of the throat of live un-stunned animals �“ thereby consigning these unfortunate creatures to a prolonged and painful death through the slow haemorrhaging of blood. It is to the eternal shame of this country that literary millions of British animals suffer this horrific death annually for no other reason than to satisfy the theological requirements of imported religions �“ such as Islam. There can be not the slightest doubt that ritual slaughter, much of it by the halal method, is the single most prolific form of animal abuse practised in Britain today. And yet, whilst Labour argued for a ban on hunting on animal welfare grounds - quoting a figure of some five thousand foxes being destroyed each year �“ the two-faced treacherous Tories remained silent over the slow-death killing of up to five million cattle, sheep, lambs and chickens per annum!

So why didn’t the Tories play the ritual slaughter “card” to destroy Labour’s case for a ban on hunting?

The reason is quite simple. Not only would they have lost the financial support of a number of their key ethnic minority millionaire backers �“ but they would have also lost the support of hundreds of thousands of their ethnic minority voters in communities that adhere to ritual slaughter religions!

And, as is so often the case, the Tories made all the right noises for the benefit of the hunting lobby whilst avoiding, like the proverbial plague, the one issue that would have killed Labour’s anti-hunting proposals stone dead!

Example 2: When the dairy industry was in crisis due to the miserable price being paid by the creameries, dairies and supermarkets to dairy farmers for liquid milk at the farm gate - what were the Tories doing? Once again they were busy making the “right noises” - reassuring producers that they were “on their side” and doing “everything they could” to get a better deal for dairy farmers.

Considering the quantity of hot air expended by the Tories in pledging their support it is somewhat surprising that they failed to achieve anything of note for struggling producers. But, then again, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising - considering how much money the two-faced treacherous Tory Party was receiving from its commercial backers, particularly those having an interest in keeping the price of milk low!

Example 3: Then, of course, we have the ongoing issue of cheap foreign imports undermining the British producer �“ Eastern European milk and South American beef being just two products that spring singularly and powerfully to mind. Whilst the two-faced treacherous Tories continue to sweet talk producers on how they “sympathise with the plight of farmers” they continue to support both the EU legislation and unbridled free trade that is facilitating the importation of huge quantities of cheap Eastern European milk and sub-standard Brazilian beef into Britain, to undermine the very producers they claim to be supporting! Needless to say, cheap imported milk and beef being two products, amongst many, that whilst helping to eradicate the British producer, turns in handsome profits for the supermarkets so beloved of by the two-faced treacherous Tory Party!

Tories �“ running with the fox whilst hunting with the pack!

It is reported that over the last two years London’s beekeepers lost half their hives. Indeed, during last winter alone, it is estimated that almost a third of British hives lost their bees. According to the chairman of the London Beekeeepers Association: “If you give hives a thump, you get a little roar coming back, and I didn’t get any roars. Some had bees but the mysterious ones had virtually nothing. Everything had disappeared.” The last time bee losses were this serious, according to the record books, was before the First World War.

Land & People has previously reported on “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD), a so far unexplained phenomenon that has led to the loss of more than a third of US hives this year and a considerable number across Europe. Although a number of theories to explain this phenomenon are extant �“ the favoured appears to be that the radiation from mobile phone mast transmitters are disorientating bees to the extent they are unable to find their way back to their home hive.

The problem is larger than many appreciate and goes much further than the production of honey. According to DEFRA, bee pollination alone is worth around £200 million per annum to agriculture. So potentially serious is the issue that DEFRA commenced a public inquiry on improving the health of honeybees, which concludes at the end of this month. In addition the loss of so many bees will inevitably have an effect on Britain’ honey producers �“ an industry that normally produces around £30 million of honey per year.

In the US not only has the industry been ravaged by CCD for much longer than either here in Britain, or across the Channel in Europe, but the scale of the problem is far larger. There the US Department of Agriculture estimates that bee pollination adds around £8 billion to crop values. Consequently it should come as no surprise that US government scientists are engaged in an investigation into the problem. Amongst possible causes being investigated are pesticides, natural diseases, parasites, man-made factors (mobile phone radiation) or any combination of these!

