« Wright Place Wrong Pastor | Main | Like Biofuels, Not a Good Idea »
May 27, 2008
Unenlightened Farmers Insist on Producing Food
Soaring food prices have inspired British farmers to place increased production ahead of moonbattery. The Observer is not pleased:
Government-backed environment schemes (ELS, or entry level stewardship) are having to compete with market pressures on farmers as crop values escalate. […] The Observer can reveal that a survey by the National Farmers' Union shows that two-thirds of farmers who signed up to the schemes failed to renew them when contracts expired. They cited high commodity prices as well as 'disenchantment' with the way the schemes were now run.
At the most basic level, the schemes pay farmers £30 a hectare (2.49 acres) to replace cultivated areas with grassy margins, or to restore and manage hedgerows. At a higher level, larger payments are targeted at preserving rare and valuable features and species. The schemes have been hailed a huge success, improving farmland and wading bird numbers, restoring populations of rare stone curlews and cirl bunting, and protecting the traditional cornflower and small mammals such as the harvest mouse.
You read correctly: farmers are being paid with public funds to protect mice instead of grow crops.
Actually, it's the farmers who need protecting from rodents — and from the diseases with which they contaminate our food. That's why cats were domesticated.
What next, government programs to encourage exterminators to protect cockroaches?
Frets Tom Oliver, head of rural policy for the Council for the Protection of Rural England:
The problem is that the mindset of farmers will switch back to production, and it will become increasingly difficult to persuade them of the value of environmental intervention.
British bureauweenies ought to follow the lead of Zimbabwe. Just confiscate the land, and redistribute it to people who have no idea how to farm. That would put an end to all this awful food production, and allow the sacred mice and weeds to flourish.
On a tip from Ian from the EUSSR.
Update:
Unfortunately, Britain isn't the only place where you will find bureaucrats willing to pay farmers to let the weeds take over their land to please Gaia. Here's the same story, except set in Wisconsin.
On a tip from CWKing.
Posted by Van Helsing at May 27, 2008 6:34 AM
Comments
I've hear Tom Oliver's statement, or something like it, before. It was from Atlas Shrugged. You know, that group that said looking out for yourself was selfish, and that we needed to feel instead of act.
Posted by: conservativeteen at May 27, 2008 8:18 AM
I suppose they could sell the mice instead of the crops if the crops failed.
Posted by: Arthur at May 27, 2008 11:14 AM
Sadly, we've spent decades doing the exact same thing. Remember all the stories about American dairy farmers dumping milk down their drains so they could produce at government-approved levels and collect their subsidies?
Posted by: PabloD at May 27, 2008 9:56 PM
