Government has lost contact with the countryside – Robin Page

The Government seems to have lost contact with the countryside – the place that at one time was rock solid Tory.

Look too at any of the large prairie farms that may be close to you as well – the farms that are busily turning farming into an industrial process. Which sort of farm do you want?

The problem stems from Elizabeth Truss, the Trade Secretary, who was parachuted into the Tory safe seat of South West Norfolk in 2010 without apparently knowing virtually anything about the countryside or farming.

Brought up in Leeds, the MP who probably can hardly tell the difference between a cowslip and a cow pat is the woman Boris Johnson has chosen to get him a trade deal with America and Brazil in agricultural produce. There is a threat that their cheap imports could be allowed in without adhering to the same animal welfare and safety standards that apply to British producers.

It gets worse. If cheaper food is being allowed into Britain, how does the traditional family farmer compete? The answer is simple – he or she either sells up to an already expanding industrial farmer or they try to produce their crops more cheaply – “efficiently”, meaning that there is no place for wildlife.

What does that mean for “England’s green and pleasant land”? It means that the environment and wildlife are reduced to waffle as the countryside dies.

It has been my privilege for the last 25 years to have been actively involved with the Countryside Restoration Trust (CRT) – the first British charity based on wildlife friendly farming, by producing quality food and quality wildlife, by creating farm fields that produce shelter, food and places to breed for wildlife at the same time as they grow crops for the farmer.

I am quite happy to say that I am a scruffy farmer because wildlife thrives on scruffiness.

Wildlife – that is plant, insect, animal and bird – does not like tidiness, efficiency and “precision”.

It thrives on untidiness, scruffiness, wild corners, unkempt hedgerows and trees, old wood, dead wood, hidden ponds, spilt grain, winter stubble. Hares, harvest mice, bumble bees, yellowhammers, and many more thrive on these.

I do not like over-enthusiastic use of computers, chemicals, hedge trimmers, chainsaws, drainage schemes, strimmers, blowers and brooms.

At the CRT’s Lark Rise Farm in Cambridgeshire we have seen wildlife flood back as smaller fields make a mosaic of habitat for barn owls, otters, skylarks, yellowhammers, water voles, plus 26 species of butterfly and thousands of cowslips (come and see them Mrs Truss). This is “wild farming”, not “rewilding” which is largely an urban, middle-class fantasy.

Coronavirus has taught us that we do need homegrown British food. That is where your food should come from urban and industrialised Britons – Aldi and Tesco are at the end of the journey, not the beginning.

Another who needs to understand the importance of British farming, on food, wildlife landscape and living communities is Dr Tim Leunig.

He is an adviser employed by Boris Johnson who believes that farming and fishing are not important to the country’s economy. Really?

Only today I have heard of a heartwarming story of wildlife and farming success in Suffolk. On an ordinary family farm, Graham Denny has an astonishing seven pairs of turtle doves, one of the rarest summer visitors in Britain.

He ensures that they have plenty of food available when they return in the spring, then he ensures that there are no crows or magpies around to steal the eggs or the chicks when they have hatched.

One of the problems with turtle doves is that their nests are quite fragile and conspicuous. The last nest on my small farm was about 10 years ago and it 
was predated by a crow or magpie.

Like most farmers, Graham’s crops are currently desperate for rain, so he is already facing a tough time. It must not be made tougher by Parliament allowing cheaper food into Britain under inferior quality regulations.

I supported leaving the EU so British agriculture could be healthy and prosperous – not for Britain to become the food waste-bin of the world.

Robin Page is the Executive Chairman of the Countryside Restoration Trust.

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