The right decisions are often the most difficult

Can you believe this? Met Office figures showed that this summer was the ninth warmest on record; although they recognised that it was dull and wet with unremarkable temperatures in the South East. This summer was warmer than any summer in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s – apart from one; 1976. Hard to believe in West Sussex I must say. A Scottish farmer-owned co-op has been unable to market four million cauliflowers due to the ongoing labour crisis. Weather challenges have also had a big effect as six weeks’ worth of crop has ripened over two weeks and the usual call on extra resources to cope with this has not been available this year due to the shortage of day-to-day labour. We now have vaccine shortages and more companies warning over labour and HGV driver shortages in this country.

Good news for those of us who believe science and progress will again meet present and future challenges, just as they have done over the years. The first CRISPR genome edited wheat trials in Europe will be sown this autumn at Rothamstead Research in Hertfordshire. The wheat has been edited to reduce levels of the naturally occurring amino acid asparagine which is converted to the carcinogenic processing contaminant acrylamide, when bread is baked or toasted.

This will benefit consumers by reducing their exposure to acrylamide in their diet and also enable businesses to comply with regulation on the presence of acrylamide in their products. But first the wheat trials and analysis need to take place and from the initial findings, it looks as if a reduction of as much as 90 per cent is possible. The project is planned for up to five years, with plants sown each autumn and harvested the following September.

The Soil Association has called for a 50 per cent reduction in chicken consumption, with a 30 per cent cut in production to enable government to reach its environmental goals. Our consumption of chicken in this country is roughly double the global average according to their report; not sure that has any real significance to be honest, but we do eat more than two million chickens a day with 70 per cent of it British. Good luck with this campaign I would say as chicken is popular due to its price and its versatility.

Supermarkets love chicken too as they sell many sauces and other extras which are bought to include in the dish. The Soil Association wants everybody to buy organic chicken as it claims it is more climate friendly. Not friendly on the purse though and given that it is there on the shelf, customers have the choice if they want to consume organic. It is wrong to use climate change as an excuse to change farming practice and consumer preference, but of course everyone does it and therefore it has little effect.

This is bigger than chicken though, there is now a growing cultural and political divide over meat eating in this country which is being weaponised in the name of obesity, climate change and any other issue where blame needs to be attributed. Henry Dimbleby stands in the middle of this telling everyone that ‘The food we eat and the way we produce it is doing terrible damage to our planet and our health’.

Slowly but surely, this shift is happening and will progress and accelerate in the coming decade. Where does that leave agriculture? Given that we do not produce as much meat as we consume in this country, it’s going to be about imports; the way those imports are produced and is that production method allowed here. It is vital to safeguard high standards and British production.

With farming likely to take a major financial hit in the future, the pressure to plant millions of trees, rewilding, housebuilding and fewer people wanting to farm and less support as lobbyists and investors up the ante; I can see less home production of meat. Honesty over how plant-based food is produced, the level of processing, the nutritional value and so on will be vital in fighting against the green tide.

Poor old Geronimo the alpaca has been put down as we all knew he would. I say poor old Geronimo, as it is sad to see cattle and the odd other animal being put down due to disease, but with Geronimo it looks as if no one was interested in his welfare. Rather than allowing him to be put down quietly at home, his owner and a screaming mob forced Defra officials, protected by police, to first of all identify him and then remove him to be put down elsewhere.

This country has a bizarre approach to animals these days and it is usually not in the animal’s interest or best welfare. Take the animals brought home from

Afghanistan; only one dog we believed was stabbed but in fact anything could have happened to them and the journey across to Kabul airport must have been horrendous. A flight to the UK and now uncertainty over their health status and it’s not impossible that they might be put down. Would it not have been better to put them down quietly in Afghanistan in the first place?

There are no welfare issues with putting animals down if it is done correctly and from a welfare perspective it would have been so much kinder, but then that’s a stock farmer’s view. The right decisions are often the most difficult and are avoided to the detriment of the animal too often.

The shocking thing was listening to people phoning in to radio programmes in various state of delirium, citing that this is the news they have been waiting for once it became clear the plane was on its way. It was far more important than rescuing people it seems and whilst denials are everywhere, there is little doubt that leading politicians influenced the passage with priority over people which is extraordinary and a stain on our nation.

Who would want to be Prime Minister? Schools need £6billion to recover from lost learning, the Chancellor’s civil servants allowed to work from home despite him insisting they need to return the office, NHS chiefs want £10million, the care issue which has been promised, back-benchers revolt on taxes, Nicola Sturgeon banishing nuclear bases once Scotland has its independence, and then the issue of Dominic!

What is it with this name? No sooner than Dominic (eyesight test) Cummings has been marginalised, but only after some real damage, Dominic (the sea is closed) Rabb is now another problem as he squirms this way and that to avoid admitting that he was on holiday and that was a real error for which he is truly sorry. No, he was not on holiday, he was at work but not in the UK, and it was everyone else’s fault that major errors were made in the assessment of Afghanistan.

In Brighton on Saturday watching the speed event run from the pier to the marina; listening to the environmentalists and do-gooders playing hell that Madeira Drive was closed for one day in the year to host the oldest speed event in the country, taking place since 1905. Sad.