Eustice defends flood action
George Eustice has defended the UK Government’s handling of the floods crisis as he said farmers could be paid to store water on their land to protect communities.
The new environment secretary said there was no need for a public inquiry into recent flooding, which has hit swathes of the country in the wake of Storms Ciara and Dennis.
And in the face of criticism of
Boris Johnson’s failure to visit flood-hit communities, Mr Eustice said the Prime Minister’s presence on the ground would not have made any difference to the response to the crisis.
In sometimes robust exchanges at the National Farmers’ Union annual conference, he defended the government’s planned changes to payments to farmers. He insisted UK food safety standards would not be jeopardised.
Faced with an ever dwindling range of crop protection products, arable farmers have been advised their sector was now at the tipping point where new methods of pesticide control was required.
Speaking at the Northern Britain Crop Production conference in Dundee, Andy Evans from Scotland’s Rural College, said the problem of pest control in some cropping sectors was more acute than in others but, regardless of the crop there were challenges ahead as a result of many chemical control products being removed.
“For both agricultural and horticultural sectors, the loss of key substances has either had or will have a significant impact on the ability to manage pests, weeds and diseases effectively and efficiently.”
“The total value of output for horticulture in particular will be negatively affected” he added saying that other options to banned pesticides were either limited in range or had been given short term exemptions for specific uses.
“We are moving towards Integrated Pest Management (IPM) where a range of control methods will have to be used to produce crops.”
This shift to different pest control methods would not happen suddenly or uniformly as growers would continue to use the pesticides which remained on the market.
The transition to IPM would likely need to be enabled by policies from the Scottish Government helped by specialist advice from agronomists as more detailed information from crop surveillance than is presently the case would be required.
There was also the issue of added costs linked to IPM and whether the market would compensate producers for this extra expenditure. Another factor he pointed out to delegates was whether consumers would be prepared to buy fruit and vegetables in a less than first class condition.
One of the factors that has led to crop protection products being removed from the market was, according to Dr Keith Dawson, the “toxic” use of social media where typewriter warriors with no expertise could post opinions which were then picked up by politicians while many with years of knowledge and experience were ignored.
Dr Dawson and his business colleague Mark Laird recently sold what they described as the ‘largest arable farm in Europe” This 200,000 hectare unit in Western Ukraine which had been started in 2005 had been managed on a number of priorities that included low cost production and good social and environmental stewardship.
Dawson pointed out that these principles had been learned in Scotland many years ago and would continue to be at the forefront of their next farming venture.