We must not allow politicians to negotiate our high standards of animal welfare in Britain away.

Since I wrote about an amendment to the Agricultural bill being voted down in the Commons (See Blog below - May 16th), I have delved a little deeper into why this amendment was defeated.

It appears that the International Trade Secretary, Liz Truss (A former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) believes that the UK needs to accept lower standards to strike a deal before the US presidential election in November. Truss believes that the Americans are unlikely to accept any trade deal which does not include complete liberalisation of trade in food.

So, what are the facts about food produced in the USA, and what sort of food may soon be arriving in the UK if Truss gets her way? Let us take a look.

The sale of antibiotics to American farms jumped from 5,559 tons in 2017 to 6,036 tons in 2018 – a 9% rise (latest figures available). Meanwhile over the same period, antibiotic sales in the UK fell by 9% from 248 tons to 226 tons. Experts warn that the routine use of antibiotics on American farms (not allowed here without Veterinary recommendation) risks making once effective medicines for us useless, as bacterial resistance builds. It is reckoned that the US uses a whopping 5 times more antibiotics per animal than in the UK. 

US cattle farmers can use steroid hormones to speed growth by up to 20% - a practice that has been banned in the EU since 1989. 

The biggest US intensive beef farms, known as “Feedlots”, have up to 150,000 cattle kept in out-door pens with little or no shelter, while the largest US mega-dairies boast 30,000 cows.

There are at least two pig farms that each have an astonishing 800,000 animals.

The biggest chicken farms can house a million chickens in vast hanger-like facilities. You can perhaps begin to see why many need to be washed in chlorine to make them OK to eat!

There is no federal US legislation governing the welfare of animals while they are on the farm, and only weak and patchy regulations at State level. The rules governing slaughter are even less detailed and do not exist at all for poultry.

As a result, only 10 States have banned pig sow stalls (banned in EU since 1999) and battery cages for egg laying hens (banned in the EU in 2012) are still widely used.

Since 1997, animals have been recognised within EU law as “sentient” animals – which means that it is acknowledged they are able to feel pain and suffer. In the States there is generally a resistance to acknowledge sentience in farm animals.

Now let us take a look at plant-based agriculture in the States. Just three words might make you think a little – Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). GMOs are heavily restricted in the EU but are widely used in the States. For instance, currently 94% of Soybeans and 80% of Maize grown there is genetically modified. Staggeringly, this does not have to be declared on labels.

I could go on about the way that the USA produces food but will leave it there.

In post Brexit trade negotiations, we will of course be dealing with many other countries besides the USA. I can only start to imagine what I might find when I delve into food production in China for instance!

UK farmers are truly dismayed at what could happen over the next few years.

UK farmers care deeply about how their animals are raised

Minette Batters, the National Farmers Union (NFU) president said, “Brexit was meant to be about the creation of a bigger, better Britain, not turning us into a pariah state with no consideration for animal welfare”.

Another NFU spokesman said “UK farmers would be asked a question they would never want to have to answer: Do they just let themselves go out of business or do they just lower their standards. In other words – a race to the bottom”.

What do the general public think about all of this? Well, the first thing to say is that most do not know what is happening, because the ONLY news currently being provided is about Covid 19. How convenient for the Government.

However, according to a Which poll, 93% of Britons want our high food standards to be protected in post-Brexit trade deals. So naturally, one would imagine that our elected politicians would follow the will of the public and vote accordingly.

DON’T BE NAIVE.

The Tories were totally to blame for this amendment failing. It is obvious that pressure is being applied from on high as even George Eustice, Defra secretary and MP for Camborne and Redruth and Defra farm minister Victoria Prentis, who is Conservative MP for Banbury, voted against the amendment. Ms Prentis attempted to allay fears that UK farmers will be undermined in any future trade deals.

Ms Prentis said: “I was elected on a very clear manifesto commitment – one that the prime minister has reiterated since – that in all our trade negotiations we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards. This government will stand firm in trade negotiations to ensure that any deals live up to the values of our farmers and consumers.”