Here in Britain the experts tell us that we have all the components of the US-style disorder in terms of disease. In addition, it is clear that the onus is on DEFRA to act because failure to resolve the problem will be reflected in lower crop yields. Bee pollination is estimated to be worth around £90 million to apple producers and around £20 million to both oilseed and raspberry growers.

The importance of the humble bee to agriculture is enormous - bees pollinate a third of everything that we eat - a shortage of bees means a shortage of food �“ the problem extends far beyond honey.

Yet despite the importance of this issue Labour’s DEFRA has only budgeted a paltry £200,000 on research �“ this is about what it costs to “run” a single one of their parasitic Westminster MPs. To put this figure into some sort of comparison, the beekeepers’ association says an extra £7.7 million is needed over five years to properly fund bee studies. As one expert commented: “In the sum of the whole of the agriculture business, it’s a drop in the ocean. There’s insufficient allocation for research, and bees are so fundamental to our environment.”

To make matters worse it is believed that funding of the bee health program is unlikely to change next year, though an additional £90,000 is being spent this year for the National Bee Unit to study the winter losses, DEFRA claims.

Land & People are agog at the Government’s apparent apathy in respect of this problem. Are ministers incapable of grasping the potential enormity of this issue we ask? Can’t they comprehend that failure to pollinate crops on a substantial scale not only threatens abysmal harvests but puts huge sections of the farming industry at risk? In a recent article on this Government’s attitude towards the farming industry we asked whether Labour’s mismanagement of farming was due to misfortune or design? We are still asking!

There can be no doubt that few things are more essential to our everyday lives than food.

Unfortunately not enough people are asking themselves whether they can trust the food they eat. The politicians and food industry spokesmen tell us that the chemicals, growth hormones, additives and antibiotics the food industry insists on adulterating our food with is both “essential” and “good for us”! In addition, those who campaign for wholesome food and especially against GM products, are ridiculed as being “misinformed” or “backward looking”!

The British National Party believes the road ahead is for a return to unadulterated organic food, food we can trust. In particular we want a GM-free Britain and a return to proven organic production methods as far as is practically posible. During the last decade the quantity of organic food produced in Europe has gone up five fold, so clearly there is a demand for real food in this country of ours. Unfortunately the Government has done little to encourage British producers to expand organic production �“ this despite our country having one of the largest markets for organic produce in the Western World. It is a sad fact that less than half of the organic food we eat is actually homegrown. The British National Party will promote real food over the processed and adulterated variety, and encourage food producers to meet the resulting growing demand for real food, at an affordable price to the consumer.

Furthermore, British Nationalists advocate proper and prominent labelling on food packaging. We believe the consumer has a right to know what they are being sold, so that they are better equipped to decide for themselves whether they want to buy it.

In addition, as part of our drive for a return to real food, British Nationalists advocate a major expansion in the provision of the traditional allotment �“ this being a facility that has served both families and communities well for many decades.

British Nationalists also believe that the British public, by and large, care - as we do - about the treatment of animals. We believe that farm animals have a right not to suffer, and our stand against intensive factory production lines promotes respect and compassion in farming. Furthermore, British Nationalists, unlike the so-called “Green” Party, are opposed to the most prolific form of animal cruelty practised in Britain today �“ that of the cruel and barbaric slow-death ritual slaughter of millions of our farm animals every year - for no other reason than to appease the theological dogma of certain religious groups.

The British National Party believes in local family owned shops selling the wholesome produce of local family owned farms and allotments, at affordable prices, to local people.

Hence our stance that as far as is possible food should be grown locally, for sale in local shops and markets, to local people. We see little value in chemically grown produce that has been transported thousands of polluting miles to reach the consumer - it’s time to rediscover real food and to refocus our farming industry into fulfilling that need.

If one were to be asked for a prime example of Labour incompetence then you would be hard pressed finding something as far-reaching or expensive as their “handling” of the 2001 foot and mouth (FMD) crisis. So unbelievably “naff” was their inept and disproportionate response to this outbreak that many a farmer, even today, believes that malice played a role. The conservative British farmer, after all, has long been one of Labour’s Marxist “class-enemy” bogeymen! The combination of the FMD and Labour pestilence not only led to the slaughter of millions of perfectly healthy beasts but also dealt a crippling blow to what had been a thriving industry, putting many out of business.

