Green Christian

Maybe it takes a crisis to motivate humans. Our modern Welfare State was planned during the Second World War and the Marshall Plan was a response to Europe in ruins. Are there, however, leaders today capable of carrying through the necessary reorientation in United Kingdom farming and horticulture – or do we need to take seriously the responsibility of forging local solutions before global warming (sic) and resource boundaries force uncomfortable change?

The IF campaign, focusing in particular on the crisis in developing countries, claims that there is enough food for everyone on this planet IF four achievable criteria are met: Aid (and in the EC, farming subsidies need to be refocused), Tax (an end to tax dodging by some of the ‘rich’ in the UK would also be manifestly fair), Transparency (farmsubsidy.org is campaigning for greater transparency in Europe) and Preventing Poor Farmers being Forced off their Land (which in the UK has been in progress by design and accident for centuries, and is happening now from financial pressures).

Apart from supporting the appropriate campaigns, perhaps the fourth of these is where we can make the greatest impact locally. We need to be part of the out-working of the Jubilee principle re-proclaimed by Jesus at the start of His ministry – the equitable redistribution of land. Sociologically, this is part of our readjustment to a post-industrial society (not, please note, a post-technological society). Theologically, it is a condition for Shalom. Short of violent revolution, which would be a negation of the Way of Christ, is this possible?

Jesus is ahead of us in Transition Towns, sustainability villages, food co-ops, urban farms, local concessions, working farm holidays, community supported agriculture schemes and many other similar initiatives. It is not practicable nor necessary (yet) to return to the grinding toil of an agrarian economy but it is possible to involve many more people in affordable, intensive, resilient organic horticulture (and keeping chickens!) in gardens, allotments and community projects. Even city-dwellers, with little more than a window-box of their own, could be part of a group sharing the risks and rewards of a hillside farm. Some of us not only get our hands dirty but dream of rebuilding harmony with Nature. Do farmers on the one hand and congregations on the other have the imagination to grasp the possibilities or the vision to see where this might lead?

Today, of course, some developing and under-developed countries have the greatest need. Aid (except in response to natural disasters) is only a temporary expedient – we have a duty to join the struggle for economic justice, fair trading and debt-cancellation that will enable poor communities to work their way out of poverty. If things seem less urgent nearer home, it may simply be that God has answered our prayers for time for amendment of life. Floods, snows and an exponential rise in food-banks are straws in the wind (or the whirl-wind?).

If mean global warming rises more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial (as seems increasingly likely) accessible global food production could drop as population (with increased expectations) climbs to 9 billion – never mind soil degradation, phosphate shortages and other worries. Europe has a moral and strategic need to be at least net-self-supporting in food production – and the UK has to play its part.

Some of our smaller farmers in crisis need aid right now but that is no long-term solution. In the medium term it must be recognised more clearly that even uneconomic farms perform vital ecological services and farmers should be paid, directly or indirectly, for providing these conscientiously. In the longer term, however, a renewed regard for the productive value of well-tended land means opportunity for all of us to move closer to the relationship with growing food that God intends for our true prosperity.

Charles Jolly

2 April 2013

30 March 2013

High fell farmers are suffering due to the weather, disease and crop failure.

The very wet weather over the last year has led to depleted soils and poor crops. Many incomes do not exceed £8,000 pa, hardly a living wage, although hours worked are close to 12 hour days, 7 days a week and no holidays.

Equally the wet weather has caused an plague of small snails in the grasses and so on, that transmit liver fluke. Some famers have lost over 25% of their herds due to the parasite. The other problem is that it is now widespread in all wild animals, except moles, and we know of at least nine dead roe deer, including one that expired on a vicarage lawn. Post mortems show raddled livers by the fluke. Veterinary injections will help but are expensive.

Ewes are not as healthy as they would normally be due to the wet weather and the poor feed. Lambing had been a disaster before the snow came.

The unexpected late heavy snow, at what should be spring, is drifting to over 5 to 6 feet, and is burying animals and newly born lambs, many of which die due to the cold as well as the poor nutrition. Famers are struggling in certain areas to rescue those sheep that have survived.

The propects for many Northern sheep farmers, often the only viable crop from high fells farms, are not now good. Many will cease farming unless a national support scheme can be devised similar to the support given to Foot and Mouth casualties.

Meat, it is forecast, will be increasingly expensive, as will animal feed, not always of the highest quality, and many income stressed families will feel the pinch of these events.

JOHN SMITH

Cumbria.

2012 was England’s wettest year on record, and the UK’s second wettest, and yet it began with one of the worst droughts for decades. As if this had not given farmers enough difficulty, 2013 has so far been cold and with snow falls in many parts of the country – some of them extremely heavy – in every month since last December.

Justin Albert, director of National Trust Wales, reported that, ‘The snow has claimed huge numbers of sheep and lambs already, but the record rainfall we had last year and the prolonged cold this winter has also had its effect, reducing grazing and hitting flocks across Wales hard.’ (1) The National Sheep Association has warned of serious lamb losses following the freak March blizzards and strong winds. Farmers were struggling to reach and feed their livestock as the wintry blast eased slightly on Wednesday 27 March. (2)

On the same day it was reported that thousands of sheep were still missing on the Isle of Man, where there were snow drifts of up to 25 feet in places.

The Met Office has warned farmers that the cold spell is likely to last another fortnight – into the middle of April – with only a slow, gradual thaw.