That last line says it all. As wishy washy as they come. If they meant what they said, they would have no hesitation whatsoever of supporting this amendment. But of course, they do not.

What can you and I do about this dreadful situation? If, like me, you feel that the Government is betraying the British public and perhaps more importantly, our farmers and farm animals, then we need to shout out our disgust – very, very loudly.

You are most welcome to forward this blog (and the one on the 16^th May) to whoever you feel might be interested (93% of Brits apparently!). Also contact your MP and write letters to newspapers etc.

The Bill will be voted on in the Lords on the 10th June, before going back to the Commons for a final vote. Post Brexit, these trade deals are obviously hugely important, but sometimes the cost is too high and we need to stand up for what is right.

Over to you.

Phragmidium rosae-pimpinellifoliae. Now that's a name and a half!

I came across this outstandingly orange fungus yesterday. I could see it way ahead of me as I walked along the path, and immediately thought that someone had thrown their discarded orange peel in the hedge! 

On closer inspection though, I found that it was in fact a rust fungus, that goes by the snappy name of Phragmidium rosae-pimpinellifoliae, which occasionally infests the wild Burnet rose. 

The Burnet rose (Rosa pimpinellifolia) can be seen in flower in Britain and Ireland from May until the end of August and are the thorniest of all the wild roses. 

They have five-petalled white flowers, sometimes splashed with a little pink. They can look a little like wild Dog Rose, but later in the year, their hips are coloured purple, unlike other wild roses which have red or scarlet hips.

The strikingly coloured Burnet Rose rust

I'm glad that I do a written Blog rather than a spoken one, as I would have to practice how to say the scientific name of this fungus for some time to get it right!

A walk in the sun produces three very different insects!

I took an enjoyable walk through my local wood yesterday, camera in hand! This is a small selection of what I saw.

   

Figwort weevils seemed to be on about 8 out of 10 Figwort plants! They are often not that much larger than an apple pip, so you have to look quite hard for them! Having found one, you then can't be too clumsy as you approach them, because, if they think that they are in danger, they just "let go" and fall to the ground. A good tactic, as they are then very difficult to spot again! 

What a design! The Figwort Weevil.

Then I came across this stunning little Froghopper - a Red & Black Froghopper. They happily sit out in full view of everyone as their colouration of red (or maybe orange?) & black, warns anything looking for a meal that they taste horrible! 

The Red & Black Froghopper - Cercopis vulnerata

As the sun started to warm up the day after quite a cold night, then Speckled Yellow moths started to fly around. I counted well over dozen or more, many of which I followed trying to get a photo of them once they had landed. They are very jumpy and launch into flight at any sudden movement, or should you happen to caste a shadow across them. 

Eventually, one obliged and stayed still for long enough for a few shots!

Three striking little insects - and all so different from each other.  

A Speckled Yellow - a day flying moth

Are you concerned about animal welfare and how the food you eat is produced? Our elected MPs don't appear to be.

British farmers have amongst the highest farm animal welfare standards in the world. That is not to say that they could not be improved, as we should always be striving to raise standards.

Brexit has given us an ideal opportunity to manage not just our animal welfare standards, but ALL our farming practises, strengthening them more and more so that we become, without question, the best in the world.

The National Farmers Union (NFU), headed up by the excellent Minette Batters, has pushed extremely hard for this, saying “British farming can be the envy of the world”.

At the end of January 2020, she wrote a letter to the Prime Minister which included a paragraph as follows:

You have pledged “not to in any way prejudice or jeopardise our standards of animal welfare or food hygiene”, and the Secretary of State for Defra recently promised to “defend our national interests and our values, including our high standards of animal welfare.” Along with your party’s manifesto commitment that, “in all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards,” we are increasingly reassured that you are as committed as us to making the UK a world leader in food, farming and environmental standards.

Aberdeen Angus in the UK - a scene just three fields away from my home in Wiltshire.   

So, when the Agriculture Bill - the biggest reform of British farming since 1945 - was put before MPs last Wednesday (13 May), for the final time, as it had reached the Report Stage and Third Reading, we hoped that all would be confirmed as stated.