Labour’s FMD debacle was followed by their appalling apathy towards the growing plight of dairy farmers. Whilst the Government allowed supermarket cartels and dairies to reduce the farm gate price of milk to less than the cost of production - the Government deliberately remained aloof from the resulting crisis. No surprise then that well run farms went bust the length and breadth of Britain. Such was the despair in the industry that some producers, facing insurmountable debt and the loss of both their livelihood and home, took their own lives! Quite apart from these localised tragedies, many struggling older farmers sold up and retired, whilst their sons and daughters, seeing no future in farming, abandoned the industry in favour of the relative stability of regular paid employment!

This entirely avoidable mess was swiftly followed by the shambles surrounding the introduction of the Single Farm Payments (SFP) system, where the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), acting on behalf of Labour’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), was charged with distributing some £1.5 billion of EU subsidies to British farmers. So incompetent (some think deliberately so) was the implementation of the scheme that only 15% of farmers received their cheques on time - in March 2006! Although the majority of farmers received payments by the end of that year, many thousands were still waiting well into 2007 for their subsidy money - more than a year after they were supposed to have been paid! This delay inevitably resulted in cash-strapped farmers going cap in hand to the banks, to arrange expensive bridging loans or to “top-up” existing ones. In no few cases, growing indebtedness and a sense of hopelessness resulted in a further tranche of farmers quitting the industry.

Now, summer 2008, we discover that Labour’s RPA has overpaid thousands of farmers to the tune of an estimated £38 million. This money will now have to be clawed back from the unsuspecting recipients. This is all very well if the money is sitting in bank accounts unspent. But, as it is entirely likely, much of this cash will have already been ploughed back into the business - perhaps into new plant or towards paying off existing bank loans, for instance - meaning then it is entirely likely that affected farmers will now have to return to the banks to arrange fresh interest-bearing credit to tied then over! Yet more profits for the banks, yet more misery for the farmer!

Meanwhile, as farmers continue to leave the industry at a time of historically high land prices, developers, giant agricultural combines and supermarket cartels hover, like vultures, to buy up even more ruined formerly family owned farms.

Whereas the Labour regime has put the farming industry through the wringer in recent years and driven thousands, of formerly successful family run farms to the wall - it would be wrong to think that there haven’t been winners. Those doing very nicely out of this crescendo of crises include the big property development companies - hungry for building land, the supermarket cartels - anxious to add to their land holdings and, of course, the giant agricultural enterprises - determined to turn farmland into depopulated featureless GM-growing prairies. A list that would be incomplete without the addition of the Labour Party itself - the recipient of donations from certain grateful commercial interests!

Labour’s mismanagement of farming - misfortune or design?

It is claimed by industry experts that British food will be off the menu within 27 years if farming continues to die out. Shops will stock only imported food �“ which means that the celebrated full English breakfast would feature eggs from Spain and bacon and sausages made from Chinese pork.

The industry continues to decline as youngsters reject the lifestyle, said Lantra, the farming skills council. This is perhaps not surprising considering the hardships faced by the industry in recent years coupled with an apathetic, if not hostile, government.

A spokesman said: “With the industry losing 15,900 workers per year, we predict that by 2035 the farmer could be extinct, meaning Britain will lose its self-sufficiency.”

This disclosure follows short-sighted Government plans to rely heavily on imports to safeguard Britain’s food supply. Official policy states: “Domestic production is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for food security.”

However one agricultural expert responded: “This approach threatens to exacerbate the food shortages around the world. We should be looking to optimise domestic production.”

Reacting to Lantra’s report, the National Farmers’ Union said yesterday: “We believe agriculture, and those that work within the industry, have a very bright future.”

“Not under a Labour regime or within the EU it hasn’t” countered a spokesman for the BNP’s Land & People �“ “Britain’s farmers can only thrive outside the EU and under a government dedicated to self-sufficiency in agriculture”.