In a statement from the National Farmers’ Union, Vice President Adam Quinney said, ‘These are unusual conditions and… it has put an extraordinary strain on the industry after what has been a torrid 12 months of extreme weather, compounded by the fact that many farmers’ sheep are lambing at the moment.’ (3)

While there are a number of charities able to offer financial assistance to farmers, some of whom face catastrophic losses, consumers can do their bit to help by buying British produce as often as possible. As members of CEL, if you have a local farm shop or a farmers’ market near you, then do support your local producers as much as you can. We should remember British farmers in our prayers at this difficult time; the tragedy of their situation was brought home to me quite forcefully on the television news the other evening as a lady on an affected sheep farm described, through her tears, the loss of their animals under the snow and the desperate effort to find as many as possible before they all perished.

Nicky Bull

30 March 2013

(1) http://www.fwi.co.uk/articles/28/03/2013/138385/buy-british-meat-to-help-snow-hit-farmers.htm

(2) http://www.fwi.co.uk/articles/27/03/2013/138369/national-sheep-association-snow-hit-farmers-face-serious-losses.htm

(3) http://www.nfuonline.com/news/latest-news/farmers-face-unseasonal-weather-challenge/

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimates current total income for hill grazing livestock farmers is a mere £14,000 – down 53% on last year. Pig farming income is down 51% and dairy 44%.

Lamb and sheep losses in the recent heavy snow coupled with rises in feed prices means that hill farmers will be badly hit, and incomes for the coming year are likely to be even lower. Feed wheat prices are already 28% up on last year, whilst lamb prices are only up around 10%.

Britain’s farmers have one of the highest suicide rates of any employment group, and the current stresses are likely to drive the rate higher. Hill farmers are particularly isolated and under stress.

The current long range weather forecast indicates cold weather for the rest of April which will further affect crops and livestock.

There are some practical things we can do:

1. Buy British. Vegetables and Fruit are all labelled with country of origin, so this is easy. However processed meats, such as sausages and bacon, may be made in Britain from meat sourced anywhere in the world. Look out for product made from free range or outdoor reared UK animals. Cheese is always labelled with country of origin and a wide range of British cheese is available including brie and mozzarella!

2. Write to David Heath MP Minister of State for Agriculture and Food and ask him what he is doing to help those farmers with sharply falling incomes – particularly hill farmers. His email is david.heath.mp@parliament.uk

3. Support Charities specifically supporting farmers in need – Farming Community Network is a Christian charity with volunteers providing pastoral and practical help to farmers in need http://www.fcn.org.uk. The Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution also helps farmers in financial difficulty http://www.rabi.org.uk. The Princes Countyside Fund gives grants to farmers in need http://www.princescountrysidefund.org.uk/.

John Allan

30 March 2013

BRTISH FARMING IN DEEP CRISIS

Crippling costs, bad weather and disease have hit our countryside hard.
It has left the future of British food in jeopardy and farmers fighting for
survival. British Farming is in the midst of a very deep and ongoing crisis.

The main challenge farmers are facing is what is euphemistically called
“the Great British weather”. For 12 months it has been a foe not a
friend. After a drought in the first months in 2012, it went on to become
England’s wettest year on record, and the second wettest in the UK. Early
summer was very wet and windy. Mid and late summer was sunless,
resulting in the winter feed of silage being less in volume and up to 40%
lower in nutritional sugar value.

The rains came again for the heart of the growing season. Crops rotted in
the ground and could not be harvested. British wheat harvest was down
in capacity by 15% and what was saved dropped in quality from 90%
in 2011 to 10% in 2012. Some farmers and millers have had to import
expensive grain with the resulting increase in the price of bread.

The weather has affected the entire country. Some farmers have also had
the double blow of bovine TB and Schmallenberg diseases in sheep with
falling lamb prices. In March 2013, they faced the death of flocks of sheep
and lambs in the deep snow drifts and severe cold weather.

Retailers are not prepared to pay a fair price for such basic commodities
as milk. It is being produced at a loss. It is no wonder that more and more
dairy farmers are forced out of business or having to diversify if they have
not gone bankrupt in the meantime.

There are also pressures on prices in both home and imported markets
in feed and fuel. The droughts in Asia and the USA have decimated grain
crops while the price of oil has continued to rise. In terms of natural
resources, we are experiencing a global and not just a national crisis in
shortages and escalating costs.

We, as consumers, are not paying the full and just price for food and
drink. We must accept the reality that precious resources for a sustainable
life must be nurtured and shared with humanity. Otherwise, we will be
faced with the destructive and divisive forces of resource wars and mass
migration.

We must also accept that we have brought this ecological crisis on
ourselves by our greed and ‘thrashing’ of the planet. Intensive exploitation
of the land for oil and gas as well as intensive farming methods (e.g. use
of pesticides and herbicides) are destroying the balance in nature.

Human beings are responsible for emitting the vast majority of global
warming gases, which are accelerating climate change. Unseasonal and
unpredictable ‘dirty’ weather is now a fact of life with what people are now
calling the “new normal”. Britain will continue to experience extremes in
climate patterns with periods of cold, wet and windy weather, while other
parts of the world will have periods of heat and drought.

This Crisis is both a judgment and opportunity for us to change our way of
life or else we will have no future to pass on to other generations.

David Penney

30th March 2013