As I drafted this blog last night I started by saying we could do with some rain. Happily as I typed it this morning we have had 3mm and it is still raining. No need to organize a BBQ to get what we are having now! Every thing on the farm is well established (including the weeds!) so this much needed drink should help underpin it.
I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in London. Tuesday was spent at the CLA seminar ‘Private solutions to public problems.’ The idea here is to harvest the value of the landscape and biodiversity within an environmental market. This may be a way off. The market needs creating; this will involve legislation to create a cap on production of environmental harm. It already exists as offsets within the planning law. There are also models in Australia (Bushbroker) and America (Conservation banking). If you are interested check out the CLA website: http://www.cla.org.uk/. (Not often I give them a plug!). We at the TFA will be monitoring the situation to make sure the tenant as a land manager can benefit from this type of scheme.
The next day (Wednesday) was all TFA business, firstly Appointments and Governance followed by the Executive Committee. The situation of cost and responsibility sharing has come to a head since the last exec, and on the basis that the TFA had still withdrawn from discussions your Chief Executive met with DEFRA representatives to tell them why. They were shocked at the strength of feeling and offered to meet the Executive Committee. They attended our meeting for a vigorous hour before lunch. It would be true to say that we were soon in an animated discussion as to the detail. What DEFRA don’t seem to understand, and it is difficult as people soon get down to the proposals themselves, is why we were not engaged in discussions in the first place. DEFRA’s failure to police imported disease, the debacle of Pirbright, the bad handling of foot and mouth and treasury pressure to shift cost caused by them straight on to the industry. We did say that Bluetongue had been handled much better. The TFA will be submitting a written response, as we do worry the plan will be driven through regardless, and in the present situation, what a new administration would do by 2012 is anybody’s guess.
On a more positive note you will, I hope, have seen the advert for a new TFA Agricultural Policy Adviser (click here for the advert and job description). Workload at Head Office has become such that this is imperative. I look forward to the interview process and the installation of the new officer. This will give us some significant advantages day to day. It will universally remove some of the workload each and every one of the team at Head Office shoulder, particularly when someone is working out of the office. It should provide everyone with more time for their specific discipline. It is also great that we have been put in a position to justify a new post. If we keep pushing membership up, then this new appointment is vital to our progress. I thank members for their support, which allows us to make this improvement.
Also, I look forward to the show season, meeting you all and welcoming new members to the Association. Please bring your friends and neighbours when you come to the stand, the more we are the bigger influence we can have for everyone’s benefit. We start next week at Beef Expo. Watch the website diary for other events.