To absolutely make sure of this, an amendment was tabled by Tiverton and Honiton MP Neil Parish, who is also chairman of the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee “to protect farmers from lower-standard food imports”.  

He said “I want to have great trade deals – I am not a Little Englander that will defend our agriculture against all imports – quite the reverse.

However, despite the government's previous commitments to safeguard the industry, the amendment was defeated by 328 votes to 277 and then the whole Agriculture Bill later passed its third and final reading by 360 votes to 211. So, it now goes on to the Lords.

Mr Parish said it was 'disappointing' and that many in the Commons' now have 'grave concerns' over the direction of travel the Bill is going in.

NFU Cymru president John Davies said, "The bill should ensure that agri-food imports are produced to at least equivalent environmental, animal welfare and food safety standards as those required of producers in the UK.

There now could be a 'very real risk' that British farmers are undermined by agri-food products produced to standards which would be illegal in the UK. The UK cannot have a trade policy which requires farmers to compete against food produced to lower standards”.

To me this beggar’s belief.

Are we as a nation saying two things here?

On the one hand we demand that “all UK farmers must treat livestock (and all Agri-food products) to very highest standards, always following best practice and the letter of the law”.

Meanwhile, on the other hand we are also saying to importers “do not worry too much about how food is produced abroad, just bring it on in. We can easily turn a blind eye to the fact that the way it was raised, would be illegal here”.

I will leave you to decide if this is in any way an ethical way to behave.   

Butterflies galore!

One problem with having a run of consecutively warm and sunny days, is that the photos you take tend to sit on the laptop, without being "sorted out"! I struggle to remain indoors at the best of times, so things have to wait until a day dawns that is grey and not particularly inviting! Then I can go through photographs and sort out the wheat from the chaff. 

Hence these photos are from last week!

There was one day when the weather was particularly warm and sunny, so I took a walk to a lovely little area of Chalk Downland that I know. Spring butterflies abounded, and these following pictures are of some of the species that I caught up with.  

The Green Hairstreak is a stunning butterfly, which always rests with its green wings shut, so that you really only ever see the under-side of the wing.

Green Hairstreak

I always think that Grizzled Skippers are feisty little butterflies, always alert and ready to do another sortie of the immediate area. 

Grizzled Skipper

A freshly emerged Brown Argus is a lovely butterfly. They can turn up in all sorts of places, so it is always worth keeping a lookout for them. 

Brown Argus

The Marsh Fritillary is a butterfly of high conservation priority, as it has not fared well in the UK (or indeed across Europe). It's caterpillar's main foodplant is Devil's-bit Scabious, a plant which itself is not that common. But when you do find them - what a beautiful butterfly - rather like a living, jazzy stain-glass window!     

Marsh Fritillary

It's a shame to have to go through life being described as "dingy"! I suppose it is a little, when compared to the other members of the Skipper family - but the Dingy Skipper gets the thumbs up from me - I think that they are great little butterflies! 

Dingy Skipper

And finally, one of my favourites! What a vibrant colour combination the Small Copper has, bringing a flash of brilliance to the countryside wherever it chooses to settle!

Small Copper

Bugs, Spiders & Flowers

Some finds that I have come across in the last few days. 

I found this Cinnamon bug, pootling around on a Dandelion seed head. I love delving down into their world a little, as the picture becomes much more than just a wonderfully coloured bug! The seed head is amazing in its own right. 

A Cinnamon bug

Then my eye was drawn to this superb little Wild Strawberry flower, which seemed to have a particularly orange centre. I pass many of these small plants as they are fairly common here in Wiltshire, but once they are viewed up close, they perhaps have an even greater beauty.  I rather like the slight blemishes on the white petals, as none of us are perfect!

The lovely little flower of Wild Strawberry

Quite a common spider, but an exotic looking one nevertheless! The name is fun too - the Common Cucumber Spider!

The Common Cucumber Spider

Whitethroats

Absolutely not scientific in any way, but I think that the Whitethroat seems to be doing well.

