Time for wake up call (From Gazette & Herald)

Time for wake up call

RECENTLY, here in North Yorkshire, we had our own mini hurricane, which has given many of us great cause for concern.

This concern, however, seems to have only been at a local level and the response from central government has been muted.

The Rotary launched an appeal on behalf of the farming community in the Cleveland Hills to help with the restoration of the riverside fences which were swept away by the raging waters.

It is being well supported and we will soon be in a position to pay out that money to help defray the enormous cost they have incurred because of this disaster.

To date, the Rotary club has received about £40,000 in donations from the general public, for which I would like to say thank you to everyone who has already subscribed.

We are very grateful for your support to date and would welcome further donations in order to help us reach our target of £100,000 which will go some way to help restore the fences and walls which were swept away by the floods.

Floods and hurricanes are very much in the news these days and they like all disasters are very quickly front page news in every media form but soon become '90-day wonders' as they are pushed off the front pages by yet another war or disaster, and very few of us stop to consider the effect things like this could have on our own lives.

Hurricane Katrina is a classic example which, although taking place on the other side of the Atlantic, will undoubtedly have an effect on our lives here in the United Kingdom. Already oil prices are rising on a worldwide basis because of this disaster.

What is not so readily understood by most people here in the UK is the effect the damage to the port of Orleans has already had on the grain trade throughout the world. Half of the grain produced in the USA used to be transported through the Mississippi river system to be exported around the world and this loss must be taken against a background of falling world wheat stocks, currently forecast at 134 million tons for 2005/6 (which is very low compared to 200 million tons in 2001).

Set these figures against a world population, which continues to rise at more than one million every day, must give us all 'food for thought'.

Events like this, combined with the droughts and famines affecting other parts of the world, should act as a wake up call to our politicians.

This, however, does not seem to be happening here in the UK where our farmers are being currently being forced to reduce food production by foolish government interventions supposedly designed to protect the environment.

This year, as well as a yet unknown amount of land farmers are required to take out of production as Set Aside, Her Majesty's Government has decreed that every farmer in this country will henceforward be required to leave a two-metre uncultivated margin around every field taking yet many more hundreds of thousands of good fertile acres out of food production and again reducing the amount of grain, meat and milk which should be produced by our farmers here in the UK.

Today, I and thousands of other UK farmers are currently working long hours for very little reward to cultivate our land and sow seeds to grow crops to feed livestock and wheat to produce bread which is the true role of the farmer in any society. My job used to be to feed the nation. Now I am told that all our food can be imported from all over the world much cheaper than I can produce it.

But remember the cost in energy required to fund those 'food miles' used by all those gas guzzling transport planes and ships which transport our food from around the world.

Think of the changes in the climate they are causing and then spare a thought for the people on subsistence wages who toil to produce that food for export which should be used in most cases to feed their own people, many of whom are malnourished and forced to work for subsistence wages so that we can grow fat.

The hurricanes currently affecting America and the droughts affecting other countries should act as a wake up call to our politicians and make them aware of the dangers of destroying British agriculture.

This will only happen if you, the British public, make certain that you are concerned about the dangers affecting your food supply. There will always be food in the shops in places like Knightsbridge for the rich and the opulent.

Soon, out here in the countryside we will all have to travel at least 20 miles just to buy petrol in order to be able to travel a similar distance to shop.

That is the situation today. Life in the countryside will soon become very grim for the poor, the old and the needy. Could you fit into these categories sometime in the near future? How do you travel to shop when you become too old to drive?

We need to produce most of our staple food here at home. British agriculture should be about producing good, wholesome food for the nation not scenery for tourists.

Updated: 14:18 Wednesday, October 12, 2005