Farmers are not the best people to control our biodiversity - Yorkshire Post Letters

Though I recognise some of Andy Brown’s concerns in his article I am at loss as to his reasoning of why he thinks farmers are the best people to decide or indeed control our biodiversity.

How can he say such a thing when midway through his article he correctly points out that the Yorkshire Dales is not remotely natural and seriously depleted, by sheep.

In essence, he has put the blame of lack of biodiversity in our landscape squarely at farmers, also correct. That is a problem. The question is, should we and can we rely on farmers to do the right thing?

On a daily basis there are environmental groups up and down the country fighting for cleaner water to our rivers. A report highlights the issue of phosphorus and nitrogen levels harming biodiversity of the River Wharfe; that is pollution created through farming methods and bad farming practices.

Farmers and landowners are still to be seen regularly burning plastics. Come any overcast or foggy day fires are suddenly abundant across the Craven Valley. These are pollutants which lay in the soil, contaminate grasslands, and travel into the food chain through your milk and meat products.

Andy Brown also talks about the lack of insects in our countryside. Again, much of this can be attributed to farming practices, particularly intensive farming and the use of insecticides on cattle and sheep, which through natural processes affect the soil and its insect life, and has a knock on effect to other animals within the hierarchy.

I’m sure Andy is bright enough to know this, but given such damnation, why would we think it reasonable to hand our future to the same people?

Yes, there are some landowners out there who are clearly making an attempt to do good on their own initiative, I commend those. Many others, I’m sure will only do good if paid to; many more who will either do nothing or offer tokenistic efforts.

His utopian vision of fruit and nut tree planting is commendable, but wholly unrealistic, especially with our current population. Trees take many years before they could withstand such grazing, and animal stock would be significantly reduced and controlled. Never realised how much food we have become dependent on coming from Ukraine up till this last year. We need to be more self-sufficient, but is it possible?

“Our trees are suffering from diseases casually imported to save a little money on cultivating new stocks in Britain”. This certainly isn’t my understanding. For certain some diseases have arrived through plant imports. But diseases can come to this country in a variety of ways.

Our borders were more open when we were part of the EU and our control wasn't as stringent as many other countries, such as Australia or New Zealand.

Ironic is it not that Andy Brown harks on about issues arising from Europe when Caroline Lucas voted against Brexit, having not liked being out of the single market and leaving environmental protections. Still the Green Party themselves want to rejoin the customs union. It certainly isn’t all about money either, here in the UK, our horticultural and plant nursery industry has been decimated, not only by the opening up of markets and competition, but also due to the fact we could not adapt to new methods and technologies.