Last year, a section of a track way, with bits of hedge and scrubby areas on each side, that takes me about 10 minutes to walk, revealed 3 Whitethroat. This year, the same walk seems to be holding 7 singing males.

In the winter of 1968/69, Whitethroat numbers suddenly crashed due to a severe drought on their wintering grounds, which are just to the south of the Sahara desert. Since then a slow but relatively steady recovery has taken place. It demonstrates how, just a one year severe weather change can radically affect a species - sometimes in a positive way, but also in a devastating manner.

A Whitethroat singing its short burst of scratchy notes

Whitethroat are fairly easy to spot, as often the male will sit on a vantage point right at the top of a bush, to shout out his rattling, rather hoarse song. Occasionally, he will also take off and fly up vertically, then drop back down to his perch, singing away throughout the display. This is undoubtedly a performance to impress the girls and also to confirm that this area is HIS territory!     

Whitethroat can be seen and heard throughout the UK, especially on farmland with an abundance of hedges and scrubby areas. Although the male is easily spotted, the female and her nest is a different matter. The nest is usually on or close to the ground, hidden away in in thick grass or low bramble. 

My sister, who lives in Worcestershire, told me that she thought that there were not quite as many Whitethroat around as last year. So, who knows, we will obviously just have to wait and see what the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) figures show us at the end of the year. 

Anyway, in the meantime, I will thoroughly enjoy walking my "Whitethroat track" in the mornings this summer!     

Looking back over the making of the British landscape

I am currently reading a fascinating book called “The making of the British landscape” by Nicholas Crane, which kicks off way back in the Ice Age and runs through right up until the present day.

I have learnt so much by reading this book. For instance, take the reign of king Ine - the king of Wessex between 689 – 726 AD. His kingdom actually covered a lot more than the Wessex we know today, in fact most of southern England came under his influence.

At this time, small, informal congregations of people, who felt that their food security could be increased by sharing and managing an acknowledged neighbourhood area, started to work together, encouraged by the king. Clusters of farmsteads decided to manage common crops, woodland, hire oxen, avoid local conflict between each other and collectively pay church dues and so on.

Now, those of you have read my Blog for a period of time, will know that I was actively involved in helping to get farmers to work together across a landscape, so as to collectively try to improve their soil, water and wildlife.

Farmers have embraced this idea and it has really taken off across England, with well over a hundred “farmer clusters” now in existence, all working together and funded to do so by Government.

We all thought that we were clever to do this - forging a new way ahead. Little did we know that this brilliant idea of ours was common practise around 700 AD!!

Two more little snippets from this book that I would like to share with you. 

John Leland, (1503 - 1552) who has often been described as "the father of English local history and bibliography", wrote about a little place called Bremischam in the Midlands. “A good market towne, with many smithes that make knives and all maner of cuttynge tooles, as well as a greate many naylors”. 

He judged that most of Bremischam’s economy was based on smiths. He concluded that Bremischam was doing well; small and beautiful.

Bremischal would become Birmingham. 

Birmingham today has a population of 1.2 million!

By 1550, London had reached a population of 75,000. 

Set against European cities, London was not numerically remarkable. Naples was nearly three times larger at 212,000, Venice had a population of 158,000 and Paris 130,000. The world’s biggest city at the time, Beijing, had already passed the half-million milestone.

By 1600, London was some thirteen times bigger than Britain's next largest city, Norwich. 

One of the most desirable places to live near London was a riverside village called Chelshithe, which was close to roman roads heading west and very convenient for access into London. Thomas More built himself a red brick house here, with bays, a porch and flanking casement windows, set in a 14-hectare (35 acre) estate with access to the river.

It was a good address. There were views across the water to the woods and fields of Battersey and from a rise in his garden, More could see the distant roofs of London and St.Pauls. It was also positioned upwind of the city and so Chelshithe was famed for its clear airs.

Imagine if you still owned a 14-hectare estate in Chelsea today!

I am only two thirds of the way through this book, so I will probably share some more great snippets with you over the next week or so.